rethinking policy and theory in the new era of terrorism t...ak-47 assault rifle at his side, stood...

1PROLOGUE

Rethinking Policy and TheoryIn the New Era Of Terrorism

The events of September 11, 2001 awakened the international community tothe reality of mass-casualty violence perpetrated by suicidal terrorists. Theseterrorists were motivated by an uncompromisingly sectarian worldview that

allowed for the murder of large numbers of innocent civilians in the name of theirfaith. The attacks confirmed warnings from experts that a new breed of terroristwould transform available technologies into weapons of enormous destructivepower. In the United States, the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon imme-diately engendered a thorough reexamination and enhancement of the nation’sdomestic security environment. This process occurred simultaneously with anunprecedented reorganization of government and the passage of sweeping securitylaws. As these measures fundamentally changed how Americans would respond tofuture threats of terrorist violence, they also reflected a basic adaptation of policyand theory to a new era of terrorism. Many experts revisited, and continue torevisit, the questions of which policies are best suited to address the new terroristthreat, as well as how to define and characterize terrorism in the new era.

The articles in this chapter introduce policy and theoretical questions posed bythe events of September 11, 2001. In “Rethinking Terrorism and CounterterrorismSince 9/11,” Bruce Hoffman explores the lessons of the September 11, 2001 terroristattacks. The article examines the nature of the new era of terrorism, its impact onthe contemporary global community, and the problem of adapting counterterrorismto the new environment. A contextual discussion of these issues is developed toposit existing and future trends in terrorist violence. In “The Unipolar MomentRevisited,” Charles Krauthammer revisits his 1990 thesis that the post-Cold Warinternational environment will be unipolar and centered around U.S. predominance,rather than multipolar and centered around several regional powers. The articlediscusses unipolarity in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, centering on themeaning of American global power in the new era of terrorism. Viet Dinh’s article,“Foreword: Freedom and Security After September 11,” examines the securityenvironment in the United States from a legalistic perspective. The primary pointsof discussion are the contention that there exists a dichotomy between freedomand security, and the challenge of how to frame and analyze this debate. It is aprovocative article.

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A few hours after the first American air strikesagainst Afghanistan began on 7 October 2001, apre-recorded videotape was broadcast around theworld. A tall, skinny man with a long, scragglybeard, wearing a camouflage fatigue jacket andthe headdress of a desert tribesman, with anAK-47 assault rifle at his side, stood before arocky backdrop. In measured, yet defiant, lan-guage, Usama bin Laden again declared war onthe United States. Only a few weeks before, hisstatement would likely have been dismissed asthe inflated rhetoric of a saber-rattling braggart.But with the World Trade Center now laid towaste, the Pentagon heavily damaged, and thewreckage of a fourth hijacked passenger aircraftstrewn across a field in rural Pennsylvania, binLaden’s declaration was regarded with a preter-natural seriousness that would previously havebeen unimaginable. How bin Laden achievedthis feat, and the light his accomplishment shedson understanding the extent to which terrorismhas changed and, in turn, how our responsesmust change as well, is the subject of this article.

THE SEPTEMBER 11ATTACKS BY THE NUMBERS

The enormity and sheer scale of the simultane-ous suicide attacks on September 11 eclipsedanything previously seen in terrorism. Amongthe most significant characteristics of the opera-tion were its ambitious scope and dimensions;impressive coordination and synchronization;and the unswerving dedication and determina-tion of the 19 aircraft hijackers who willinglyand wantonly killed themselves, the passengers,and crews of the four aircraft they comman-deered and the approximately 3,000 personsworking at or visiting either the World TradeCenter and the Pentagon.

Indeed, in lethality terms alone theSeptember 11 attacks are without precedent. Forexample, since 1968, the year credited withmarking the advent of modern, international

terrorism, one feature of international terrorismhas remained constant despite variations in thenumber of attacks from year to year. Almostwithout exception,1 the United States has annu-ally led the list of countries whose citizens andproperty were most frequently attacked by ter-rorists.2 But, until September 11, over the pre-ceding 33 years a total of no more than perhaps1,000 Americans had been killed by terroristseither overseas or even within the United Statesitself. In less than 90 minutes that day, nearlythree times that number were killed.3 To putthose uniquely tragic events in context, duringthe entirety of the twentieth century no morethan 14 terrorist operations killed more than100 persons at any one time.4 Or, viewed fromstill another perspective, until the attacks on theWorld Trade Center and Pentagon, no singleterrorist operation had ever killed more than500 persons at one time.5 Whatever the metric,therefore, the attacks that day were unparalleledin their severity and lethal ambitions.

Significantly, too, from a purely terroristoperational perspective, spectacular simultane-ous attacks—using far more prosaic andarguably conventional means of attack (such ascar bombs, for example)—are relatively uncom-mon. For reasons not well understood, terroriststypically have not undertaken coordinated oper-ations. This was doubtless less of a choice thana reflection of the logistical and other organiza-tional hurdles and constraints that all but themost sophisticated terrorist groups are unable toovercome. Indeed, this was one reason why wewere so galvanized by the synchronized attackson the American embassies in Nairobi andDar-es-Salaam three years ago. The orchestra-tion of that operation, coupled with its unusuallyhigh death and casualty tolls, stood out in a waythat, until September 11, few other terroristattacks had. During the 1990s, perhaps only oneother terrorist operation evidenced those samecharacteristics of coordination and high lethal-ity: the series of attacks that occurred inBombay in March 1993, when 10 coordinated

2–•–THE NEW ERA OF TERRORISM

Rethinking Terrorism and Counterterrorism Since 9/11

Bruce HoffmanRAND, Arlington, VA, USA

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car bombings rocked the city, killing nearly 300people and wounding more than 700 others.6

Apart from the attacks on the same morning inOctober 1983 of the U.S. Marine barracks inBeirut (241 persons were killed) and a nearbyFrench paratroops headquarters (where 60soldiers perished); the 1981 hijacking of threeVenezuelan passenger jets by a mixed com-mando of Salvadoran leftists and Puerto Ricanindependistas; and the dramatic 1970 hijackingof four commercial aircraft by the PFLP(Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine),two of which were brought to and then dramat-ically blown up at Dawson’s Field in Jordan,there have been few successfully executed,simultaneous terrorist spectaculars.7

Finally, the September 11 attacks not onlyshowed a level of patience and detailed plan-ning rarely seen among terrorist movementstoday, but the hijackers stunned the world withtheir determination to kill themselves as well astheir victims. Suicide attacks differ from otherterrorist operations precisely because the perpe-trator’s own death is a requirement for theattack’s success.8 This dimension of terroristoperations, however, arguably remains poorlyunderstood. In no aspect of the September 11attacks is this clearer than in the debate overwhether all 19 of the hijackers knew they wereon a suicide mission or whether only the 4 personsactually flying the aircraft into their targets did.It is a debate that underscores the poverty of ourunderstanding of bin Laden, terrorism moti-vated by a religious imperative in particular, andthe concept of martyrdom.

The so-called Jihad Manual, discovered byBritish police in March 2000 on the hard driveof an al Qaeda member’s computer, is explicitabout operational security (OPSEC) in the sec-tion that discusses tradecraft. For reasons ofoperational security, it states, only the leaders ofan attack should know all the details of the oper-ation and these should only be revealed to therest of the unit at the last possible moment.9

Schooled in this tradecraft, the 19 hijackersdoubtless understood that they were on a one-way mission from the time they were dispatchedto the United States. Indeed, the video tape ofbin Laden and his chief lieutenant, Dr. AymanZawahiri, recently broadcast by the Arabic tele-vision news station al Jazeera contains footage

of one of the hijackers acknowledging hisimpending martyrdom in an allusion to theforthcoming September 11 attacks.

The phenomenon of martyrdom terrorism inIslam has a course long been discussed andexamined. The act itself can be traced back tothe Assassins, an off-shoot of the Shia Ismailimovement, who some 700 years ago wageda protracted struggle against the EuropeanCrusaders’ attempted conquest of the HolyLand. The Assassins embraced an ethos of self-sacrifice, where martyrdom was regarded as asacramental act—a highly desirable aspirationand divine duty commanded by religious textand communicated by clerical authorities—thatis evident today. An important additional moti-vation then as now was the promise that themartyr would feel no pain in the commission ofhis sacred act and would then ascend immedi-ately to a glorious heaven, described as a placereplete with “rivers of milk and wine . . . lakesof honey, and the services of 72 virgins,” wherethe martyr will see the face of Allah and later bejoined by 70 chosen relatives.10 The last will andtestament of Muhammad Atta, the ringleaderof the September 11 hijackers, along with a“primer” for martyrs that he wrote, titled, “TheSky Smiles, My Young Son,” clearly evidencessuch beliefs.11

Equally as misunderstood is the attentionfocused on the hijackers’ relatively high levelsof education, socioeconomic status, and stablefamily ties.12 In point of fact, contrary to popu-lar belief and misconception, suicide terroristsare not exclusively derived from the ranks ofthe mentally unstable, economically bereft, orabject, isolated loners. In the more sophisticatedand competent terrorist groups, such as theLTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, orTamil Tigers), it is precisely the most battle-hardened, skilled, and dedicated cadre whoenthusiastically volunteer to commit suicideattacks.13 Observations of the patterns of recentsuicide attacks in Israel and on the West Bankand Gaza similarly reveal that the bombers arenot exclusively drawn from the maw of poverty,but have included two sons of millionaires.Finally, in the context of the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict, suicide attacks—once one of themore infrequent (though albeit dramatic, andattention-riveting, tactics)—are clearly increasing

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in frequency, if not severity, assuming new andmore lethal forms.

WHERE THE UNITED STATES

WENT WRONG IN FAILING

TO PREDICT THE 9/11 ATTACKS

Most importantly, the United States was per-haps lulled into believing that mass, simul-taneous attacks in general and those of suchdevastating potential as seen in New Yorkand Washington on September 11 were likelybeyond the capabilities of most terrorists—including those directly connected to, or associ-ated with, Usama bin Laden. The tragic eventsof that September day demonstrate how pro-foundly misplaced such assumptions were. Inthis respect, the significance of past successes(e.g., in largely foiling a series of plannedterrorist operations against American targetsbetween the August 1998 embassy bombings tothe November 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole,including more than 60 instances when credibleevidence of impending attack forced the tempo-rary closure of American embassies and con-sulates around the world) and the terrorists’ ownincompetence and propensity for mistakes (e.g.,Ahmad Ressam’s bungled attempt to enter theUnited States from Canada in December 1999)were perhaps overestimated. Both impressiveand disturbing is the likelihood that there wasconsiderable overlap in the planning for theseattacks and the one in November 2000 againstthe U.S.S. Cole in Aden, thus suggesting alQaeda’s operational and organizational capabil-ity to coordinate major, multiple attacks at onetime.14

Attention was also arguably focused tooexclusively either on the low-end threat posedby car and truck bombs against buildings or themore exotic high-end threats, against entiresocieties, involving biological or chemicalweapons or cyberattacks. The implicit assump-tions of much of American planning scenarioson mass casualty attacks were that they wouldinvolve germ or chemical agents or resultfrom widespread electronic attacks on criticalinfrastructure. It was therefore presumed thatany conventional or less extensive incidentcould be addressed simply by planning for the

most catastrophic threat. This left a painfullyvulnerable gap in antiterrorism defenses wherea traditional and long-proven tactic—like airlinehijacking—was neglected in favor of other,less conventional threats and where the conse-quences of using an aircraft as a suicide weaponseem to have been ignored. In retrospect, it wasnot the 1995 sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyosubway and the nine attempts to use bio-weapons by Aum that should have been thedominant influence on our counterterroristthinking, but a 1986 hijacking of a TWA flightin Karachi, where the terrorists’ intention wasreported to have been to crash it into the centerof Tel Aviv and the 1994 hijacking in Algiers ofan Air France passenger plane by terroristsbelonging to the Armed Islamic Group (GIA),who similarly planned to crash the fuel-ladenaircraft with its passengers into the heart ofParis. The lesson, accordingly, is not that thereneed be unrealistic omniscience, but rather thatthere is a need to be able to respond across abroad technological spectrum of potentialadversarial attacks.

