321

Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 24:321–327, 2001Copyright © 2001 Taylor & Francis1057-610X /01 $12.00 + .00

Terrorism and Beyond:a 21st Century Perspective

BRIAN MICHAEL JENKINS

Beverly Hills, CA, USA

The conference organizers have asked me to offer you the perspective of someone whohas thought about the topic of terrorism for a long time. I am very much aware that timeitself is no guarantee of wisdom, but sometimes the ability to reflect on decades can bean advantage. I should say, first of all, that the reflection is humbling. I am convincedthat I knew a lot more about terrorism many years ago—and knew it with greater cer-tainty—than I do today. Indeed, I recall the very first time, about 25 years ago, that Iwas invited to testify before Congress. Of course, it was exciting. I was nervous. Icarefully composed my written testimony, rehearsed my oral testimony; my secretarygrilled me with questions. Had they asked me how many machine guns were in thehands of any terrorist group, I would have been able to answer them without hesitation.Unfortunately for me, the very first question was, Mr. Jenkins, what can we do to endterrorism?

I didn’t have a good answer then. And our presence here today indicates that westill have not found a way to end terrorism. I don’t believe that there is a solution to theproblem of terrorism. Rather, it is an enduring task, changing over the years as thethreat evolves.

My own writing about terrorism began in the early 1970s. At that time, a uniqueconfluence of political circumstances and technological developments gave rise to thisnew form of conflict. Palestinian groups were hijacking airliners to bring worldwideattention to their cause. Urban guerrillas in Latin America were kidnapping diplomats.New left-wing extremist groups in Europe were announcing themselves with bombings.The provisional wing of the IRA had just taken the field.

At the same time, jet air travel gave terrorists worldwide mobility. The developmentof radio, television, and communication satellites gave them almost instantaneous accessto a global audience. The increasing availability of weapons and explosives made it easyto arm, while the vulnerabilities inherent in our modern-technology-dependent society,from electrical pylons to Boeing 747s, provided ample targets.

Terrorism had not yet emerged as a separate field of inquiry. The subject itself wasan artificial construct based on a mere commonality in the tactics of violence. Definitionswere heatedly debated at the time. But apart from attacks on airliners and diplomats,

Received 10 January 2001; accepted 16 March 2001.Address correspondence to Brian Jenkins, P.O. Box 1055, Beverly Hills, CA 90213.

E-mail: bmjenk@ix.netcom.com

322 B. M. Jenkins

terrorism was not seen as an issue of common international concern. To even studyterrorism in those electrically charged times was seen by many as a political decision.

As the phenomenon of terrorism escalated in the 1970s, it attracted increased atten-tion from both government officials and scholars. We know from intelligence reportsthat terrorists also got together on occasion to exchange their views. I wasn’t invited tothose meetings.

I did participate in a series of annual international conferences, beginning in theearly 1970s up through at least 1980. I mention 1980 because Steve Sloan mentionedthat year’s conference as one of the key events at which people came together to reviewthe problem.

These earlier meetings were—as this one I am sure will be—useful in bringingtogether government officials and analysts to exchange ideas, identify trends, review theresults of research, and set agendas for future inquiry. The meetings also helped tocreate an informal global network of knowledge that I believe played an important rolein increasing our understanding of the phenomenon of terrorism, helped shape policy,and contributed to public education.

The 1980 conference was an especially ambitious undertaking. A total of 144 offi-cials and scholars from 13 countries met at The RAND Corporation to discuss the ter-rorist environment, terrorist mindsets, government responses, and the future course ofterrorism. Attendees also participated in a series of simulations that explored interna-tional responses to various terrorist-created crises.

In reviewing the report of that conference, I noted that its participants did makesome forecasts regarding the future course of terrorism that held up pretty well in thelast two decades of the twentieth century. Terrorism, the participants thought, wouldremain a serious problem. It did, but that was an easy guess. The conference accuratelypredicted the rise of aggressive, fundamentalist religious groups and cults both in theUnited States and abroad, a topic that is also on your agenda.

Conference participants in 1980 thought that the direct use of terrorism by stateswould continue and would probably increase, as it did. In 1983, North Korea attemptedto assassinate a large portion of the South Korean cabinet while the cabinet was on avisit to Burma; in 1987, North Korean agents sabotaged a Korean airliner. Libya’s 1986international terrorist campaign, the 1988 sabotage of Pan Am flight 103, the 1989 sabotageof a French airliner in Africa, Syria’s attempt in 1986 to blow up an El Al airliner,Iraq’s attempt to assassinate former President Bush in 1993, and Iran’s campaign ofassassinations abroad provided further validation of the 1980 forecast.

