Escalation and the War on Terror

Abstract

This article makes a case for treating escalation in irregular warfare as different in kind from the regular variant that was originally theorized during the Cold War. The regular variant emphasizes the role of clearly defined and commonly recognized ‘thresholds’ as a means of organizing cooperation within conflict. In contrast, the irregular variant can reward efforts by weaker terroristic actors to erode the moral significance of the combatant/non-combatant threshold, just as it can reward efforts by their stronger adversaries to bolster it.

Key Words:

• Irregular Warfare
• Escalation
• Thresholds
• War on Terror
• Terrorism

Notes

¹M.L.R. Smith, ‘Escalation in Irregular War: Using Strategic Theory to Examine from First Principles’, Journal of Strategic Studies 35/5 (Oct. 2012), 613–37.

²The only exception would seem to be the extreme case of war conducted in furtherance of an explicitly articulated policy of genocide. Under these conditions, victory would necessarily demand the adversary's complete physical extermination. Neither winner nor loser would have any rational grounds for stopping short of this point.

³The basic argument is set out in Carl von Clausewitz, tr. Col. J.J. Graham, On War (New York: Barnes & Noble 2004), 1–19.

⁴Classic texts are Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 1960); Herman Kahn, On Escalation: Metaphors and Scenarios (New York: Praeger 1965).

⁵For an analysis along these lines see Peter R. Neumann and M.L.R. Smith, ‘Strategic Terrorism: The Framework and its Fallacies’, Journal of Strategic Studies 28/4 (Aug. 2005), 571–95. On a slightly different note: the term terrorism is frequently employed to denote the deliberate use of force against civilians for political purposes. This is helpful in the sense that it avoids the normative entanglements that can complicate discussions of such matters. It remains problematic, however, because it neglects the potential value of such activities for inspiring support and recruits. From this perspective terrorism might just as well be labelled inspirationism: both capture different effects that can flow from the deliberate targeting of civilians.

⁶Robert A. Pape, ‘The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism’, American Political Science Review 97/3 (Aug. 2003), 4–5.

⁷Neumann and Smith, ‘Strategic Terrorism’, 579–80.

⁸Adam Roberts and Richard Guelff (eds), Documents on the Laws of War (Oxford: Clarendon 1982), 415–16; ‘The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response’, in Jean Beth Elshtain (ed.), Just War Theory (Oxford: Blackwell 1992), 101–7; John Kelsay, ‘Religion, Morality, and the Governance of War: The Case of Classical Islam’, The Journal of Religious Ethics 18 (1990), 123–39.

⁹David Kilcullen, The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One (London: Hurst 2009), 38.

¹⁰Lee Harris, ‘Al Qaeda's Fantasy Ideology: War without Clausewitz’, Policy Review 114 (2002), 19–36.

¹¹For a discussion of related issues by al-Qaeda's foremost strategist of that period, see His Own Words: A Translation of the Writings of Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, tr. Laura Mansfield (np: TLG Publications 2006), esp.. 200–25.

¹²For the ‘declaration’ see Bruce Lawrence (ed.) and James Howarth (tr.), Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden (London: Verso 2005), 58–62.

¹³‘We left out nuclear targets, for now’, Guardian, 4 March 2003.

¹⁴Lawrence Freedman, ‘Strategic Terror and Amateur Psychology’, Political Quarterly. 76/2 (April 2005), 161–70.

¹⁵For bin Laden on the United States in Somalia and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan see Lawrence, Messages, 108–9. The US attack on Afghanistan was already under way by this point, however.

¹⁶‘Saudi Opposition Sheikhs on America, Bin Laden, and Jihad’, MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 400, 18 July 2002, <www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/700.htm>.

¹⁷‘Bombing Innocents: IUMS's Statement’, <http://mdarik.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?cid=1121851796919&counsel=fatwa&pagename=Isla>mOnline-Mobile%2FWapCounselDetailE>. See also, Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, ‘Special report: is Al Qa'ida in pieces?’, Independent, 22 June 2008.

¹⁸Michael Howard, ‘What's in a Name? How to Fight Terrorism’, Foreign Affairs 81/1 (Jan./Feb. 2002), 8–13.

¹⁹Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn, Separating the Taliban from al-Qaeda: The Core of Success in Afghanistan (New York: Center on International Cooperation 2011), 5.

²⁰Declassified Key Judgements of the National Intelligence Estimate ‘Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States’, April 2006, <www.dni.gov/press_releases/Declassified_NIE_Key_Judgments.pdf>.

²¹John Stone, ‘Technology and the Problem of Civilian Casualties in War’, in Brian Rappert (ed.), Technology and Security: Governing Threats in the New Millennium (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan 2007), 133–51.