We also had long consoled ourselves—andhad only recently began to question and debatethe notion—that terrorists were more interestedin publicity than killing and therefore hadneither the need nor the interest in annihilatinglarge numbers of people.15 For decades, therewas widespread acceptance of the observationmade famous by Brian Jenkins in 1975 that,“Terrorists want a lot of people watching and alot of people listening and not a lot of peopledead.”16 Although entirely germane to the formsof terrorism that existed in prior decades, for toolong this antiquated notion was adhered to. OnSeptember 11, bin Laden wiped the slate cleanof the conventional wisdom on terrorists andterrorism and, by doing so, ushered in a new eraof conflict.

Finally, before September 11 the UnitedStates arguably lacked the political will tosustain a long and determined counterterrorismcampaign. The record of inchoate, unsustainedprevious efforts effectively retarded significantprogress against this menace. The carnage andshock of the September 11 attacks laid bareAmerica’s vulnerability and too belatedlyresulted in a sea change in national attitudes andaccompanying political will to combat terrorism


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systematically, globally, and, most importantly,without respite.17

TERRORISM’S CEO

The cardinal rule of warfare, “know yourenemy,” was also violated. The United Statesfailed to understand and comprehend Usama binLaden: his vision, his capabilities, his financialresources and acumen, as well as his organiza-tional skills. The broad outline of bin Laden’scurriculum vitae is by now well known: remark-ably, it attracted minimal interest and understand-ing in most quarters prior to September 11.18

The scion of a porter turned construction mag-nate whose prowess at making money was per-haps matched only by his countless progeny anddevout religious piety, the young Usama pur-sued studies not in theology (despite hisissuance of fatwas, or Islamic religious edicts),but in business and management sciences. BinLaden is a graduate of Saudi Arabia’s presti-gious King Abdul-Aziz University, where in1981 he obtained a degree in economics andpublic administration. He subsequently cut histeeth in the family business, later applying thecorporate management techniques learned bothin the classroom and on the job to transform theterrorist movement he founded, al Qaeda, intothe world’s preeminent terrorist organization.19

Bin Laden achieved this by cleverly combin-ing the technological munificence of modernitywith a rigidly puritanical explication of age-oldtradition and religious practice. He is also thequintessential product of the 1990s and global-ism. Bin Laden the terrorism CEO could nothave existed—and thrived—in any other era. Hewas able to overcome the relative geographicalisolation caused by his expulsion from theSudan to Afghanistan, engineered by the UnitedStates in 1996, by virtue of the invention of thesatellite telephone. With this most emblematictechnological artifice of 1990s global technol-ogy, bin Laden was therefore able to communi-cate with his minions in real time aroundthe world.20 Al Qaeda operatives, moreover,routinely made use of the latest technologythemselves: encrypting messages on ApplePowerMacs or Toshiba laptop computers, com-municating via e-mail or on Internet bulletin

boards,21 using satellite telephones and cellphones themselves and, when travelling by air,often flying first class. This “grafting of entirelymodern sensibilities and techniques to the mostradical interpretation of holy war,” Peter Bergencompellingly explains in Holy War, Inc., “is thehallmark of bin Laden’s network.”22

For bin Laden, the weapons of modern ter-rorism critically are not only the guns andbombs that they have long been, but the mini-cam, videotape, television, and the Internet. Theprofessionally produced and edited two hour alQaeda recruitment videotape that bin Laden cir-culated throughout the Middle East during thesummer of 2001—which according to Bergenalso subtly presaged the September 11 attacks—is exactly such an example of bin Laden’snimble exploitation of “twenty-first-centurycommunications and weapons technology inthe service of the most extreme, retrogradereading of holy war.”23 The tape, with itsgraphic footage of infidels attacking Muslimsin Chechnya, Kashmir, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon,Indonesia, and Egypt; children starving underthe yoke of the United Nations economic sanc-tions in Iraq; and most vexatiously, the accursedpresence of “Crusader” military forces in theholy land of Arabia, was subsequently con-verted to CD-ROM and DVD formats for easein copying onto computers and loading onto theWorld Wide Web for still wider, global dissemi-nation. An even more stunning illustration of hiscommunications acumen and clever manipula-tion of media was the pre-recorded, pre-produced,B-roll, or video clip, that bin Laden had queuedand ready for broadcast within hours of thecommencement of the American air strikes onAfghanistan on Sunday, October 7.

In addition to his adroit marrying of technol-ogy to religion and of harnessing the munifi-cence of modernity and the West as a weapon tobe wielded against his very enemies, bin Ladenhas demonstrated uncommon patience, planning,and attention to detail. According to testimonypresented at the trial of three of the 1998 EastAfrica embassy bombers in Federal DistrictCourt in New York last year by a former binLaden lieutenant, Ali Muhammad,24 planning forthe attack on the Nairobi facility commencednearly five years before the operation wasexecuted. Muhammad also testified that


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bin Laden himself studied a surveillancephotograph of the embassy compound, pointingto the spot in front of the building where he saidthe truck bomb should be positioned. Attentionhas already been drawn to al Qaeda’s ability tocommence planning of another operation beforethe latest one has been executed, as evidenced inthe case of the embassy bombings and the attack27 months later on the U.S.S. Cole. Clearly,when necessary, bin Laden devotes specificattention—perhaps even to the extent of micro-managing—various key aspects of al Qaeda“spectaculars.” In the famous “home movie”/videotape discovered in an al Qaeda safe housein Afghanistan that was released by the U.S.government in December 2001, bin Laden isseen discussing various intimate details of theSeptember 11 attack. At one point, bin Ladenexplains how “we calculated in advance thenumber of casualties from the enemy, whowould be killed based on the position of thetower. We calculated that the floors that wouldbe hit would be three or four floors. I was themost optimistic of them all. . . . due to my expe-rience in this field. . . .” alluding to his knowl-edge of construction techniques gleaned from histime with the family business.25 Bin Laden alsoknew that Muhammad Atta was the operation’sleader26 and states that he and his closest lieu-tenants “had notification [of the attack] since theprevious Thursday that the event would takeplace that day [September 11].”27

The portrait of bin Laden that thus emerges isricher, more complex, and more accurate than thesimple caricature of a hate-filled, mindless fanatic.“All men dream: but not equally,” T. E. Lawrence,the legendary Lawrence of Arabia, wrote.“Those who dream by night in the dustyrecesses of their minds wake in the day to findthat it was vanity: but the dreamers of the dayare dangerous men, for they may act their dreamwith open eyes, to make it possible.”28 BinLaden is indeed one of the dangerous men thatLawrence described. At a time when the forcesof globalization, coupled with economic deter-minism, seemed to have submerged the roleof the individual charismatic leader of menbeneath far more powerful, impersonal forces,bin Laden has cleverly cast himself as a Davidagainst the American Goliath: one man standingup to the world’s sole remaining superpower

and able to challenge its might and directlythreaten its citizens.

Indeed, in an age arguably devoid of ideo-logical leadership, when these impersonalforces are thought to have erased the ability of asingle man to affect the course of history, binLaden—despite all efforts—managed to tauntand strike at the United States for years evenbefore September 11. His effective melding ofthe strands of religious fervor, Muslim piety,and a profound sense of grievance into a power-ful ideological force stands—however invidiousand repugnant—as a towering accomplishment.In his own inimitable way, bin Laden cast thisstruggle as precisely the “clash of civilizations”that America and its coalition partners havelabored so hard to negate. “This is a matter ofreligion and creed; it is not what Bush and Blairmaintain, that it is a war against terrorism,” hedeclared in a videotaped speech broadcast overal Jazeera television on 3 November 2001.“There is no way to forget the hostility betweenus and the infidels. It is ideological, so Muslimshave to ally themselves with Muslims.”29

Bin Laden, though, is perhaps best viewed asa “terrorist CEO”: essentially having appliedbusiness administration and modern manage-ment techniques to the running of a transna-tional terrorist organization. Indeed, what binLaden apparently has done is to implement foral Qaeda the same type of effective organiza-tional framework or management approachadapted by corporate executives throughoutmuch of the industrialized world. Just as large,multinational business conglomerates movedduring the 1990s to flatter, more linear, and net-worked structures, bin Laden did the same withal Qaeda.

Additionally, he defined a flexible strategyfor the group that functions at multiple levels,using both top down and bottom up approaches.On the one hand, bin Laden has functioned likethe president or CEO of a large multinationalcorporation: defining specific goals and aims,issuing orders, and ensuring their implementa-tion. This mostly applies to the al Qaeda“spectaculars”: those high-visibility, usuallyhigh-value and high-casualty operationslike September 11, the attack on the Cole,and the East Africa embassy bombings. Onthe other hand, however, he has operated as a


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venture capitalist: soliciting ideas from below,encouraging creative approaches and “out of thebox” thinking, and providing funding to thoseproposals he thinks promising. Al Qaeda, unlikemany other terrorist organizations, therefore,deliberately has no one, set modus operandi,making it all the more formidable. Instead, binLaden encourages his followers to mix andmatch approaches: employing different tacticsand different means of operational styles asneeded. At least four different levels of al Qaedaoperational styles can be identified:

1. The professional cadre. This is the mostdedicated, committed, and professional elementof al Qaeda: the persons entrusted with only themost important and high-value attacks—in otherwords, the “spectaculars.” These are the terroristteams that are predetermined and carefullyselected, are provided with very specific target-ing instructions, and who are generously funded(e.g., to the extent that during the days precedingthe September 11 attacks, Atta and his confeder-ates were sending money back to their paymas-ters in the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere).

2. The trained amateurs. At the next leveldown are the trained amateurs. These are indi-viduals much like Ahmed Ressam, who wasarrested in December 1999 at Port Angeles,Washington State, shortly after he had enteredthe United States from Canada. Ressam, forexample, had some prior background in terror-ism, having belonged to Algeria’s ArmedIslamic Group (GIA). After being recruited intoal Qaeda, he was provided with a modicum ofbasic terrorist training in Afghanistan. In con-trast to the professional cadre, however, Ressamwas given open-ended targeting instructionsbefore being dispatched to North America. Allhe was told was to attack some target in theUnited States that involved commercial avia-tion. Ressam confessed that he chose LosAngeles International Airport because at onetime he had passed through there and was atleast vaguely familiar with it. Also, unlike thewell-funded professionals, Ressam was givenonly $12,000 in “seed money” and instructed toraise the rest of his operational funds from pettythievery—for example, swiping cell phones andlap tops around his adopted home of Montreal.He was also told to recruit members for his

terrorist cell from among the expatriate Muslimcommunities in Canada and the United States.In sum, a distinctly more amateurish level of alQaeda operations than the professional cadredeployed on September 11; Ressam clearly wasfar less steeled, determined, and dedicated thanthe hijackers proved themselves to be. Ressam,of course, panicked when he was confronted bya Border Patrol agent immediately upon enter-ing the United States. By comparison, 9 of the19 hijackers were stopped and subjected togreater scrutiny and screening by airport per-sonnel on September 11. Unlike Ressam, theystuck to their cover stories, did not lose theirnerve and, despite having aroused suspicion,were still allowed to board. Richard Reid,the individual who attempted to blow up anAmerican Airlines passenger plane en routefrom Paris to Miami with an explosive deviceconcealed in his shoe, is another example of thetrained amateur. It should be emphasized, how-ever, that as inept or even moronic as these indi-viduals might appear, their ability to be luckyeven once and then to inflict incalculable painand destruction should not be lightly dismissed.As distinctly second-tier al Qaeda operatives,they are likely seen by their masters as expend-able: having neither the investment in trainingnor the requisite personal skills that the lessnumerous, but more professional, first-team alQaeda cadre have.

3. The local walk-ins. These are local groupsof Islamic radicals who come up with a terroristattack idea on their own and then attempt toobtain funding from al Qaeda for it. This opera-tional level plays to bin Laden’s self-conceptionas a venture capitalist. An example of the localwalk-in is the group of Islamic radicals inJordan who, observing that American andIsraeli tourists often stay at the Radisson Hotelin Amman, proposed, and were funded byal Qaeda, to attack the tourists on the eve of themillennium. Another example is the cell ofIslamic militants who were arrested in Milan inOctober 2001 after wiretaps placed by Italianauthorities revealed discussions of attacks onAmerican interests being planned in the expec-tation that al Qaeda would fund them.