Fifteen years before the release of sarin nerve gas in the Tokyo subway, conferenceparticipants worried about the possible terrorist use of chemical or biological weapons,and they identified fanatical cults as the most dangerous terrorist type and likely perpe-trator of such events.

The 1980 conference participants, however, did not believe that nuclear terrorismwas likely to occur, and they thought that terrorists would not escalate beyond the middlerange. The “middle range” was undefined but generally was viewed as something in therealm of large truck bombs. Fortunately, they were right on both counts. Terrorists didnot go nuclear, and large truck bombs marked the upper boundary of their violence.

Conference participants 20 years ago also thought that terrorist escalation would begradual rather than abrupt, and that has been the case. Finally, they accurately forecastthat we would increasingly see the use of military force in response to terrorism.

Indeed, it is hard to identify a major terrorist event in the last two decades thatconference participants did not at least speculate about in 1980. Of course, they speculated

Terrorism and Beyond 323

about a lot of things, and they did get a few things wrong. For example, we did notwitness any significant increase in terrorist attacks on energy systems, which had been amajor focus of the 1980 meeting. Pure sabotage seems to be unattractive to terrorists. Theyprefer to advertise or kill. And the gap between the world’s wealthy and its poor did notspawn a wave of terrorism, as analysts in 1980 thought it might, although we can speculateon whether the current demonstrations against globalization may ultimately give rise tomore violent actions.

We did not solve the problem of terrorism in 1980, but we have come a long way.There have been many successes in the battle against terrorism. Let me mention some:We no longer waste a lot of time debating definition. There is now a broad internationalconsensus on what terrorism is, and that consensus has been codified in a number ofinternational treaties that define and outlaw specific terrorist tactics and targeting—inter-estingly enough, without offering a broad definition of terrorism itself. Collectively,however, they encompass most of what would be included in a definition of contempo-rary terrorism.

International cooperation has increased, although there are still some contentiousissues, notably regarding the imposition and utility of economic sanctions. Nonetheless,state sponsorship of terrorism has decreased, although Iran’s future course is not yetclear and a number of nations are still not fully cooperating with global efforts. It willbe interesting to see the results of the discussion you are going to have on that specifictopic.

New antiterrorist laws have been implemented here and abroad, provoking somecomplaints, but without serious damage to civil liberties. There are some concerns, to besure. Personally, I find the 1996 law permitting the use of secret evidence in immigra-tion courts to be both unnecessary and repugnant in a democracy. Having served as amember of one White House commission and having the privilege of advising a currentnational commission on terrorism, I can tell you that commissions do worry about theissue of civil liberties. Fierce arguments take place. These are healthy. I do not believethat good security is necessarily incompatible with respect for civil liberties. However,as concern about possible terrorist use of chemical and biological weapons grows, thiswill be an issue to watch closely.

As long as we believe that the upper limits of terrorism are represented roughly bythe level of destruction we saw here in Oklahoma City, as terrible and tragic as thatevent was—and I certainly don’t want to sound callous—we can, as a society, managethe psychological consequences. But if we propel ourselves into thinking about terroristattacks that could potentially have thousands—even tens of thousands—of casualties,according to some scenarios, then we move away from a willingness to rely on re-sponse, and instead, understandably, lean toward devoting more attention to prevention.This raises some real issues about how far we are willing to go in a free society toprevent certain types of terrorism. It is a major challenge.

Security has worked. Some of the traditional terrorist tactics, such as hijackings andembassy takeovers, occur far less frequently today. But physical security by itself doesnot end terrorism. The decline in some tactics and terrorist targeting has been offset by atrend toward attacking softer targets. In this regard, terrorists always have the advantage.They can attack anything, anywhere, at any time. We cannot possibly protect everythingall of the time.

Intelligence collection and analysis has improved, and more information is beingusefully shared. A number of terrorist groups have been successfully suppressed, prima-rily in Western Europe. Many terrorists have been brought to justice, even if, in some

324 B. M. Jenkins

cases, it has taken years: The notorious Carlos is in jail. Lebanon has just returned fourJapanese Red Army terrorists to Japan. The alleged bombers of Pan Am flight 103 areon trial in The Netherlands. America’s record in this regard is particularly good—themurderers responsible for the bombing of the World Trade Center and the federal build-ing here in Oklahoma City are all behind bars, along with a number of other terroristsresponsible for attacks on American citizens abroad. Law enforcement is working.

Some of the conflicts that give rise to terrorism have been resolved or, we hope, arebeing resolved. We must also credit international intervention, particularly in the Balkans,with heading off some situations that I believe could easily have spawned new terroristcampaigns.

