Book Review: Terror and Consent
August 1, 2012 by Team SAISA
Filed under internal security
Terror and Consent by Professor Phillip Bobbit is a 2008 account of the market states (post Westphalian borderless states led by seamless market economies offering more choices) preparing to fight the scourge of terrorism perpetuated by “Al Qaeda” (a name he choses to define Islamist terror networks). This dense book traverses the history of warfare since the treaty of Westphalia and flags the current phase as one in which the market states have to transcend the conventional means of war fighting and homeland security to meet the challenges of hybrid wars unleashed upon the world by non government terror net works as also state sponsored terror. These are enemy of this newly emerging market-based system, and the main focus of this book, are (naturally) terrorists. Terrorists, Bobbitt claims, fight us because they hate the choices provided to us by this emerging market-world.
The book is West focused and Bobbit, acknowledging the dangers of terror in a post 9/11 America, has strong prescriptions for a western alliance, complete with international laws to tackle this menace. He believes that the war against terror is real; that civil liberties assume a new dimension to win it; that it must all the same be fought within the rules of law; and that the United States cannot win it alone.
To refine his argument, Bobbitt introduces a distinction. Both the market-states and the nation-states of the West are democratic; they are “states of consent,” in which the rule of law exists to uphold individual liberty and rights. The “terror” modules (both state and non state) aim to replace this consent-based order with a “state of terror.” That is the main argument of the book as it seeks to find prescriptions for the market states to contest the “states of terror”.
As per Bobbit, today’s terror networks are largely considered “Islamist” – an idea which, through political Islam, aspires to fight the “kafirs” (infidels). The Arab Spring has revolutionised the idea of “Islamic Ascendency” where secular Arab and African muslim states are fighting the west towards establishment of an Islamic “Caliphate”. The fissures with in various forms of Islam such as Shia- Sunni divide and the various sects has accentuated the situation where violence to achieve political objectives has become the norm. The current struggle in Syria flags this issue. The Islamist ascendancy, as noted with rise of Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, is likely to change the muslim world. The war in Af Pak and the recent strangulation of Iran against a nuclear regime indicate the hardline taken by the state and non state Islamist organisations in their fight against the infidels.
The West has, though unwittingly, resulted in fueling the forces of political Islam, which lay dormant for centuries. If the war on Iraq was and is justified, so is the ideological war waged by Islamists against the west. It is this dichotomy which Bobbit fails to sense in its totality. The Iran and Syrian imbroglio with support of China and Russia enunciate a new world order where the West and the Rest have ganged up with various Islamist forces in a long drawn battle with terror being the ultimate tool of the weak.
When Bobbit prescribes strong laws to fight the amorphous terror modules including those aspiring weapons of mass destruction, the prescriptions falls into the realm of international relations and agencies such as United Nations taking stern steps against such initiatives. However, the current mechanism is weak and fragile as indicated by vetos on Syria and support to Iran. Building international consensus thus to formulate globally acceptable laws is not going to come around too soon. US re-balancing to Asia-Pacific and its proposed withdrawal from Af Pak shall further embolden the Middle East and Africa based “Al Qaeda” which see this as a political victory.
What Bobbit has not emphasised upon is that most of the Muslims of the world reside in South Asia. Pakistan, the “epicentre of terror” remains an uneasy partner of US in the so-called “war on terror”. The discovery of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan was a call to arms to take the state down for spreading terror globally. But the realities of fatigue in Af Pak have forced US to unilaterally withdraw leaving behind a world of chaos which would soon reach the American doorsteps. Bobbit did not have the insights, I have while writing this review, that American policy of “War on Terror” has in fact destabilised America more than any other country or people. It has helped these amorphous networks to strengthen their war against US. It has altered the definition of homeland security and brought about a new coinage “hybrid wars” – a strategy of the weak to bleed the conventionally superior foe.
Today, conflict is democratized, not in the sense of bicameral legislatures but strategic influence in the hands of non-state actors empowered by falling barriers to information acquisition, packaging and dissemination as well as easy access to the means of destruction and disruption, physical and virtual. Pakistan leads the world as master of such styles of warfare – using terrorists as strategic hedge to achieve their objectives. Pakistan has perfected the art over the years. Their cadres are in stiff competition with Hezbollah and they have given al Qaeda a boost in spreading terror from their territory.
What does this mean? The western notion of “state of consent” (democracy) is messy and yet we continue to formulate, plan, and execute engagement using “regular” and “homogeneous” bureaucracies and budgets. Today’s threats are increasingly complex and rarely conforming to neat lines of authorities and responsibilities across, or within, government agencies, most of which were designed in and for previous eras. The security apparatus is archaic, inefficient and unresponsive to the changing needs within the context of “Whole of Government” approach to tackle these irregular threats.