4. Like-minded insurgents, guerrillas, andterrorists. This level embraces existing insurgent


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or terrorist groups who over the years havebenefited from bin Laden’s largesse and/or spir-itual guidance; received training in Afghanistanfrom al Qaeda; or have been provided witharms, materiel, and other assistance by the orga-nization. These activities reflect bin Laden’s“revolutionary philanthropy”: that is, the aid heprovides to Islamic groups as part of furtheringthe cause of global jihad. Among the recipientsof this assistance have been insurgent forces inUzbekistan and Indonesia, Chechnya, and thePhilippines, Bosnia and Kashmir, and so on.This philanthropy is meant not only hopefully tocreate a jihad “critical mass” out of these geo-graphically scattered, disparate movements, butalso to facilitate a quid pro quo situation, whereal Qaeda operatives can call on the logisticalservices and manpower resources providedlocally by these groups.

Underpinning these operational levels is binLaden’s vision, self-perpetuating mythology andskilled acumen at effective communications. Hismessage is simple. According to bin Laden’s pro-paganda, the United States is a hegemonic, statusquo power; opposing change and propping upcorrupt and reprobate regimes that would notexist but for American backing. Bin Laden alsobelieves that the United States is risk and casualtyaverse and therefore cannot bear the pain or suf-fer the losses inflicted by terrorist attack.Americans and the American military, moreover,are regarded by bin Laden and his minions ascowards: cowards who only fight with high-tech,airborne-delivered munitions. The Red Army, hehas observed, at least fought the mujahedin inAfghanistan on the ground; America, bin Ladenhas maintained, only fights from the air withcruise missiles and bombs. In this respect, binLaden has often argued that terrorism works—especially against America. He cites the with-drawal of the U.S. Marines, following the 1983barracks bombing, from the multinational forcedeployed to Beirut and how the deaths of 18 U.S.Army Rangers (an account of which is describedin the best-selling book by Mark Bowden, BlackHawk Down, and current film of the same title)—a far smaller number—prompted the precipitousU.S. withdrawal from Somalia a decade later.30

Finally, it should never be forgotten thatsome 20 years ago bin Laden consciously

sought to make his own mark in life as a patronof jihad—holy war. In the early 1980s, he wasdrawn to Afghanistan, where he helped torally—and even more critically, fund—theMuslim guerrilla forces resisting that country’sSoviet invaders. Their success in repelling oneof the world’s two superpowers had a lastingimpact on bin Laden. To his mind, Russia’sdefeat in Afghanistan set in motion the chainof events that resulted in the collapse of theU.S.S.R. and the demise of communism. It isthis same self-confidence coupled with anabiding sense of divinely ordained historicalinevitability that has convinced bin Laden thathe and his fighters cannot but triumph in thestruggle against America. Indeed, he has oftendescribed the United States as a “paper tiger” onthe verge of financial ruin and total collapse—with the force of Islam poised to push Americaover the precipice.

Remarkably, given his mindset, bin Ladenwould likely cling to the same presumptionsdespite the destruction of the Taliban and liber-ation of Afghanistan during this first phase ofthe war against terrorism. To him and his fol-lowers, the United States is doing even morenow than before to promote global stability (intheir view, to preserve the status quo) andensure the longevity of precisely those morallybankrupt regimes in places like Egypt, SaudiArabia, the Gulf, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, andelsewhere whom bin Laden and his followersdespise. In bin Laden’s perception of the war inAfghanistan, most of the fighting has been doneby the Northern Alliance—the equivalent of thenative levies of imperial times; though insteadof being led by British officers as in thepast, they are now guided by U.S. militaryspecial operations personnel. Moreover, for binLaden—like guerrillas and terrorists every-where—not losing is winning. To his mind,even if terrorism did not work on September 11in dealing the knockout blow to Americanresolve that bin Laden hoped to achieve, he canstill persuasively claim to have been responsiblefor having a seismic effect on the United States,if not the entire world. Whatever else, bin Ladenis one of the few persons who can argue thatthey have changed the course of history. TheUnited States, in his view, remains fundamen-tally corrupt and weak, on the verge of collapse,


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as bin Laden crowed in the videotape releasedlast year about the “trillions of dollars” of eco-nomic losses caused by the September 11attacks. More recently, Ahmed Omar Sheikh,the chief suspect in the killing of American jour-nalist, Daniel Pearl, echoed this same point.While being led out of a Pakistani court inMarch, he exhorted anyone listening to “sellyour dollars, because America will be finishedsoon.”31

Today, added to this fundamental enmity isnow the even more potent and powerful moti-vation of revenge for the destruction of theTaliban and America’s “war on Islam.” To binLaden and his followers, despite overwhelmingevidence to the contrary, the United States isprobably still regarded as a “paper tiger,” afavorite phrase of bin Laden’s, whose collapsecan be attained provided al Qaeda survives thecurrent onslaught in Afghanistan in some formor another. Indeed, although weakened, alQaeda has not been destroyed and at least someof its capability to inflict pain, albeit at a greatlydiminished level from September 11, likely stillremains intact. In this respect, the multiyeartime lag of all prior al Qaeda spectaculars isfundamentally disquieting because it suggeststhat some monumental operation might havealready been set in motion just prior toSeptember 11.

FUTURE THREATS AND POTENTIALITIES

Rather than asking what could or could not hap-pen, it might be more profitable to focus onunderstanding what has not happened for thelight this inquiry can shed on possible future alQaeda attacks. This approach actually remainsamong the most under-studied and in turn con-spicuous lacunae of terrorism studies. Manyacademic terrorism analyses—when they ven-ture into the realm of future possibilities if atall—do so only tepidly. In the main, they areself-limited to mostly lurid hypotheses of worst-case scenarios, almost exclusively involvingCBRN (chemical, biological, radiological ornuclear) weapons, as opposed to trying tounderstand why—with the exception ofSeptember 11—terrorists have only rarelyrealized their true killing potential.

Among the key unanswered questionsinclude:

• Why haven’t terrorists regularly used man-portable surface-to-air missiles (SAMs/MANPADS) to attack civil aviation?

• Why haven’t terrorists employed such simplerand more easily obtainable weapons likerocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) to attackcivil aviation by targeting planes while takingoff or landing?

• Why haven’t terrorists used unmanned dronesor one-person ultra-light or micro-light aircraftto attack heavily defended targets from the airthat are too difficult to gain access to on theground?

• Why haven’t terrorists engaged in mass simul-taneous attacks with very basic conventionalweapons, such as car bombs, more often?

• Why haven’t terrorists used tactics of massivedisruption—both mass transit and electronic(cyber)—more often?

• Why haven’t terrorists perpetrated more mar-itime attacks, especially against cruise shipsloaded with holidaymakers or cargo vesselscarrying hazardous materials (such as liquefiednatural gas or [LNG])?

• Why haven’t terrorists engaged in agriculturalor livestock terrorism (which is far easier andmore effective than against humans) usingbiological agents?

• Why haven’t terrorists exploited the immensepsychological potential of limited, discrete useof CBRN weapons and cyberattacks moreoften?

• Why haven’t terrorists targeted industrial orchemical plants with conventional explosivesin hopes of replicating a Bhopol with thou-sands dead or permanently injured?

• And, finally, why—again with the exceptionof September 11—do terrorists generally seemto lack the rich imaginations of Hollywoodmovie producers, thriller writers, and others?

Alarmingly, many of these tactics andweapons have in fact already been used byterrorists—and often with considerable success.The 1998 downing of a civilian Lion Air flightfrom Jaffna to Colombo by Tamil Tigers using aRussian-manufactured SA-14 is a case in point.The aforementioned series of car bombings


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that convulsed Bombay in 1993 is another. TheIRA’s effective paralyzing of road and rail-commuting traffic around London in 1997 and1998 is one more as were the similar tacticsused by the Japanese Middle Core to shut downcommuting in Tokyo a decade earlier. And in1997, the Tamil Tigers launched one of the fewdocumented cyber-terrorist attacks when theyshut down the servers and e-mail capabilities ofthe Sri Lanka embassies in Seoul, Washington,D.C., and Ottawa. As these examples illustrate,terrorists retain an enormous capability to inflictpain and suffering without resorting to massdestruction or mass casualties on the order ofthe September 11 attacks. This middle range,between worst-case scenario and more likelymeans of attack is where the United Statesremains dangerously vulnerable. Terrorists seekconstantly to identify vulnerabilities and exploitgaps in U.S. defenses. It was precisely the iden-tification of this vulnerability in the middlerange of America’s pain threshold that led to theevents of that tragic day.

CONCLUSION

Terrorism is perhaps best viewed as the arche-typal shark in the water. It must constantly moveforward to survive and indeed to succeed.Although survival entails obviating the govern-mental countermeasures designed to unearth anddestroy the terrorists and their organization, suc-cess is dependent on overcoming the defensesand physical security barriers designed to thwartattack. In these respects, the necessity for changein order to stay one step ahead of the counter-terrorism curve compels terrorists to change—adjusting and adapting their tactics, modusoperandi, and sometimes even their weapons sys-tems as needed.32 The better, more determined,and more sophisticated terrorists will thereforealways find a way to carry on their struggle.

The loss of physical sanctuaries—the mostlong-standing effect that the U.S.-led war on ter-rorism is likely to achieve—will signal only thedeath knell of terrorism as it has been known. Ina new era of terrorism, “virtual” attacks from“virtual sanctuaries,” involving anonymouscyberassaults may become more appealing fora new generation of terrorists unable to absorbthe means and methods of conventional assault

techniques as they once did in capacious trainingcamps. Indeed, the attraction for such attacks willlikely grow as American society itself becomesever more dependent on electronic means ofcommerce and communication. One lesson fromlast October’s anthrax cases and the immensedisruption it caused the U.S. Postal Service maybe to impel more rapidly than might otherwisehave been the case the use of electronic bankingand other online commercial activities. Theattraction therefore for a terrorist group to bringdown a system that is likely to become increas-ingly dependent on electronic means of commu-nication and commerce cannot be dismissed.Indeed, Zawahiri once scolded his followers fornot paying greater attention to the fears and pho-bias of their enemy, in that instance, Americans’intense preoccupation with the threat of bioter-rorism. The next great challenge from terrorismmay therefore be in cyberspace.

Similarly, the attraction to employ moreexotic, however crude, weapons like low-levelbiological and chemical agents may alsoincrease. Although these materials might be farremoved from the heinous capabilities of trueWMD (weapons of mass destruction) anotherlesson from last October’s anthrax exposureincidents was that terrorists do not have to kill3,000 people to create panic and foment fearand insecurity: five persons dying in mysteriouscircumstances is quite effective at unnerving anentire nation.

This article has hitherto discussed and hypoth-esized about terrorism. What, in conclusion,should be done about it? How should it beviewed? First, it should be recognized that terror-ism is, always has been, and always will beinstrumental: planned, purposeful, and premedi-tated. The challenge that analysts face is in iden-tifying and understanding the rationale and“inner logic”33 that motivates terrorists and ani-mates terrorism. It is easier to dismiss terrorists asirrational homicidal maniacs than to comprehendthe depth of their frustration, the core of theiraims and motivations, and to appreciate howthese considerations affect their choice of tacticsand targets. To effectively fight terrorism, abetter understanding of terrorists and terrorismmust be gained than has been the case in the past.

Second, it must be recognized that terrorismis fundamentally a form of psychologicalwarfare. This is not to say that people do not


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tragically die or that assets and property are notwantonly destroyed. It is, however, important tonote that terrorism is designed, as it has alwaysbeen, to have profound psychological repercus-sions on a target audience. Fear and intimidationare precisely the terrorists’ timeless stock-in-trade. Significantly, terrorism is also designedto undermine confidence in government andleadership and to rent the fabric of trust thatbonds society. It is used to create unbridledfear, dark insecurity, and reverberating panic.Terrorists seek to elicit an irrational, emotionalresponse. Countermeasures therefore must be atonce designed to blunt that threat but also to uti-lize the full range of means that can be broughtto bear in countering terrorism: psychological aswell as physical; diplomatic as well as military;economic as well as persuasion.

Third, the United States and all democraticcountries that value personal freedom and funda-mental civil liberties will remain vulnerable toterrorism. The fundamental asymmetry of `theinability to protect all targets all the time againstall possible attacks ensures that terrorism willcontinue to remain attractive to our enemies. Inthis respect, both political leaders and theAmerican public must have realistic expectationsof what can and cannot be achieved in the war onterrorism and, indeed, the vulnerabilities that existinherently in any open and democratic society.

