Armed Response
Issue date: 12/3/01 Section: Spectator Views
On the 11th of September, 2001
we learned that we have not built the
wall of wealth and freedom so stout
around ourselves that willful men with
sharp knives cannot threaten it. The
future requires the citizens of Western
democracies to learn also that there are
those who would envy freedom and who
would attack the privileged places of the
world. We have now received a punch in
a dark room — roused to anger, we do
not immediately know at whom we
should strike. Though President Bush
and his advisors, members of Congress
and the press talk in strong terms of wars
and cowboy vengeance, we should hope
that the coming security debates are
blessed with calm heads and cooler tacticians,
so that the best policy for retaliation
will emerge. Just because the
American military machine is exceptional
at full-force armed combat between
nations, the elites in Washington
may discover the emerging conflict
would be better fought on other terms,
small force precision attacks less known
to the armies of the Western world.
Revealed early and much praised,
the Bush doctrine of attacking the nations
that harbor terrorists will certainly
ease the need for vengeance, particularly
if Osama bin Laden is the bee and
Afghanistan the honeycomb hit with the
hammer. Revenge aside, security elites
should also consider what would be the
best deterrence of future suicide terrorism.
The Bush doctrine may present a
credible threat to the nations with known
terrorist activity, at best causing those
nations to police internal terrorist groups
more readily or at least to think hard
before supporting or encouraging privately
financed terror. But suicide terrorism
is a complicated question for
deterrence, the theory of which requires
a strong, plausible threat to the welfare
of those who intend to commit unwanted
acts. How do we threaten harm to those
who are prepared to die for their cause
we learned that we have not built the
wall of wealth and freedom so stout
around ourselves that willful men with
sharp knives cannot threaten it. The
future requires the citizens of Western
democracies to learn also that there are
those who would envy freedom and who
would attack the privileged places of the
world. We have now received a punch in
a dark room — roused to anger, we do
not immediately know at whom we
should strike. Though President Bush
and his advisors, members of Congress
and the press talk in strong terms of wars
and cowboy vengeance, we should hope
that the coming security debates are
blessed with calm heads and cooler tacticians,
so that the best policy for retaliation
will emerge. Just because the
American military machine is exceptional
at full-force armed combat between
nations, the elites in Washington
may discover the emerging conflict
would be better fought on other terms,
small force precision attacks less known
to the armies of the Western world.
Revealed early and much praised,
the Bush doctrine of attacking the nations
that harbor terrorists will certainly
ease the need for vengeance, particularly
if Osama bin Laden is the bee and
Afghanistan the honeycomb hit with the
hammer. Revenge aside, security elites
should also consider what would be the
best deterrence of future suicide terrorism.
The Bush doctrine may present a
credible threat to the nations with known
terrorist activity, at best causing those
nations to police internal terrorist groups
more readily or at least to think hard
before supporting or encouraging privately
financed terror. But suicide terrorism
is a complicated question for
deterrence, the theory of which requires
a strong, plausible threat to the welfare
of those who intend to commit unwanted
acts. How do we threaten harm to those
who are prepared to die for their cause