Precisely because of the nature of the border less market-state, as well as the actions of rogue nation-states, the key components and knowledge are very close to being available to them — witness the nuclear Wal-Mart run in Pakistan by A. Q. Khan. With such weapons, the terrorists will be able to unleash a super-9/11, with scarcely imaginable human and psychological costs.
The task Bobbit has set himself here is to challenge nearly all our existing ideas about the so-called war(s) on terror , in the belief that only a root-and-branch rethinking will equip US to deal with the problems posed by “the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, mass terrorist atrocities and humanitarian crises that bring about or are brought about by terror.”
The world of Bobbit in 2008 was a lot different from the one we are witnessing today. The events in the Islamic landscape of the world call for greater insights in dealing with the terror emanating out of the tunnels of Islamic against the market states. It definitely requires better international cooperation on laws, seamless and vibrant response mechanism and militaries capable of fighting hybrid wars.
Again, as a parting shot, Bobbit would have done better by not clubbing all terrorist organisations under the banner of “Al Qaeda” – it only gives them greater synergy in beating the market states of the west. Reviewers argue that terms like ‘Islamic terrorism,’ ‘Islamist terrorism,’ ‘Jihadism’ and ‘Islamofascism’ succeed only in conflating terrorism with mainstream Islam, thereby casting all Muslims as terrorists or potential terrorists.”
John Rubb, the author of Brave New War: The Next Stage of Terrorism and the End of Globalization, sums up this deficiency in the book when he argues that:
A more complex and realistic view of terrorism is to approach it as illegal warfare directed against civilians. This warfare also has more complex objectives that merely limiting choices through the production of terror. In many cases, it advances the groups that conduct it economically, socially, etc. (usually at the expense of state competitors). For example: Nigeria’s MEND, Brazil’s PCC, Mexico’s Cartels/Zetas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Colombia’s FARC, Peru’s Sendero Luminoso and most of the groups in Iraq/Afghanistan (who advance through smuggling/corruption/etc.). Unfortunately, Bobbitt didn’t deviate from the simplistic view of terrorism and his book suffers mightily from the result.
The book is a must read for all practitioners of state craft.
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Another take at Terror and Consent
In ‘Terror and Consent’, Bobbitt makes the case that “almost every widely held idea” we currently entertain about 21st century terrorism and its relationship to the wars on terror is wrong and must be thoroughly rethought”. There’s something for everyone here as Bobbitt’s approach isn’t ideological.
Bobbitt begins by arguing that “the objective of these wars [against terror] is not the conquest of territory or the silencing of any particular ideology but rather to secure the environment necessary for states of consent and to make it impossible for our enemies to impose or induce states of terror. The source of these wars is not Islam but rather a fundamental change in the nature of the State and its evolving relationship to the new methods, purposes, and technologies of warfare”. As Bobbitt says elsewhere in the book, the “war on terror” is not a misplaced metaphor – it’s not a metaphor at all. These wars against terrorism, he argues, must involve three efforts: preempting attacks by global terrorist networks; preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; and protecting civilians against “natural catastrophes and non-natural assaults”. That last item may seem odd, but as Bobbitt argues, we’re entering an age in which we may not be able to distinguish between natural catastrophes and terrorism (think in terms of biological warfare) and natural disasters may be used as multipliers for the effects of terrorism. In any case, “relieving the suffering and devastation that would be caused by such disasters [genocide, earthquakes, pandemics, tidal waves, hurricanes] calls on many of the same resources as the efforts against terrorism and proliferation” . Furthermore, he says, the most important feature of terrorist attacks is that “we often will not know their authors and must act in a condition of great uncertainty” . This book, Bobbitt says, isn’t about the root causes of terrorism but rather about whether the current change in the constitutional order “will result in the triumph of states of consent or states of terror”.
With lawyerly precision, Bobbitt explores the classic conundrum of the “ticking bomb”: a detainee very likely has knowledge of a concealed explosive device that, if detonated, will kill thousands. In such a case, because the ends really do justify the means, the right thing may indeed be to torture him. But doing so, Bobbitt argues, can never be legal. The torturer would have to stand trial for his action, though with the strong presumption that he would be acquitted if he had succeeded in averting a disaster. Under less extreme circumstances, Bobbitt suggests, it should be possible for government agents to use coercive methods short of torture (sleep deprivation, truth drugs), but only with the prior approval of a jury.