Fourth, the enmity felt in many placesthroughout the world towards the United Stateswill likely not diminish. America is invariablyseen as a hegemonic, status quo power and moreso as the world’s lone superpower. Diplomaticefforts, particularly involving renewed publicdiplomacy activities are therefore needed atleast to effect and influence successor genera-tions of would-be terrorists, even if the currentgeneration has already been missed.

Finally, terrorism is a perennial, ceaselessstruggle. Although a war against terrorism maybe needed to sustain the political and popular willthat has often been missing in the past, war bydefinition implies finality. The struggle againstterrorism, however, is never-ending. Terrorismhas existed for 2,000 years and owes its survivalto an ability to adapt and adjust to challenges andcountermeasures and to continue to identify andexploit its opponent’s vulnerabilities. For successagainst terrorism, efforts must be as tireless,innovative, and dynamic as that of the opponent.

NOTES

1. The lone exception was 1995, when a majorincrease in non-lethal terrorist attacks against prop-erty in Germany and Turkey by PKK (KurdistanWorkers’ Party) not only moved the US to the numbertwo position but is also credited with accounting forthat year’s dramatic rise in the total number of inci-dents from 322 to 440. See Office of the Coordinatorfor Counterterrorism, Patterns of Global Terrorism1999. Washington, D.C., U.S. Department of StatePublication 10321, April 1996, p. 1.

2. Several factors can account for this phenome-non, in addition to America’s position as the soleremaining superpower and leader of the free world.These include the geographical scope and diversity ofAmerica’s overseas business interests, the number ofAmericans traveling or working abroad, and themany U.S. military bases around the world.

3. See “Timetables of the Hijacked Flights,” inReporters, Writers, and Editors of Der SpiegelMagazine, Inside 9–11: What Really Happened (NY:St. Martin’s, 2002), pp. 261–262.

4. Brian M. Jenkins, “The Organization Men:Anatomy of a Terrorist Attack,” in James F. Hoge, Jr.and Gideon Rose, How Did This Happen? Terrorismand the New War (NY: Public Affairs, 2001), p. 5.

5. Some 440 persons perished in a 1978 firedeliberately set by terrorists at a movie theater inAbadan, Iran.

6. Celia W. Dugger, “Victims of ’93 BombayTerror Wary of U.S. Motives,” New York Times,24 September 2001.

7. Several other potentially high lethality simul-taneous attacks during the 1980s were averted. Theseinclude, a 1985 plot by Sikh separatists in India andCanada to simultaneously bomb three aircraft whilein flight (one succeeded: the downing of an Air Indiaflight while en route from Montréal, Québec, toLondon, England, in which 329 persons were killed);a Palestinian plot to bomb two separate Pan Amflights in 1982 and perhaps the most infamous andambitious of all pre-September 11 incidents: RamziAhmed Yousef’s “Bojinka” plan to bring down12 American airliners over the Pacific. See Jenkins,“The Organization Men: Anatomy of a TerroristAttack,” p. 6.

8. See Yoram Schweitzer, “Suicide Terrorism:Development and Main Characteristics,” in TheInternational Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorismat the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, CounteringSuicide Terrorism: An International Conference


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(Jerusalem and Hewlett, NY: Gefen, 2001),p. 76.

9. See bin Laden’s comments about this on thevideotape released by the U.S. Government inNovember 2001, a verbatim transcript of which isreproduced in ibid., pp. 313–321.

10. “Wedded to death in a blaze of glory—Profile:The suicide bomber,” The Sunday Times (London),10 March 1996; and Christopher Walker, “Palestinian‘Was Duped into Being Suicide Bomber,’” The Times(London), 27 March 1997.

11. See Reporters, Writers, and Editors, Inside9–11, on pp. 304–313.

12. See, for example, Jenkins, “The OrganizationMen,” p. 8.

13. See in particular the work of Dr. RohanGunaratna of St. Andrews University in this area andspecifically his “Suicide Terrorism in Sri Lanka andIndia,” in International Policy, Countering SuicideTerrors, pp. 97–104.

14. It is now believed that planning for theattack on an American warship in Aden harborcommenced some two to three weeks beforethe August 1998 attacks on the East Africa embassies.Discussion with U.S. Naval Intelligence Service agentinvestigating the Cole attack. December 2001.

15. See Steven Simon and Daniel Benjamin,“American and the New Terrorism,” Survival, vol. 42,no. 1, Spring 2000, pp. 59–75 and the “America andthe New Terrorism: An Exchange” by Olivier Roy,Bruce Hoffman, Reuven Paz, Steven Simon andDaniel Benjamin, Survival, vol. 42, no. 2, Summer2000, pp. 156–172. In it Simon and Benjamin averthat I had become “too closely bound to the academicfashion of the moment . . .” (p. 171). As I toldboth Simon and Benjamin after September 11: theirobservation was indeed correct.

16. Brian Michael Jenkins, “InternationalTerrorism: A New Mode of Conflict,” in DavidCarlton and Carlo Schaerf (eds.), InternationalTerrorism and World Security (London: CroomHelm, 1975), p. 15.

17. See, for example, the discussion of two formermembers of the U.S. National Security Staff, DanielBenjamin and Steven Simon, on the effects of theal-Shifa on the Clinton Administration and its coun-terterrorism policy post the August 1998 embassybombings. Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon,“A Failure of Intelligence?” in Robert B. Silvers and

Barbara Epstein (eds), Striking Terror: America’sNew War (NY: New York Review of Books, 2002),pp. 279–299.

18. It should be noted that on many occasions, theDirector of Central Intelligence, George Tenent,warned in Congressional testimony and elsewhere ofthe profound and growing threat posed by bin Ladenand al Qaeda to US national security.

19. See Peter L. Bergen, Holy War, Inc.: Inside theSecret World of Osama bin Laden (NY: Free Press,2001), pp. 14–15.

20. Bruce Hoffman, “Terrorism’s CEO: AnOn-Line Interview with Peter Bergen, author of HolyWar, Inc.,” at http://www.theatlantic.com, January2002.

21. Bergen, Holy War, Inc., p. 28.22. Ibid., p. 28.23. Ibid., p. 27.24. Ali Muhammad, a former major in the

Egyptian Army, enlisted in the U.S. Army, where heserved as a non-commissioned officer at Fort Bragg,North Carolina, teaching U.S. Special Forces aboutMiddle Eastern culture and politics. Muhammad,among other al Qaeda operatives, like Wadiel-Hoge, demonstrates how al-Qaeda found theU.S. a comfortable and unthreatening operationalenvironment. See Hoffman, “Terrorism’s CEO,”www.theatlantic.com/unbound/interviews/int2002–01–09.html.

25. Reporters, Writers, and Editor, Inside 9–11,p. 317.

26. Ibid., p. 319.27. Ibid., p. 317.28. T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom

(Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1977), p. 23.29. Neil MacFarquhar with Jim Rutenberg, “Bin

Laden, in a Taped Speech, Says Attacks inAfghanistan Are a War Against Islam,” New YorkTimes, November 4, 2001, p. B2.

29. Mark Bowden, Black Hawk Down: A story ofModern War (NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1999).

31. Raymond Bonner, “Suspect in Killing ofReporter Is Brash and Threatening in a PakistaniCourt,” New York Times, 13 March 2002.

32. Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (London:Orion and NY: Columbia Univ. Press, 1998),pp. 180–183.

33. My colleague at St. Andrews University,Dr Magnus Ranstorp’s, formulation.


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The Unipolar Moment Revisited

Charles Krauthammer

It has been assumed that the old bipolar world would beget a multipolar world with powerdispersed to new centers in Japan, Germany (and/or “Europe”), China and a diminished SovietUnion/Russia. [This is] mistaken. The immediate post-Cold War world is not multipolar. It isunipolar. The center of world power is an unchallenged superpower, the United States,attended by its Western Allies.

“The Unipolar Movement,” 19901

In late 1990, shortly before the collapse of theSoviet Union, it was clear that the world we hadknown for half a century was disappearing. Thequestion was what would succeed it. I suggestedthen that we had already entered the “unipolarmoment.” The gap in power between the lead-ing nation and all the others was so unprece-dented as to yield an international structureunique to modern history: unipolarity.

At the time, this thesis was generally seen aseither wild optimism or simple American arro-gance. The conventional wisdom was that withthe demise of the Soviet empire the bipolarity ofthe second half of the 20th century would yieldto multipolarity. The declinist school, led byPaul Kennedy, held that America, suffering from“imperial overstretch,” was already in relativedecline. The Asian enthusiasm, popularized by(among others) James Fallows, saw the secondcoming of the Rising Sun. The conventional wis-dom was best captured by Senator Paul Tsongas:“The Cold War is over; Japan won.”

They were wrong, and no one has put it moreforcefully than Paul Kennedy himself in a clas-sic recantation published earlier this year.“Nothing has ever existed like this disparity ofpower; nothing,” he said of America’s positiontoday. “Charlemagne’s empire was merelywestern European in its reach. The Romanempire stretched farther afield, but there wasanother great empire in Persia, and a larger onein China. There is, therefore, no comparison.”2

Not everyone is convinced. Samuel Huntingtonargued in 1999 that we had entered not a uni-polar world but a “uni-multipolar world.”3 Tony

Judt writes mockingly of the “loud boastsof unipolarity and hegemony” heard inWashington today.4 But as Stephen Brooks andWilliam Wohlforth argue in a recent review ofthe subject, those denying unipolarity can do soonly by applying a ridiculous standard: thatAmerica be able to achieve all its goals every-where all by itself. This is a standard not forunipolarity but for divinity. Among mortals, andin the context of the last half millennium of his-tory, the current structure of the internationalsystem is clear: “If today’s American primacydoes not constitute unipolarity, then nothingever will.”5

A second feature of this new post-ColdWar world, I ventured, would be a resurgentAmerican isolationism. I was wrong. It turns outthat the new norm for America is not post-World War I withdrawal but post-World War IIengagement. In the 1990s, Pat Buchanan gave1930s isolationism a run. He ended up carryingPalm Beach.

Finally, I suggested that a third feature of thisnew unipolar world would be an increase ratherthan a decrease in the threat of war, and that itwould come from a new source: weapons of massdestruction wielded by rogue states. This wouldconstitute a revolution in international relations,given that in the past it was great powers whopresented the principal threats to world peace.

Where are we twelve years later? The twodefining features of the new post-Cold Warworld remain: unipolarity and rogue states withweapons of mass destruction. Indeed, these char-acteristics have grown even more pronounced.

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Contrary to expectation, the United States hasnot regressed to the mean; rather, its dominancehas dramatically increased. And during ourholiday from history in the 1990s, the roguestate/WMD problem grew more acute. Indeed,we are now on the eve of history’s first war overweapons of mass destruction.

UNIPOLARITY AFTER

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

There is little need to rehearse the accelerationof unipolarity in the 1990s. Japan, whose claimto power rested exclusively on economics, wentinto economic decline. Germany stagnated. TheSoviet Union ceased to exist, contracting intoa smaller, radically weakened Russia. TheEuropean Union turned inward toward the greatproject of integration and built a strong socialinfrastructure at the expense of military capac-ity. Only China grew in strength, but comingfrom so far behind, it will be decades beforeit can challenge American primacy—and thatassumes that its current growth continuesunabated.

The result is the dominance of a single powerunlike anything ever seen. Even at its heightBritain could always be seriously challenged bythe next greatest powers. Britain had a smallerarmy than the land powers of Europe and itsnavy was equaled by the next two navies com-bined. Today, American military spendingexceeds that of the next twenty countries com-bined. Its navy, air force, and space power areunrivaled. Its technology is irresistible. It isdominant by every measure: military, eco-nomic, technological, diplomatic, cultural, evenlinguistic, with a myriad of countries trying tofend off the inexorable march of Internet-fueledMTV English.

American dominance has not gone unnoticed.During the 1990s, it was mainly China andRussia that denounced unipolarity in their occa-sional joint communiqués. As the new centurydawned it was on everyone’s lips. A Frenchforeign minister dubbed the United States not asuperpower but a hyperpower. The dominantconcern of foreign policy establishments every-where became understanding and living withthe 800-pound American gorilla.