Overall, the volume of international terrorism has declined; and although terroristshave become more indiscriminate in their violence, even the number of fatalities isdown from its peak of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

These clearly are successes, and many of them can be credited to the leadership thatthe United States, while certainly not acting alone, has shown in bringing a sometimesreluctant international community to cooperate more effectively in its efforts againstterrorism. But let me insert a note of caution here: We in the United States are currentlyin danger of alienating some of our allies and risking that international cooperation.

America’s status as the world’s sole superpower in itself provokes resentment. Weare seen as imposing American values. We demand adherence to American positions onhuman rights, proliferation, drug trafficking, corruption, money laundering, free trade,and environmental and intellectual property protection—all noble causes, to be sure, butso many and all pursued with such vigor as to sometimes make us appear to be themullahs of the west. The world views us as inflexible on the issue of sanctions, a policytool we use often and for many reasons. We are often seen as promiscuous in our use offorce, employing it, critics allege, to satisfy domestic political agendas or without mak-ing convincing cases for its necessity.

While a number of successes have been achieved, the terrorist threat has also evolved.The motives driving terrorism have changed from ideology to ethnic conflict and reli-gious fanaticism. This has produced a new breed of terrorists, people less constrained bythe fear of alienating perceived constituents or angering the public. Some of the notionsthat I once offered about self-imposed constraints on terrorist behavior appear to beeroding as terrorists move away from political agendas and into realms where they areconvinced that they have the mandate of God. Large-scale, indiscriminate violence isthe reality of today’s terrorism.

We cannot expect new terrorists who appear on the scene to begin over again andreplicate the evolution of their predecessors. They may not start with small acts of vio-lence and gradually escalate, but are likely to begin at the current level of violence. Thisin turn has caused growing concern that tomorrow’s terrorists will move beyond truckbombs and employ chemical, biological, radiological, and potentially even nuclear weapons.These are sometimes referred to collectively as “weapons of mass destruction,” and theycertainly have that potential, although the most likely scenarios involve deaths in thesame quantities as are caused by conventional explosives. Even so, such attacks couldproduce significant psychological effects.

Terrorist organization has become more amorphous. In the 1970s and 1980s, wecould identify specific terrorist organizations; we knew their leadership, their capabil-ities, their modus operandi. Today we must think in terms of universes of like-mindedfanatics in which there are galaxies and constellations, networks and ad hoc conspira-cies, even individual operators (although we need to be cautious about this last

Terrorism and Beyond 325

category). The lack of clear organization makes intelligence collection and law enforce-ment more difficult.

Overall, the threat posed by today’s terrorist is perceived to be greater than it wasin the past, so even though we have made considerable progress, as we move into thetwenty-first century, we face serious danger.

The focus of the research on terrorism has changed as well. In the 1970s and 1980s,a major effort was made to understand the sociopolitical-economic environmentsand the individual psychology that produced terrorism. However, researchers were notable to identify root causes of terrorism or terrorist-prone pathologies, and over timethat line of inquiry was, for the most part, abandoned, although I see that it is on theagenda here.

The approach to policy and research in the 1990s was an extremely pragmatic one.Researchers paid less attention to what might cause terrorism and instead focused on itssuppression, on improving intelligence, on increasing security, on identifying effectivecounterterrorist strategies, and on applying new technology.

One other development we have seen is the occurrence of large-scale terrorism onAmerican soil. It is the reason we are gathered here in Oklahoma City.

The focus of the 1980 conference was international terrorism, rather than domesticterrorism. By 1980, the left-wing bombers who had emerged from the anti–VietnamWar movement of the late 1960s had dwindled to a handful of individual fugitives.Most of the terrorist incidents in the United States during this era were perpetrated byethnically based extremists who were inspired by distant quarrels—anti-Castro Cubans,Puerto Rican separatists, Armenians seeking revenge on Turks, Croatian separatists atwar with Yugoslavia, Jewish fanatics focusing on Soviet and Arab targets.

Homegrown, right-wing terrorism was only beginning to reemerge. A dark under-current that has ebbed and flowed throughout American history, it was to rise again inthe 1980s, not so much in the form of identifiable terrorist groups, although there were afew, but more as a mindset that combined perverse interpretations of the Bible withwhite supremacism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, deep hostility toward the federal gov-ernment, and an apocalyptic view of the world. It was the amalgamation of religiousbigots, neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klansmen, prison gangsters, and pretend patriots that wasnew. Much of the violence was deliberately disorganized, in accordance with a doctrinecalled “leaderless resistance,” which preached individual rather than coordinated action.