In a superbly intelligent chapter, Bobbitt concedes that his vision will not be easy to realize. There is what he calls a “triage of terror,” because pre-emptive action against one threat may exacerbate another (for example, an attack on a state sponsor of terror may encourage other states to seek weapons of mass destruction as insurance, undermining the already frail system of nonproliferation). There is still the danger, too, that a far worse war than the war on terror could occur if the newly emergent market-states of the East come into conflict with those in the West.
Bobbitt must be read, since he convincingly shows why the number of people killed in the usual wars between nations have been steadily decreasing in the 21st century and are now about to be replaced by more and more instances of global terrorist violence, “fought by networks of state and non-state actors, where battles are rare and violence is directed mainly against civilians.” (p. 147) Some of these hundreds of jihadi groups, educated by their thousands of Web sites and not under the control of Al Qaeda, will in the not too distant future obtain Weapons of Mass Destruction, which they promise they intend to use to inflict genocidal slaughter on the West. Nuclear nations like Pakistan or North Korea are certain to soon sell their bombs to some of the jihadist groups, and the nearly impossible task of the West will be “to detect and capture weapons no larger than a case of beer”.
To prevent the use of genocidal nuclear and biological weapons, Bobbitt describes how “the reality of twenty-first century warfare must include armed forces [plus] constabular forces organized along military lines…hybrids of police and military” like the French gendarmerie EGF recently established by the European Union (p. 156), in order to stop “international nuclear weapons trade, which is once lucrative and easily concealed.” (p. 458) The costs of these global military police added to the costs of enlarged national armies will be soon be enormous, and again are likely to be financed mainly by the U.S. The solution this pathological early embedding of violence in jihadists will require more than armed forces.
It will begin by requiring changing the horrible conditions of women in these areas of the world, including much economic help to families, plus the establishment of community parenting centers to teach them how to bring up children without abusing them. While this is being accomplished, the only way to keep the jihadist groups from slaughtering millions will be to talk to them, not attack them, with specially-trained Peace Counselors whose goal will be to reveal to them the emotional basis for their belief that they must “kill the enemies of God” [i.e., the Parent]. Although the denuclearization of nation-states remains an important task, Bobbitt makes a good case for the fact that the current stated task of the U.N. — “to prevent violence between nations (p. 453) — is far less applicable to our new century of terrorist violence against civilians. Non-state genocidal violence is a real possibility in the next decade, and Bobbitt’s scenarios on what it will look like are crucial to understand if we are to continue to avoid the apocalyptic nuclear scenario that we all hoped had ended with the termination of the Cold War.
Bobbitt concludes that al Qaeda can be regarded as either a market-state terrorist group or a virtual market-state (p.65). It’s “like a mutant nongovernmental organization”. AQ’s strategic goal is constitutional, he says, and thus a counter terror approach must tightly coordinate strategy &law.
In Chapter 2, Bobbitt continues this argument by reminding us that the constitutional order is the unique grounds upon which the State claims legitimate power. The nation-state gained legitimacy from improving the material conditions of citizens (p.86). The market-state, in turn, says: give us power and we will give you new opportunities (p.88). In a footnote, Bobbitt takes a shot at the belief that terrorism is caused by economic deprivation: that argument, he says, rests on nation-state assumptions and “have nothing to say to al Qaeda or ecoterrorists or animal-rights terrorists or even those antiglobalization terrorists who are aroused more by the threat to cultural identity than by unfair terms of trade”.
In Chapter 3, Bobbitt returns to the question: is al Qaeda just a terrorist network or is it a virtual market-state? He suggests that it is both and that states of terror will have different valences just as nation-states did (p.126). If we accept terrorist networks as adversaries in war, the 20th century emphasis on war vs. crime is an artifact of that era’s separation of law vs. strategy (p.140). Whereas in earlier wars the objective was to kill the enemy, in the 21st century, the preferred outcome is to temporarily disable the soldier without killing (p.152). (Contrast that statement with the targeted killing of Osama bin Laden earlier this year and the Obama administration’s increased use of Predator drones for remotely killing enemies.)
To summarize: Bobbitt believes that there is a real war against terror; that civil liberties as previously understood may need to be curtailed to win it; that we must nevertheless fight it without violating our commitment to the rule of law; and that the United States cannot win it alone. This is certainly not a combination of positions calculated to endear Bobbitt either to the left or the right in the United States today. Yet it is striking that, despite being a Democrat, Philip Bobbitt so often echoes the arguments made by John McCain on foreign policy. He sees the terrorist threat as deadly serious. He is willing to fight it. But he wants to fight it within the law, and with our traditional allies.