And then September 11 heightened theasymmetry. It did so in three ways. First, andmost obviously, it led to a demonstration ofheretofore latent American military power;Kosovo, the first war ever fought and wonexclusively from the air, had given a hint ofAmerica’s quantum leap in military power (andthe enormous gap that had developed betweenAmerican and European military capabilities).But it took September 11 for the United Statesto unleash, with concentrated fury, a fuller dis-play of its power in Afghanistan. Being a rela-tively pacific, commercial republic, the UnitedStates does not go around looking for demon-stration wars. This one was thrust upon it. Inresponse, America showed that at a range of7,000 miles and with but a handful of losses, itcould destroy within weeks a hardened, fanati-cal regime favored by geography and climate inthe “graveyard of empires.”

Such power might have been demonstratedearlier, but it was not. “I talked with the previ-ous U.S. administration,” said Vladimir Putinshortly after September 11,

and pointed out the bin Laden issue to them. Theywrung their hands so helplessly and said, “theTaliban are not turning him over, what can onedo?” I remember I was surprised: If they arenot turning him over, one has to think and dosomething.6

Nothing was done. President Clinton andothers in his administration have protested thatnothing could have been done, that even the 1998African embassy bombings were not enough tomobilize the American people to strike backseriously against terrorism. The new BushAdministration, too, did not give the prospect ofmass-casualty terrorism (and the recommenda-tions of the Hart-Rudman Commission) the


The true geopolitical structure of the post-Cold War world . . . [is] a single pole of worldpower that consists of the United States at theapex of the industrial West. Perhaps it is moreaccurate to say the United States and behind itthe West.

“The Unipolar Moment,” 1990

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priority it deserved. Without September 11, thegiant would surely have slept longer. The worldwould have been aware of America’s size andpotential, but not its ferocity or its full capaci-ties. (Paul Kennedy’s homage to Americanpower, for example, was offered in the wake ofthe Afghan campaign.)

Second, September 11 demonstrated a newform of American strength. The center of itseconomy was struck, its aviation shut down,Congress brought to a halt, the government sentunderground, the country paralyzed and fearful.Yet within days the markets reopened, the econ-omy began its recovery, the president mobilizedthe nation, and a united Congress immediatelyunderwrote a huge new worldwide campaignagainst terror. The Pentagon started planningthe U.S. military response even as its demol-ished western facade still smoldered.

America had long been perceived as invul-nerable. That illusion was shattered onSeptember 11, 2001. But with a demonstrationof its recuperative powers—an economy andpolitical system so deeply rooted and funda-mentally sound that it could spring back to lifewithin days—that sense of invulnerabilityassumed a new character. It was transmutedfrom impermeability to resilience, the productof unrivaled human, technological, and politicalreserves.

The third effect of September 11 was toaccelerate the realignment of the current greatpowers, such as they are, behind the UnitedStates. In 1990, America’s principal ally wasNATO. A decade later, its alliance base hadgrown to include former members of theWarsaw Pact. Some of the major powers, how-ever, remained uncommitted. Russia and Chinaflirted with the idea of an “anti-hegemonicalliance.” Russian leaders made ostentatiousvisits to pieces of the old Soviet empire such asCuba and North Korea. India and Pakistan,frozen out by the United States because of theirnuclear testing, remained focused mainly on oneanother. But after September 11, the bystanderscame calling. Pakistan made an immediatestrategic decision to join the American camp.India enlisted with equal alacrity, offering theUnited States basing, overflight rights, and alevel of cooperation unheard of during itshalf century of Nehruist genuflection to

anti-American non-alignment. Russia’s Putin,seeing both a coincidence of interests in thefight against Islamic radicalism and an opportu-nity to gain acceptance in the Western camp,dramatically realigned Russian foreign policytoward the United States. (Russia has alreadybeen rewarded with a larger role in NATO andtacit American recognition of Russia’s interestsin its “near abroad.”) China remains more dis-tant but, also having a coincidence of interestswith the United States in fighting Islamic radi-calism, it has cooperated with the war on terrorand muted its competition with America in thePacific.

The realignment of the fence-sitters simplyaccentuates the historical anomaly of Americanunipolarity. Our experience with hegemony his-torically is that it inevitably creates a counterbal-ancing coalition of weaker powers, most recentlyagainst Napoleonic France and Germany (twice)in the 20th century. Nature abhors a vacuum;history abhors hegemony. Yet during the firstdecade of American unipolarity no such counter-balancing occurred. On the contrary, the greatpowers lined up behind the United States, all themore so after September 11.

The American hegemon has no great powerenemies, an historical oddity of the first order.Yet it does face a serious threat to its domi-nance, indeed to its essential security. It comesfrom a source even more historically odd; anarchipelago of rogue states (some connected


The most crucial new element in the post-ColdWar world [is] the emergence of a new strate-gic environment marked by the proliferation ofweapons of mass destruction. . . . The prolifer-ation of weapons of mass destruction and theirmeans of delivery will constitute the greatestsingle threat to world security for the rest ofour lives. That is what makes a new interna-tional order not an imperial dream or aWilsonian fantasy but a matter of the sheerestprudence. It is slowly dawning on the Westthat there is a need to establish some newregime to police these weapons and those whobrandish them. . . . Iraq . . . is the prototype ofthis new strategic threat.


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with transnational terrorists) wielding weaponsof mass destruction.

The threat is not trivial. It is the single greatestdanger to the United States because, for all ofAmerica’s dominance, and for all of its recentlydemonstrated resilience, there is one thing itmight not survive: decapitation. The detonationof a dozen nuclear weapons in major Americancities, or the spreading of smallpox or anthraxthroughout the general population, is an existen-tial threat. It is perhaps the only realistic threat toAmerica as a functioning hegemon, perhaps evento America as a functioning modern society.

Like unipolarity, this is historically unique.WMD are not new, nor are rogue states. Theirconjunction is. We have had fifty years of expe-rience with nuclear weapons—but in the contextof bipolarity, which gave the system a pre-dictable, if perilous, stability. We have just nowentered an era in which the capacity for inflict-ing mass death, and thus posing a threat both toworld peace and to the dominant power, residesin small, peripheral states.

What does this conjunction of unique cir-cumstances—unipolarity and the proliferationof terrible weapons—mean for American

foreign policy? That the first and most urgenttask is protection from these weapons. The cat-alyst for this realization was again September 11.Throughout the 1990s, it had been assumed thatWMD posed no emergency because traditionalconcepts of deterrence would hold. September 11revealed the possibility of future WMD-armedenemies both undeterrable and potentiallyundetectable. The 9/11 suicide bombers wereundeterrable; the author of the subsequentanthrax attacks has proven undetectable. Thepossible alliance of rogue states with such unde-terrables and undetectables—and the possibletransfer to them of weapons of mass destruc-tion—presents a new strategic situation thatdemands a new strategic doctrine.

THE CRISIS OF UNIPOLARITY

Accordingly, not one but a host of new doctrineshave come tumbling out since September 11.First came the with-us-or-against-us ultimatumto any state aiding, abetting, or harboring terror-ists. Then, pre-emptive attack on any enemystate developing weapons of mass destruction.And now, regime change in any such state.

The boldness of these policies—or, as muchof the world contends, their arrogance—is breathtaking. The American anti-terrorismultimatum, it is said, is high-handed and permits


It is of course banal to say that modern tech-nology has shrunk the world. But the obviouscorollary, that in a shrunken world the dividebetween regional superpowers and great pow-ers is radically narrowed, is rarely drawn.Missiles shrink distance. Nuclear (or chemicalor biological) devices multiply power. Bothcan be bought at market. Consequently, thegeopolitical map is irrevocably altered. Fiftyyears ago, Germany—centrally located,highly industrial, and heavily populated—could pose a threat to world security and tothe other great powers. It was inconceivablethat a relatively small Middle Eastern statewith an almost entirely imported industrialbase could do anything more than threaten itsneighbors. The central truth of the coming erais that this is no longer the case: relativelysmall, peripheral, and backward states will beable to emerge rapidly as threats not only toregional, but to world, security.


Any solution will have to include threeelements: denying, disarming, and defending.First, we will have to develop a new regime,similar to COCOM (Coordinating Committeeon Export Controls) to deny yet more hightechnology to such states. Second, those statesthat acquire such weapons anyway will haveto submit to strict outside control or risk beingphysically disarmed. A final element must bethe development of antiballistic missile and airdefense systems to defend against thoseweapons that do escape Western control orpreemption. . . . There is no alternative to con-fronting, deterring and, if necessary, disarm-ing states that brandish and use weapons ofmass destruction. And there is no one to dothat but the United States, backed by as manyallies as will join the endeavor.


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the arbitrary application of American powereverywhere. Pre-emption is said to violatetraditional doctrines of just war. And regimechange, as Henry Kissinger has argued, threat-ens 350 years of post-Westphalian internationalpractice. Taken together, they amount to anunprecedented assertion of American freedomof action and a definitive statement of a newAmerican unilateralism.

To be sure, these are not the first instances ofAmerican unilateralism. Before September 11,the Bush Administration had acted unilaterally,but on more minor matters, such as theKyoto Protocol and the Biological WeaponsConvention, and with less bluntness, as in its pro-tracted negotiations with Russia over the ABMtreaty. The “axis of evil” speech of January 29,however, took unilateralism to a new level.Latent resentments about American willfulnessare latent no more. American dominance, whichhad been tolerated if not welcomed, is nowproducing such irritation and hostility in oncefriendly quarters, such as Europe, that some sug-gest we have arrived at the end of the opposition-free grace period that America had enjoyedduring the unipolar moment.7

In short, post-9/11 U.S. unilateralism has pro-duced the first crisis of unipolarity. It revolvesaround the central question of the unipolar age:Who will define the hegemon’s ends?

The issue is not one of style but of purpose.Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld gave theclassic formulation of unilateralism when hesaid (regarding the Afghan war and the war onterrorism, but the principle is universal), “Themission determines the coalition.” We take ourfriends where we find them, but only in order tohelp us in accomplishing the mission. The mis-sion comes first, and we decide it.

Contrast this with the classic case study ofmultilateralism at work: the U.S. decisionin February 1991 to conclude the Gulf War. Asthe Iraqi army was fleeing, the first BushAdministration had to decide its final goal: theliberation of Kuwait or regime change in Iraq. Itstopped at Kuwait. Why? Because, as BrentScowcroft has explained, going further wouldhave fractured the coalition, gone against ourpromises to allies, and violated the UN resolu-tions under which we were acting. “Had weadded occupation of Iraq and removal ofSaddam Hussein to those objectives,” wrote

Scowcroft in the Washington Post on October16, 2001, “ . . . our Arab allies, refusing tocountenance an invasion of an Arab colleague,would have deserted us.” The coalition definedthe mission.

Who should define American ends today?This is a question of agency but it leads direc-tly to a fundamental question of policy. If thecoalition—whether NATO, the wider Westernalliance, ad hoc outfits such as the Gulf Waralliance, the UN, or the “international commu-nity”—defines America’s mission, we have onevision of America’s role in the world. If, on theother hand, the mission defines the coalition, wehave an entirely different vision.

LIBERAL INTERNATIONALISM

For many Americans, multilateralism is no pre-tense. On the contrary: It has become the verycore of the liberal internationalist school ofAmerican foreign policy. In the October 2002debate authorizing the use of force in Iraq, theDemocratic chairman of the Senate ArmedServices Committee, Carl Levin, proposedauthorizing the president to act only withprior approval from the UN Security Council.Senator Edward Kennedy put it succinctlywhile addressing the Johns Hopkins School ofAdvanced International Studies on September27: “I’m waiting for the final recommendationof the Security Council before I’m going to sayhow I’m going to vote.”

This logic is deeply puzzling. How exactlydoes the Security Council confer moral


A large segment of American opinion doubtsthe legitimacy of unilateral American actionbut accepts quite readily actions undertakenby the “world community” acting in concert.Why it should matter to Americans that theiractions get a Security Council nod from, say,Deng Xiaoping and the butchers of TiananmenSquare is beyond me. But to many Americansit matters. It is largely for domestic reasons,therefore, that American political leadersmake sure to dress unilateral action in multi-lateral clothing. The danger, of course, is thatthey might come to believe their own pretense.