The genius of this doctrine was not that it may have inspired some individuals totake action, but that it allowed the ideological architects of racist rebellion to claimcredit for the actions of a host of individual psychopaths who adopted its propaganda,its paraphernalia, or its anniversaries for what were primarily personal urges. In thisfashion, not only Timothy McVeigh, but also Buford Furrow and even Dylan Kleiboldand Eric Harris came to be seen as somehow connected with a single cause. Thesekillers were often romanticized by foolish officials and the news media as “lone wolves,”when the proper description was “flaming bananas.” Not every human varmint isa warrior.

This is not to minimize the danger. Violence on the far right is increasing, and a lotof it is organized. Fortunately, authorities have discovered and thwarted a numberof plots that could have had deadly results. But the current terrorist threat merits theserious attention it will receive at this meeting.

Now, about this conference. You have assembled here some of the most knowl-edgeable people on this topic. Professor Steve Sloan is one of them. Martha Crenshaw,Ariel Merari, and David Rappoport are here, all veterans of the 1980 conference. Other

326 B. M. Jenkins

participants are long-time soldiers in this area: David Veness, Gerard Chaliand, JerroldPost, Ed Mickolus, Bruce Hoffman. They are joined by a new generation of terrorismresearchers.

Let me offer all of you some tough questions. Will tomorrow’s terrorist be merely amore brutal version of today’s terrorist, capable of causing tragedy but of limited imagi-nation and technical capability? Or will tomorrow’s terrorist routinely employ chemicalor biological weapons?

I am not asking for prophecy. The question really is, Does threat analysis play auseful role here? Some policymakers consider it irrelevant. To them, the possibility thatterrorists might use chemical or biological weapons suffices to justify major efforts toprepare for such attacks, but how much do we prepare, and how do we prepare withouta better idea of the threat? What kind of threat analysis is possible? Threat assessmentsbased on vulnerabilities (that are infinite in our society), theoretical foes (that can easilybe conjured up), and worst-case scenarios can be misleading. They lend themselves tomanipulation and mischief. But in the absence of historical precedents, what other ana-lytical approaches are possible?

Cybercrime is another issue. We know that terrorists have exploited the Internet forinternal communication and propaganda. Does this suggest that terrorists in the futurewill engage in sophisticated information warfare? Will they exploit Internet vulnerabili-ties to sabotage the world’s financial systems, stock exchanges, or air traffic control? Orare we simply wrong in being alarmed by these possibilities?

Finally, how can we better prepare as a society—as a community of citizens—toresist conventional terrorism, new technological threats, or growing right-wing violence?This is an often overlooked area. Since the power of terrorism lies in the psychologicalreactions it creates, it is the public, not the authorities, who can best combat it.

Let me therefore conclude my remarks with a proposed campaign of popular resis-tance.

We should keep the threat in perspective. We have in our history faced far worsethreats. Our lives are not always in grave danger. The republic is not in peril.

We must not overreact. We must maintain what the British call a stiff upper lip. Wemay suffer casualties, but we must not be moved by terrorist violence or the fear itcreates. The less panic, the less paranoia, the less public demand there will be for re-sponses that could threaten our liberties.

We should not be swept up in the sound and fury of misleading rhetoric. Podiumpounding will not defeat terrorism. There will be no Normandy landings. No terroristswill surrender on the decks of a battleship. Combatting terrorism will be a frustrating,long, enduring task.

We should ignore the lurid conspiracy theories. They are the product of suspicionand ignorance.

We should avoid false patriotism. Do not mistake the horse-spit militias for any-thing other than costume parties for the insecure, for adolescent fantasies, for racialsupremacism. If someone wants to proudly wear a uniform on weekends, fire weapons,and provide real assistance to their community, let them join the National Guard.

We cannot expect a risk-free society. We cannot be protected against every misfor-tune. We are addicted in this country to finger-pointing and litigation, which distracts usfrom the real foe and divides our communities.

Our most effective defense against terrorism will come not from surveillance, con-crete barriers, metal detectors, or new laws, but from our own virtue, courage, continueddedication to our ideals of a free society, realism in our acceptance of risk, stoicism,

Terrorism and Beyond 327

intelligence and the skepticism that comes with it, the avoidance of extremism, and thehumanity and sense of community too fleetingly expressed when we mourn our dead. Itwill come from true patriotism.

I accept in advance your invitation to participate in the 2020 conference on terror-ism. In the meantime, I wish you success in your discussions here. I look forward toparticipation. Thank you very much.