²²Gen. Sir Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern Age (London: Allen Lane 2005); Brig. Nigel Aylwin-Foster, ‘Changing the Army for Counterinsurgency Operations’, Military Review 84/6 (Nov.–Dec. 2005), 2–15.

²³A sceptical viewpoint is articulated by Gian P. Gentile, ‘A (Slightly) Better War: A Narrative and Its Defects’, World Affairs (Summer 2008), <www.worldaffairsjournal. org/article/slightly-better-war-narrative-and-its-defects>.

²⁴For Zawahiri's famous letter urging restraint on Al-Qa'eda's local leadership in Iraq see His Own Words, 250–79.

²⁵‘Stabilizing Iraq from the Bottom Up’, Statement by Dr Stephen Biddle, Senior Fellow for Defense Policy, Council on Foreign Relations, Before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, Second Session, 110th Congress, 2 April 2008.

²⁶‘Global Unease with Major World Powers’ (Washington DC: The Pew Global Attitudes Project 2007), 61–3; 68.

²⁷Arthur J. Arberry, The Koran Interpreted, Vol. 2: Suras XXI-CXIV (London: George Allen & Unwin 1955), 196–7.

²⁸Ibid., Vol. I: Suras I-XX, 301.

²⁹‘“Why We Fight America”: Al-Qa'ida Spokesman Explains September 11 and Declares Intentions to Kill 4 Million Americans with Weapons of Mass Destruction’, MEMRI Special Despatch No. 388, 12 June 2002, <http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=subjects&Area=jihad&ID=SP38802>.

³⁰Lawrence and Howarth, Messages to the World, 165.

³¹Nasir bin Hamd Al-Fahd, ‘Treatise on the Legal Status of Using Weapons of Mass Destruction Against Infidels’ (May 2003), 6, <http://carnegieendowment.org/static/npp/fatwa.pdf>.

³²For an overview see Jeffrey W. Knopf, ‘The Fourth Wave of Deterrence Research’, Contemporary Security Policy 31/1 (April 2010), 1–33; Amir Lupovici, ‘The Emerging Fourth Wave of Deterrence Theory – Toward a New Research Agenda’, International Studies Quarterly 54/3 (Sept. 2010), 705–32; Alex S. Wilner, ‘Deterring the Undeterrable: Coercion, Denial, and Deligitimization in Counterterrorism’, Journal of Strategic Studies 34/1 (Feb. 2011), 3–37.

³³Imam Zaid Shakir, ‘Islam and the Ethics of War’, <www.newislamicdirections.com/nid/articles/islam_and_the_ethics_of_war/>.

³⁴HC 65, Preventing Violent Extremism (London: TSO 2010), 31–45.

³⁵For an English-language summary see Shaykh-Ul-Islam Dr Muhammad Tahir-Ul-Qadri, Fatwa on Suicide Bombings and Terrorism, tr. Shaykh Abdul Aziz Dabbagh (London: Minhaj Publications 2010).

³⁶Michael Holden, ‘Prominent Muslim to issue anti-terrorism fatwa’, Reuters AlertNet, 1 March 2010, <www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE62025B.htm>. Timothy Winter – also known as Abdal Hakim Murad – is a lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University of Cambridge.

³⁷Anya Hart Dyke, Mosques Made in Britain (London: Quilliam 2009), 11–14.

³⁸Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board, <www.minab.org.uk/index.php>; Khurshid Drabu, ‘Minab will help deliver better mosques’, Guardian, 14 May 2009.

³⁹<www.radicalmiddleway.org> (accessed Oct. 2011).

⁴⁰‘London bomber: Text in full’, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4206800.stm>.

⁴¹Declassified Key Judgements of the National Intelligence Estimate ‘Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States’, April 2006.

⁴²Richard K. Betts, ‘The Soft Underbelly of American Primacy: Tactical Advantages of Terror’, Political Science Quarterly 117/1 (2002), 30–1.

⁴³James H. Lebovic, Deterring International Terrorism and Rogue States: US National Security Policy after 9/11 (London: Routledge 2007), 162.

⁴⁴ The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Washington DC: US Government Printing Office 2004), 154.

⁴⁵This evidence suggests a different rationale for excluding ‘nuclear targets’ from that offered by Khalid during his al-Jazeera interview in 2002. The two rationales are not mutually exclusive, however.

⁴⁶‘Intelligence, Counter-Terrorism and Trust: address to the Society of Editors by the Director General of the Security Service / MI5 Jonathan Evans’, 5 Nov. 2007; Michael Evans, ‘MI5's spymaster Jonathan Evans comes out of the shadows’, The Times, 7 Jan. 2009.

⁴⁷Daniel Eisenberg, ‘The Triple Life of a Qaeda Man’, Time, 22 June 2003; Evan Thomas, ‘Al Qaeda in America: The Enemy Within’, Newsweek, 23 June 2003.