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authority on American action? The SecurityCouncil is a committee of great powers, heirsto the victors in the Second World War. Theymanage the world in their own interest. TheSecurity Council is, on the very rare occasionswhen it actually works, realpolitik by commit-tee. But by what logic is it a repository of inter-national morality? How does the approval ofFrance and Russia, acting clearly and rationallyin pursuit of their own interests in Iraq (largelyoil and investment), confer legitimacy on aninvasion?

That question was beyond me twelve yearsago. It remains beyond me now. Yet this kindof logic utterly dominated the interveningClinton years. The 1990s were marked byan obsession with “international legality” asexpressed by this or that Security Council res-olution. To take one long forgotten example:After an Iraqi provocation in February 1998,President Clinton gave a speech at the Pentagonlaying the foundation for an attack on Iraq (oneof many that never came). He cited as justifica-tion for the use of force the need to enforceIraqi promises made under post-Gulf Warceasefire conditions that “the United Nationsdemanded—not the United States—the UnitedNations.” Note the formulation. Here is thepresident of the most powerful nation on earthstopping in mid-sentence to stress the primacyof commitments made to the UN over thosemade to the United States.

This was not surprising from a presidentwhose first inaugural address pledgedAmerican action when “the will and conscienceof the international community is defied.” Earlyin the Clinton years, Madeleine Albright for-mulated the vision of the liberal internationalistschool then in power as “assertive multilateral-ism.” Its principal diplomatic activity was thepursuit of a dizzying array of universal treatieson chemical weapons, biological weapons,nuclear testing, global environment, land minesand the like. Its trademark was consultation:Clinton was famous for sending Secretary ofState Warren Christopher on long trips (forexample, through Europe on Balkan policy) orendless shuttles (uncountable pilgrimages toDamascus) to consult; he invariably returnedhome empty-handed and diminished. And itsprincipal objective was good international

citizenship: It was argued on myriad foreignpolicy issues that we could not do X because itwould leave us “isolated.” Thus in 1997 theSenate passed a chemical weapons conventionthat even some of its proponents admitted wasunenforceable, largely because of the argumentthat everyone else had signed it and that failureto ratify would leave us isolated. Isolation, inand of itself, was seen as a diminished and evenmorally suspect condition.

A lesson in isolation occurred during the1997 negotiations in Oslo over the land minetreaty. One of the rare holdouts, interestinglyenough, was Finland. Finding himself scoldedby his neighbors for opposing the land mineban, the Finnish prime minister noted tartly thatthis was a “very convenient” pose for the “otherNordic countries” who “want Finland to be theirland mine.”

In many parts of the world, a thin line ofAmerican GIs is the land mine. The main reasonwe oppose the land mine treaty is that we needthem in the DMZ in Korea. We man the linesthere. Sweden and France and Canada do not haveto worry about a North Korean invasion killingthousands of their soldiers. As the unipolar powerand thus guarantor of peace in places whereSwedes do not tread, we need weapons thatothers do not. Being uniquely situated in theworld, we cannot afford the empty platitudes ofallies not quite candid enough to admit that theylive under the umbrella of American power.That often leaves us “isolated.”

Multilateralism is the liberal international-ist’s means of saving us from this shamefulcondition. But the point of the multilateralistimperative is not merely psychological. It has aclear and coherent geopolitical objective. It isa means that defines the ends. Its means—internationalism (the moral, legal and strategicprimacy of international institutions overnational interests) and legalism (the belief thatthe sinews of stability are laws, treaties andbinding international contracts)—are in serviceto a larger vision: remaking the internationalsystem in the image of domestic civil society.The multilateralist imperative seeks to establishan international order based not on sovereigntyand power but on interdependence—a neworder that, as Secretary of State CordellHull said upon returning from the Moscow


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Conference of 1943, abolishes the “need forspheres of influence, for alliances, for balanceof power.”

Liberal internationalism seeks through multi-lateralism to transcend power politics, narrownational interest and, ultimately, the nation-state itself. The nation-state is seen as somekind of archaic residue of an anarchic past, anaffront to the vision of a domesticated interna-tional arena. This is why liberal thinkersembrace the erosion of sovereignty promisedby the new information technologies and theeasy movement of capital across borders. Theywelcome the decline of sovereignty as the roadto the new globalism of a norm-driven, legally-bound international system broken to the moldof domestic society.8

The greatest sovereign, of course, is theAmerican superpower, which is why liberalinternationalists feel such acute discomfortwith American dominance. To achieve theirvision, America too—America especially—must be domesticated. Their project is thus torestrain America by building an entangling webof interdependence, tying down Gulliver withmyriad strings that diminish his overweeningpower. Who, after all, was the ABM treaty ora land mine treaty going to restrain? NorthKorea?

This liberal internationalist vision—themultilateral handcuffing of American power—is, as Robert Kagan has pointed out, the dominantview in Europe.9 That is to be expected, givenEurope’s weakness and America’s power. But itis a mistake to see this as only a European view.The idea of a new international community withself-governing institutions and self-enforcingnorms—the vision that requires the domestica-tion of American power—is the view of theDemocratic Party in the United States and of alarge part of the American foreign policy estab-lishment. They spent the last decade in powerfashioning precisely those multilateral ties torestrain the American Gulliver and remake himinto a tame international citizen.10 The multi-lateralist project is to use—indeed, to use up—current American dominance to create a newinternational system in which new norms oflegalism and interdependence rule in America’splace—in short, a system that is no longerunipolar.

REALISM AND THE NEW UNILATERALISM

The basic division between the two majorforeign policy schools in America centers on thequestion of what is, and what should be, the fun-damental basis of international relations: paperor power. Liberal internationalism envisions aworld order that, like domestic society, is gov-erned by laws and not men. Realists see thisvision as hopelessly utopian. The history ofpaper treaties—from the prewar Kellogg-BriandPact and Munich to the post-Cold War Osloaccords and the 1994 Agreed Framework withNorth Korea—is a history of naiveté and cyni-cism, a combination both toxic and volatile thatinvariably ends badly. Trade agreements withCanada are one thing. Pieces of parchment towhich existential enemies affix a signature arequite another. They are worse than worthlessbecause they give a false sense of security andbreed complacency. For the realist, the ultimatedeterminant of the most basic elements of inter-national life—security, stability and peace—ispower.

Which is why a realist would hardly forfeitthe current unipolarity for the vain promise ofgoo-goo one-worldism. Nor, however, should arealist want to forfeit unipolarity for the famil-iarity of traditional multipolarity. Multipolarityis inherently fluid and unpredictable. Europepracticed multipolarity for centuries and foundit so unstable and bloody, culminating in 1914in the catastrophic collapse of delicately


There is much pious talk about a new multi-lateral world and the promise of the UnitedNations as guarantor of a new post-Cold Warorder. But this is to mistake cause and effect,the United States and the United Nations. TheUnited Nations is guarantor of nothing.Except in a formal sense, it can hardly be saidto exist. Collective security? In the Gulf, with-out the United States leading and prodding,bribing and blackmailing, no one would havestirred. . . . The world would have written offKuwait the way the last body pledged to col-lective security, the League of Nations, wroteoff Abyssinia.


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balanced alliance systems, that Europe soughtits permanent abolition in political and eco-nomic union. Having abjured multipolarity forthe region, it is odd in the extreme to thenprefer multipolarity for the world.

Less can be said about the destiny of unipolar-ity. It is too new. Yet we do have the history of thelast decade, our only modern experience withunipolarity, and it was a decade of unusual stabil-ity among all major powers. It would be foolish toproject from just a ten-year experience, but thatexperience does call into question the basis for theclaims that unipolarity is intrinsically unstable orimpossible to sustain in a mass democracy.

I would argue that unipolarity, managedbenignly, is far more likely to keep the peace.Benignity is, of course, in the eye of thebeholder. But the American claim to benignityis not mere self-congratulation. We have a trackrecord. Consider one of history’s rare controlledexperiments. In the 1940s, lines were drawnthrough three peoples—Germans, Koreans, andChinese—one side closely bound to the UnitedStates, the other to its adversary. It turned into acontrolled experiment because both states in thedivided lands shared a common culture. Fiftyyears later the results are in. Does anyone doubtthe superiority, both moral and material, ofWest Germany vs. East Germany, South Koreavs. North Korea, and Taiwan vs. China?11

Benignity is also manifest in the way otherswelcome our power. It is the reason, for exam-ple, that the Pacific Rim countries are loath tosee our military presence diminished: Theyknow that the United States is not an imperialpower with a desire to rule other countries—which is why they so readily accept it as abalancer. It is the reason, too, why Europe, soseized with complaints about American high-handedness, nonetheless reacts with alarm to theoccasional suggestion that America might with-draw its military presence. America came, but itdid not come to rule. Unlike other hegemonsand would-be hegemons, it does not entertain agrand vision of a new world. No Thousand YearReich. No New Soviet Man. It has no greatdesire to remake human nature, to conquer forthe extraction of natural resources, or to rulefor the simple pleasure of dominion. Indeed,America is the first hegemonic power in historyto be obsessed with “exit strategies.” It couldnot wait to get out of Haiti and Somalia; it

would get out of Kosovo and Bosnia today if itcould. Its principal aim is to maintain the stabil-ity and relative tranquility of the current inter-national system by enforcing, maintaining andextending the current peace.

The form of realism that I am arguing for—call it the new unilateralism—is clear in itsdetermination to self-consciously and confi-dently deploy American power in pursuit ofthose global ends. Note: global ends. There is aform of unilateralism that is devoted only to nar-row American self-interest and it has a name,too: It is called isolationism. Critics of the newunilateralism often confuse it with isolationismbecause both are prepared to unashamedly exer-cise American power. But isolationists opposeAmerica acting as a unipolar power not becausethey disagree with the unilateral means, butbecause they deem the ends far too broad. Isola-tionists would abandon the larger world and useAmerican power exclusively for the narrowest ofAmerican interests: manning Fortress Americaby defending the American homeland andputting up barriers to trade and immigration.

The new unilateralism defines Americaninterests far beyond narrow self-defense. In par-ticular, it identifies two other major interests,both global: extending the peace by advancingdemocracy and preserving the peace by acting asbalancer of last resort. Britain was the balancer inEurope, joining the weaker coalition against thestronger to create equilibrium. America’s uniqueglobal power allows it to be the balancer in everyregion. We balanced Iraq by supporting itsweaker neighbors in the Gulf War. We balanceChina by supporting the ring of smaller states atits periphery (from South Korea to Taiwan, evento Vietnam). Our role in the Balkans was essen-tially to create a microbalance: to support theweaker Bosnian Muslims against their moredominant neighbors, and subsequently to supportthe weaker Albanian Kosovars against the Serbs.

Of course, both of these tasks often advanceAmerican national interests as well. The promo-tion of democracy multiplies the number ofnations likely to be friendly to the United States,and regional equilibria produce stability thatbenefits a commercial republic like the UnitedStates. America’s (intended) exertions on behalfof pre-emptive non-proliferation, too, areclearly in the interest of both the United Statesand the international system as a whole.


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Critics find this paradoxical: acting unilaterallybut for global ends. Why paradoxical? One canhardly argue that depriving Saddam (and poten-tially, terrorists) of WMD is not a global end.Unilateralism may be required to pursue thisend. We may be left isolated in so doing, but wewould be acting nevertheless in the name ofglobal interests—larger than narrow Americanself-interest and larger, too, than the narrowlyperceived self-interest of smaller, weaker powers(even great powers) that dare not confront therising danger.

What is the essence of that larger interest?Most broadly defined, it is maintaining a stable,open, and functioning unipolar system. Liberalinternationalists disdain that goal as too selfish,as it makes paramount the preservation of bothAmerican power and independence. Isolationistsreject the goal as too selfless, for definingAmerican interests too globally and thus toogenerously.

A third critique comes from what might becalled pragmatic realists, who see the new uni-lateralism I have outlined as hubristic, andwhose objections are practical. They are pre-pared to engage in a pragmatic multilateralism.They value great power concert. They seekSecurity Council support not because it confersany moral authority, but because it spreads risk.In their view, a single hegemon risks far moreviolent resentment than would a power thatconsistently acts as primus inter pares, sharingrule-making functions with others.12

I have my doubts. The United States made anextraordinary effort in the Gulf War to get UNsupport, share decision-making, assemble acoalition and, as we have seen, deny itself thefruits of victory in order to honor coalitiongoals. Did that diminish the anti-American feel-ing in the region? Did it garner support for sub-sequent Iraq policy dictated by the originalacquiescence to the coalition?

The attacks of September 11 were plannedduring the Clinton Administration, an adminis-tration that made a fetish of consultationand did its utmost to subordinate Americanhegemony and smother unipolarity. The resent-ments were hardly assuaged. Why? Becausethe extremist rage against the United Statesis engendered by the very structure of the inter-national system, not by the details of ourmanagement of it.

Pragmatic realists also value internationalsupport in the interest of sharing burdens, on thetheory that sharing decision-making enlists othersin our own hegemonic enterprise and makesthings less costly. If you are too vigorous inasserting yourself in the short-term, they argue,you are likely to injure yourself in the long-termwhen you encounter problems that require thefull cooperation of other partners, such as counter-terrorism. As Brooks and Wohlforth put it,“Straining relationships now will lead only to amore challenging policy environment later on.”13

If the concern about the new unilateralism isthat American assertiveness be judiciouslyrationed, and that one needs to think long-term,it is hard to disagree. One does not go it alone ordictate terms on every issue. On some issues,such as membership in and support of the WTO,where the long-term benefit both to theAmerican national interest and to global inter-ests is demonstrable, one willingly constrictssovereignty. Trade agreements are easy calls,however, free trade being perhaps the onlymathematically provable political good. Othersrequire great skepticism. The Kyoto Protocol,for example, would have harmed the Americaneconomy while doing nothing for the globalenvironment. (Increased emissions from China,India, and Third World countries exempt fromits provisions would have more than made upfor American cuts.) Kyoto failed on its merits,but was nonetheless pushed because the rest ofthe world supported it. The same case was madefor the chemical and biological weaponstreaties—sure, they are useless or worse, butwhy not give in there in order to build good willfor future needs? But appeasing multilateralismdoes not assuage it; appeasement merely legit-imizes it. Repeated acquiescence to provisionsthat America deems injurious reinforces thenotion that legitimacy derives from interna-tional consensus, thus undermining America’sfuture freedom of action—and thus contradict-ing the pragmatic realists’ own goals.

America must be guided by its independentjudgment, both about its own interest and aboutthe global interest. Especially on mattersof national security, war-making, and thedeployment of power, America should neitherdefer nor contract out decision-making, particu-larly when the concessions involve permanentstructural constrictions such as those imposed


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by an International Criminal Court. Prudence,yes. No need to act the superpower in EastTimor or Bosnia. But there is a need to do so inAfghanistan and in Iraq. No need to act thesuperpower on steel tariffs. But there is a needto do so on missile defense.

The prudent exercise of power allows,indeed calls for, occasional concessions on non-vital issues if only to maintain psychologicalgood will. Arrogance and gratuitous high-handedness are counterproductive. But weshould not delude ourselves as to what psycho-logical good will buys. Countries will cooperatewith us, first, out of their own self-interest and,second, out of the need and desire to cultivategood relations with the world’s superpower.Warm and fuzzy feelings are a distant third.Take counterterrorism. After the attack on theU.S.S. Cole, Yemen did everything it could tostymie the American investigation. It lifted not afinger to press terrorism. This was under anAmerican administration that was obsessivelyaccommodating and multilateralist. Today,under the most unilateralist of administrations,Yemen has decided to assist in the war on ter-rorism. This was not a result of a sudden attackof good will toward America. It was a result ofthe war in Afghanistan, which concentrated themind of heretofore recalcitrant states like Yemenon the costs of non-cooperation with the UnitedStates.14 Coalitions are not made by superpowersgoing begging hat in hand. They are made byasserting a position and inviting others to join.What “pragmatic” realists often fail to realize isthat unilateralism is the high road to multilater-alism. When George Bush senior said of theIraqi invasion of Kuwait, “this will not stand,”and made it clear that he was prepared to actalone if necessary, that declaration—and thecredibility of American determination to act uni-laterally—in and of itself created a coalition.Hafez al-Asad did not join out of feelings ofgood will. He joined because no one wants to beleft at the dock when the hegemon is sailing.

Unilateralism does not mean seeking to actalone. One acts in concert with others if possi-ble. Unilateralism simply means that one doesnot allow oneself to be hostage to others. Nounilateralist would, say, reject Security Councilsupport for an attack on Iraq. The nontrivialquestion that separates unilateralism frommultilateralism—and that tests the “pragmatic

realists”—is this: What do you do if, at the endof the day, the Security Council refuses to backyou? Do you allow yourself to be dictated to onissues of vital national—and international—security?

When I first proposed the unipolar model in1990, I suggested that we should accept both itsburdens and opportunities and that, if Americadid not wreck its economy, unipolarity couldlast thirty or forty years. That seemed bold at thetime. Today, it seems rather modest. The uni-polar moment has become the unipolar era. Itremains true, however, that its durability will bedecided at home. It will depend largely onwhether it is welcomed by Americans or seen asa burden to be shed—either because we are toogood for the world (the isolationist critique) orbecause we are not worthy of it (the liberalinternationalist critique).

The new unilateralism argues explicitly andunashamedly for maintaining unipolarity, forsustaining America’s unrivaled dominance forthe foreseeable future. It could be a long future,assuming we successfully manage the singlegreatest threat, namely, weapons of massdestruction in the hands of rogue states. This initself will require the aggressive and confidentapplication of unipolar power rather than fallingback, as we did in the 1990s, on paralyzingmultilateralism. The future of the unipolar erahinges on whether America is governed bythose who wish to retain, augment and useunipolarity to advance not just American butglobal ends, or whether America is governed bythose who wish to give it up—either by allow-ing unipolarity to decay as they retreat toFortress America, or by passing on the burdenby gradually transferring power to multilateralinstitutions as heirs to American hegemony. Thechallenge to unipolarity is not from the outsidebut from the inside. The choice is ours. To impi-ously paraphrase Benjamin Franklin: Historyhas given you an empire, if you will keep it.

NOTES

1. This quotation, and all subsequent boxed quo-tations in this essay, are from Charles Krauthammer,“The Unipolar Moment,” Foreign Affairs: Americaand the World (1990/91), which introduced the ideaof American unipolarity. That essay was adapted


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from the first annual Henry M. Jackson MemorialLecture, September 18, 1990.

2. Kennedy, “The Eagle has Landed,” FinancialTimes, February 2, 2002.

3. Huntington, “The Lonely Superpower,”Foreign Affairs (March/April 1999). By uni-multipolarHuntington means a system with a pre-eminent statewhose sole participation is insufficient for the resolu-tion of international issues. The superpower can stillserve as a veto player, but requires other powers toachieve its ends.

4. Judt, “Its Own Worst Enemy,” New YorkReview of Books, August 15, 2002.

5. Brooks and Wohlforth, “American Primacy inPerspective,” Foreign Affairs (July/August 2002).

6. Interview with the German newspaper Bild,translated and reported in the Interfax News Bulletin,September 21, 2001.

7. A Sky News poll finds that even the Britishpublic considers George W. Bush a greater threat toworld peace than Saddam Hussein. The poll was con-ducted September 2–6, 2002.

8. See my “A World Imagined,” The NewRepublic, March 15, 1999, from which some of theforegoing discussion is drawn.

9. Kagan, “Power and Weakness,” PolicyReview (June 2002).

10. In “A World Imagined,” I noted the oddity ofan American governing elite adopting a goal—aconstrained America—that is more logically the goalof foreigners: “The ultimate irony is that this is tradi-tionally the vision of small nations. They wish tolevel the playing field with the big boys. For them,

treaties, international institutions, and interdepen-dence are the great equalizers. Leveling is fine forthem. But for us? The greatest power in the world—the most dominant power relative to its rivals that theworld has seen since the Roman empire—is led bypeople who seek to diminish that dominance andlevel the international arena.”

11. This is not to claim, by any means, a perfectrecord of benignity. America has often made and con-tinues to make alliances with unpleasant authoritarianregimes. As I argued recently in Time (“Dictatorshipsand Double Standards,” September 23, 2002), suchalliances are nonetheless justified so long as they areinstrumental (meant to defeat the larger evil) and tem-porary (expire with the emergency). When Hitler wasdefeated, we stopped coddling Stalin. Forty yearslater, as the Soviet threat receded, the United Stateswas instrumental in easing Pinochet out of power andoverthrowing Marcos. We withdrew our support forthese dictators once the two conditions that justifiedsuch alliances had disappeared: The global threat ofSoviet communism had receded, and truly democraticdomestic alternatives to these dictators had emerged.

12. This basic view is well represented inThe National Interest’s Fall 2002 symposium,“September 11th One Year On: Power, Purpose, andStrategy in U.S. Foreign Policy.”

13. Brooks and Wohlforth, “American Primacy inPerspective.”

14. The most recent and dramatic demonstrationof this newfound cooperation was the CIA killing onNovember 4 of an Al-Qaeda leader in Yemen using aremotely operated Predator drone.


Foreword: Freedom and Security After September 11

Viet D. Dinh

An oft-repeated refrain since the September 11terrorist attacks is that Americans must nowchoose between a robust national defense andtheir vital civil liberties. Security versus free-dom: the underlying assumption is that the twocan coexist only uneasily in times of nationalcrisis. The loss of certain freedoms, so goes theprevailing wisdom, is the price that must be paid

for additional security. Some are eager to makethat exchange, while others consider the pricetoo dear. Both sides, however, seem to agreethat freedom and security are competing virtues,and that the expansion of one necessarily entailsthe contraction of the other.

This is not a new dichotomy. In 1759,Benjamin Franklin reminded his fellow colonists

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that “they that can give up essential liberty toobtain a little temporary safety deserve neitherliberty nor safety.”1 For Franklin, liberty is thesupreme good, and a people capable of surren-dering its freedoms in exchange for security isnot fit for self-governance, or even “safety.” Acentury later, Abraham Lincoln appeared beforeCongress to justify his unilateral decision to sus-pend the writ of habeas corpus. “[A]re all thelaws, but one,” the president asked, “to go unex-ecuted, and the government itself go to pieces,lest that one be violated?”2 For Lincoln, theGreat Emancipator, liberty was an obstacle tothe government’s proper functioning and, worse,a threat to the government’s very existence.

The dichotomy between freedom and securityis not new, but it is false. For security and free-dom are not rivals in the universe of possiblegoods; rather, they are interrelated, mutually rein-forcing goods. Security is the very preconditionof freedom. Edmund Burke teaches that civil lib-erties cannot exist unless a state exists to vindi-cate them: “[t]he only liberty I mean is a libertyconnected with order; that not only exists alongwith order and virtue, but which cannot exist atall without them.”3 In the same way that an indi-vidual’s moral right to property would be mean-ingless unless the government establishes courtsof law in which those rights can be declared andenforced, so too Americans’ civil liberties wouldbe a nullity unless they are protected from thosewho seek to destroy our way of life.

If much post-September 11 commentarymistakenly casts security as a rival to freedom,it also exhibits an unduly narrow understandingof freedom itself. “Freedom” does not refer sim-ply to the absence of governmental restraint; italso refers, at a more fundamental level, to theabsence of fear. Terrorists do not measure suc-cess with a body count. Their objective is tospread fear among all Americans, preventingour nation from playing an active part on theworld’s stage and our citizens from living theirlives in the manner to which they are accus-tomed. Without confidence in the safety oftheir persons and the security of their Nation,Americans will not be able to go about doingthose ordinary things that make America anextraordinary nation.

As the Department of Justice prosecutes thewar on terror, we have committed to protect

Americans not just against unwarranted govern-mental intrusion, but also against the incapaci-tating fear that terrorists seek to engender. Toensure the safety of our citizens and the securityof our Nation, the Department has fundamen-tally redefined our mission. The enemy we con-front is a multinational network of evil that isfanatically committed to the slaughter of inno-cents. Unlike enemies that we have faced in pastwars, this one operates cravenly, in disguise. Itmay operate through so-called “sleeper” cells,sending terrorist agents into potential targetareas, where they may assume outwardly nor-mal identities, waiting months, sometimesyears, before springing into action to carry outor assist terrorist attacks.4 And unlike garden-variety criminals the Department has investi-gated and prosecuted in the past, terrorists arewilling to give up their own lives to take thelives of thousands of innocent citizens. We can-not afford to wait for them to execute theirplans; the death toll is too high; the conse-quences too great. We must neutralize terroristsbefore they strike.

To respond to this threat of terrorism, theDepartment has pursued an aggressive and sys-tematic campaign that utilizes all availableinformation, all authorized investigative tech-niques, and all legal authorities at our disposal.The overriding goal is to prevent and disrupt ter-rorist activity by questioning, investigating, andarresting those who violate the law and threatenour national security. In doing so, we take careto discharge fully our responsibility to upholdthe laws and Constitution of the United States.All investigative techniques we employ arelegally permissible under applicable constitu-tional, statutory, and regulatory standards. As thePresident and the Attorney General have statedrepeatedly, we will not permit, and we have notpermitted, our values to fall victim to the terroristattacks of September 11.

The Department of Justice has taken anumber of concrete steps to advance the goal ofincapacitating terrorists before they are able toclaim another innocent American life. First,the Department has detained a number ofpersons on immigration or federal criminalcharges. Second, in cooperation with our col-leagues in state and local law enforcement, theDepartment’s Anti-Terrorism Task Forces have


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conducted voluntary interviews of individualswho may have information relating to our inves-tigation. Third, the Bureau of Prisons haspromulgated a regulation that permits the moni-toring of communications between a limitedclass of detainees and their lawyers, after pro-viding notice to the detainees. And fourth, thePresident has exercised his congressionally del-egated authority to establish military commis-sions, which would try non-citizen terrorists foroffenses against the laws of war.

With respect to detentions, the Departmenthas taken several hundred persons into custodyin connection with our investigation of theSeptember 11 attacks. Every one of these deten-tions is consistent with established constitu-tional and statutory authority. Each of thedetainees has been charged with a violation ofeither immigration law or criminal law, or is thesubject of a material witness warrant issued by acourt. The aim of the strategy is to reduce therisk of terrorist attacks on American soil, andthe Department’s detention policy already mayhave paid dividends. These detentions may haveincapacitated an Al Qaeda sleeper cell thatwas planning to strike a target in Washington,DC—perhaps the Capitol building—soon afterSeptember 11.5

The detainees enjoy a variety of rights, bothprocedural and substantive. Each of them has theright of access to counsel. In the criminal casesand in the case of material witnesses, the person hasthe right to a lawyer at the government’s expenseif he cannot afford one. Persons detained onimmigration violations also have a right of accessto counsel, and the Immigration and NaturalizationService provides each person with informationabout available pro bono representation. Everyperson detained has access to telephones, whichthey may use to contact their family members orattorneys, during normal waking hours.

Once taken into INS custody, aliens aregiven a copy of the “Detainee Handbook,”which details their rights and responsibilities,including their living conditions, clothing,visitation, and access to legal materials. Inaddition, every alien is given a comprehensivemedical assessment, including dental and men-tal health screenings. Aliens are informed oftheir right to communicate with their nation’sconsular or diplomatic officers, and, for some

countries, the INS will notify those officials thatone of their nationals has been arrested ordetained. Finally, Immigration Judges presideover legal proceedings involving aliens, andaliens have the right to appeal any adverse deci-sion, first to the Board of Immigration Appeals,and then to the federal courts.

Second, the Department of Justice hasconducted voluntary interviews of individualswho may have information relating to terroristactivity. On November 9, the Attorney Generaldirected all United States Attorneys and membersof the joint federal and state Anti-TerrorismTask Forces, or “ATTFs,” to meet with certainnoncitizens in their jurisdictions. That same day,the Deputy Attorney General issued a memoran-dum outlining the procedures and questions to beasked during those interviews. The names ofapproximately 5,000 individuals that were sentto the ATTFs as part of this effort are those whowe believe may have information that is helpfulto the investigation or to disrupting ongoingterrorist activity. The names were compiled usingcommon-sense criteria that take into account themanner, according to our intelligence sources, inwhich Al Qaeda traditionally has operated. Thus,for example, the list includes individuals whoentered the United States with a passport from aforeign country in which Al Qaeda has operatedor recruited; who entered the United States afterJanuary 1, 2000; and who are males between theages of 18 and 33.

The President and Attorney General contin-ually have emphasized that our war on terror-ism will be fought not just by our soldiersabroad, but also by civilians here at home. TheDepartment instituted a program that wouldenable our nation’s guests to play a part in thiscampaign. Non-citizens are being asked, on apurely voluntary basis, to come forward withuseful and reliable information about personswho have committed, or who are about to com-mit, terrorist attacks. Those who do so willqualify for the Responsible CooperatorsProgram. They may receive S visas or deferredaction status that would allow them to remainin the United States for a period of time. Alienswho are granted S visas may later apply tobecome permanent residents and, ultimately,American citizens. The Responsible CooperatorsProgram enables us to extend America’s


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promise of freedom to those who help usprotect that promise.

Third, the Bureau of Prisons on October 31promulgated a regulation permitting the moni-toring of attorney-client communications invery limited circumstances. Since 1996, BOPregulations have subjected a very small groupof the most dangerous federal detainees to“special administrative measures,” if theAttorney General determines that unrestrictedcommunication with these detainees couldresult in death or serious bodily harm to others.Those measures include placing a detainee inadministrative detention, limiting or monitor-ing his correspondence and telephone calls,restricting his opportunity to receive visitors,and limiting his access to members of the newsmedia.6 The pre-existing regulations cut off allchannels of communication through whichdetainees could plan or foment acts of terror-ism, except one: communications through theirattorneys. The new regulation closes this loop-hole. It permits the monitoring of attorney-client communications for these detainees onlyif the Attorney General, after having invokedthe existing special administrative measuresauthority, makes the additional finding that rea-sonable suspicion exists to believe that a partic-ular detainee may use communications withattorneys to further or facilitate acts of terror-ism.7 Currently, only 12 of the approximately158,000 inmates in federal custody would beeligible for monitoring.

The Department has taken steps to protectthe attorney-client privilege and the detainees’Sixth Amendment right to the effective assis-tance of counsel. As an initial matter, not allcommunications between a lawyer and hisclient are protected by the attorney-client privi-lege; statements that are designed to facilitatecrimes, including acts of terrorism, are notprivileged. The “crime/fraud exception” applieseven if the attorney is not aware that he is beingused to facilitate crime,8 and even if the attorneytakes no action to assist the client.9

Moreover, the monitoring regulationincludes a number of procedural safeguardsto protect privileged communications.10 Firstand foremost, the attorney and client would begiven written advance notification that theircommunication will be monitored pursuant to

the regulation. Second, the regulation erects a“firewall” between the team monitoring thecommunications and the outside world, includ-ing persons involved with any ongoing prosecu-tion of the client. Third, absent imminentviolence or terrorism, the government wouldhave to obtain court approval before any infor-mation from monitored communications is usedfor any purpose, including for investigative pur-poses. And fourth, no privileged informationwould be retained by the monitoring team; onlyinformation that is not privileged may beretained.

Finally, the President has authorized militarycommissions to try members of Al Qaeda andother non-citizen terrorists for violations of thelaws of war. Trying terrorists before militarycommissions offers a number of practicaladvantages over ordinary civilian trials. First,commissions enable the government to protectclassified and other sensitive national securityinformation that would have to be disclosedpublicly before an Article III court. Second,ordinary criminal trials would subject court per-sonnel, jurors, and other civilians to the threat ofterrorist reprisals; the military is better suited tocoping with these dangers. And third, militarycommissions can operate with more flexiblerules of evidence, which would allow the intro-duction all relevant evidence regardless ofwhether, for example, it has been properlyauthenticated.

The Supreme Court has unanimously upheldthe constitutionality of military commissions,11

and since its founding our Nation has usedthem to try war criminals, as have our interna-tional allies. During World War II, PresidentRoosevelt ordered eight Nazi saboteurs triedby military commission. After the Civil War,a commission was used to try Confederatesympathizers who conspired to assassinatePresident Lincoln. And during the Revolution-ary War, General Washington convened a mili-tary commission to try British Major Andre asa spy. Moreover, the President’s authority toconvene military commissions is confirmed byArticle 21 of the Uniform Code of MilitaryJustice.12 In 1942, the Supreme Court inter-preted identical language, then appearing in theArticles of War, as recognizing the President’spower to try war crimes before military


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commissions.13 And America and her alliesmade liberal use of military commissions afterWorld War II to try war criminals both in theEuropean and Pacific theater.14

After September 11, Americans in theirown ways have sought answers to the seem-ingly unfathomable question: why? BecauseAmericans are somehow different from and bet-ter than the people of the world? I do not thinkso. We are the people of the world. We are not,as individuals, different from those who wouldrain terror upon us. But there is something spe-cial that defines us as Americans—the benefitsand responsibilities of living in this nation.America gives to people who come to her shoresthe freedom to achieve extraordinary things.Our uniqueness lies in our ability as ordinarypeople to do extraordinary ordinary things asAmericans. It was this foundation of freedomthat was under attack.

America’s tradition of freedom thus is not anobstacle to be overcome in our campaign to ridthe world of individuals capable of the evil wesaw on September 11. It is, rather, an integralobjective of our campaign to defend and pre-serve the security of our nation and the safety ofour citizens. Indeed, as the images of liberatedAfghan men shaving their beards and freedAfghan women shedding their burquas elo-quently testify, freedom is itself a weapon in ourwar on terror. Just as we unleash our armedforces abroad, and empower our law-enforce-ment officers here at home, America’s cam-paign against terrorism will extend freedom forour citizens, as well as for the people of theworld.

NOTES

1. Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review ofPennsylvania (1759), quoted in THE OXFORD

DICTIONARY OF POLITICAL QUOTATIONS 141 (AnthonyJay ed., 1996).

2. Abraham Lincoln, Message to Congress inSpecial Session (July 4, 1861), reprinted in 4COLLECTED WORKS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 421, 430(Roy P. Basler ed., 1953).

3. Edmund Burke, Speech at His Arrival atBristol Before the Election in That City (1774),quoted in ROBERT H. BORK, SLOUCHING TOWARDS

GOMORRAH: MODERN LIBERALISM AND AMERICAN

DECLINE 64 (1996).4. See, e.g., Karen DeYoung, “Sleeper Cells” of

Al Qaeda Are Next Target, WASH. POST, Dec. 3, 2001,at A1.

5. See Jeffrey Bartholet, Al Qaeda Runs for theHills, NEWSWEEK, Dec. 17, 2001, at 21, 23.

6. See generally 28 C.F.R. pt. 500 (2001).7. See 28 C.F.R. § 501.3(d) (2001).8. See United States v. Soudan, 812 F.2d 920,

927 (5th Cir. 1986).9. See In re Grand Jury Proceedings, 87 F.3d

377, 382 (9th Cir. 1996).10. See generally 28 C.F.R. § 501.3(d)(1), (2), (3)

(2001).11. See In re Yamashita, 327 U.S. 1 (1946); Ex

parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942).12. See 10 U.S.C. § 821 (2001).13. See Quirin, 317 U.S. at 27, 29.14. See generally DEP’T OF ARMY, PAM. 27–161–2,

INTERNATIONAL LAW, VOL. II, at 235 (1962); PHILIP R.PICCIGALLO, THE JAPANESE ON TRIAL; ALLIED WAR

CRIMES OPERATIONS IN THE EAST, 1945–1951 (1979).


REVIEW QUESTIONS

• Why was September 11, 2001 a turning point for international security policy and theory?• How did the attacks on the American homeland affect the global community?• What is the role of the United States in the new security environment? What is the role of the international

community?• In what manner has the debate about freedom and security been shaped by the new era of terrorism?• Is the new era of terrorism one of permanent domestic and international security realignment, or will this

era evolve and ultimately be supplanted by another environment?

The following books and articles are suggested for further information about understanding issuesaffecting policy and theory in the new era of terrorism:

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Books

Bergen, Peter L. Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden. New York: Free Press, 2001.Gunaratna, Rohan. Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.Howard, Russell D. and Reid L. Sawyer, eds. Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Understanding the New Security

Environment, Readings & Interpretations. Guilford, CT: McGraw-Hill/Dushkin, 2003.

Articles

Embar-Sedden, Ayn. “Cyberterrorism: Are We Under Siege?” American Behavioral Scientist. 45:6 (February2002).

Hoffman, Bruce. “Change and Continuity in Terrorism.” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism. 24:5 (September2001).

Hugo, Slim. “Why Protect Civilians? Innocence, Immunity, and Enmity in War.” International Affairs. 79:3(April 2003).

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