The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, demonstrated the need for a complete reassessment of the existing threats to international security. Writing shortly after Sept. 11, Seyla Benhabib suggested two "unprecedented aspects of our current condition": first, "the emergence of non-state agents capable of waging destruction at a level hitherto thought to be only the province of states," and second, "the emergence of a supranational ideological vision with an undefinable moral and political content, which can hardly be satisfied by ordinary political tactics and negotiations."[1] To which one could perhaps add a third: the growing potential for catastrophic violence to be inflicted instantaneously in the course of a single operation, such as through the use of weapons of mass destruction.

The combination of these three factors poses a new kind of security threat to nations such as the United States, one perhaps more severe than any to which those nations are accustomed. Yet the possibility of catastrophic terrorism also threatens the nature of the international order, giving states which are the targets of terrorism strong incentives to act outside current norms of the international system. Proposals to address terrorism through globally accepted means, such as a strengthened international law-enforcement framework or aid targeted to the "root causes" of terror, are either unlikely to succeed in the short term or unlikely to be accepted by states under threat. As a result, the potential for unilateral military action in contravention of previous norms on the use of force has greatly increased. Unless the international community is willing to revise those norms to give greater latitude to counterterrorist efforts, one can expect greater frictions within the international community to be a further consequence of the new kind of terrorism.

The change in the requirements of international security has its source in a change in the nature of terrorism. As Benhabib noted, the most striking change is the growth in power of non-state actors, some of whom (such as al Qaeda) represent transnational networks devoted to terrorism. Although the United States, Louise Richardson argues, "generally perceives international terrorism as deliberately directed by governments," much modern terrorism is the work of actors who are not under the direct control of any state.[2] Financial or logistical support for a group may purchase influence, but not control over its activities; by analogy, U.S. aid to Israel did not give it complete control over Israeli foreign policy, nor did the Afghan mujehadeen feel compelled to support U.S. initiatives after the Soviets had left. Cases of direct government control of terrorist organizations are relatively rare, and it is more common for groups to receive training, funds, and safe haven from a variety of different governments at once (often specifically to avoid such relationships of dependence.)[3] Though such patrons of terrorism may bear moral responsibility for the actions of their clients, Richardson argues, they are not responsible in any direct sense, and may not have had prior knowledge of an attack even if they welcome it.[4]

More concerningly, terrorist networks are emerging which operate almost entirely on "private" funding and organization. The al Qaeda network relies on modern communications technology to coordinate a vast array of non-hierarchical cells, setting its own agenda and raising its own funds. Osama bin Laden, for example, possesses a vast personal fortune and has been reported to own or control some 80 companies worldwide, including much of the economic production of the Sudan.[5] Ian Lesser notes that terrorist groups have increasingly sought to raise funds through criminal activity, such as the drug trade; links between transnational terrorist groups and transnational criminal organizations, especially given the "enormous sums of money involved," can "facilitate acts that would be difficult for politically motivated terrorist groups to undertake--and pay for--on their own."[6] Al Qaeda's sophisticated organization and independent funding has enabled it to act as a significant player on an international scene previously dominated by sovereign states.

Along with a change in the nature of terrorist actors, the past decade has seen a change in the basic goals of terror. According to Jonathan Stevens, terrorism had traditionally been used selectively, "as a means of getting a place at a negotiating table to achieve nationalistic, ethnic or ideological ends that are geographically circumscribed."[7] Actors in domestic conflicts who faced a superior foe or lacked mass support--either because the general population disagreed with their goals, or because the regime repressed nonviolent organizing efforts--may have felt compelled to adopt extrapolitical tactics, of which terrorism is one. Thus, Martha Crenshaw argues, terrorist activity is not "inexplicable," but may be a "calculated response to circumstances."[8]

This traditional framework, however, in which terrorists sought to influence government officials with regard to narrow national or local goals, no longer serves to explain major acts of terrorism such as the Sept. 11 attacks. No demands were issued before or after the attacks, and al Qaeda did not even take responsibility for the attacks until long after they had occurred. Statements later attributed to Osama bin Laden explaining the goals of the attack address concerns as various as U.S. support for Israel, the absence of Islamic sharia law, the legality of gambling, and President Clinton's dalliance with Monica Lewinsky.[9]

The Sept. 11 attacks call for the application of a rather different framework, one that in fact had been in evidence long before 2001. In 1996, Caleb Carr argued that "we live now in a world in which terrorist acts are often not linked to specific demands, a world in which many powerful terrorist groups consider themselves at war with the United States and have no goal more specific than America's destruction."[10] Three years later, John Arquilla and others suggested a shift from a paradigm of "coercive diplomacy," in which terrorist groups sought to persuade governments to undertake specific actions, to a "war paradigm," which "makes no specific call for concessions" and instead seeks to "inflict damage, in the context of what the terrorists view as an ongoing war."[11] RAND analyst Bruce Hoffman notes the "re-emergence of terrorism motivated by a religious imperative, where the justifications and the legitimatization of violence are different from secular terrorism," supporting a more lethal and less tactical approach to operations.[12]

The new "war paradigm," together with the shift from state-sponsored to "private" terrorist organizations, has reduced the effectiveness of traditional foreign-policy strategies of deterrence.[13] Unlike state armies, Bruce Hoffman writes, terrorists "do not function in the open as armed units, generally do not attempt to seize or hold territory, . . . and rarely exercise any direct control or sovereignty either over territory or population."[14] Unlike states, therefore, they do not have alternative values (such as retaining their sovereignty in a given territory) for which they might be willing to relinquish violence. Non-state actors, notes Paul Pillar, "have no constituent populations to abhor their methods and no fixed assets to be the target of retaliation," and are thus far less likely to suffer the consequences of their own violence.[15] Lesser argues that the emergence of transnational non-state actors, along with "private" sponsorship and funding of terrorism, requires a policy of "personalized" deterrence, which targets "individuals and networks rather than states and hierarchical terrorist organizations.[16] However, such an approach requires significant improvements in intelligence capabilities, especially when the individuals and networks involved are capable of blending into civil society.[17]

Moreover, the change in the motives of terrorism--from achieving narrowly focused local goals to the realization of a universal religious or ideological worldview--brings into question whether terrorist groups will be motivated by a rational calculation of costs and benefits. Unlike past military conflicts, in which both sides faced "a status quo, risk-averse adversary against whom deterrence might work," many states now have "gamblers for enemies," agents who "embrace martyrdom" and for whom "wanton destruction and the targeting of innocents" has become "an end in itself.[18] It is not clear how individuals motivated by an apocalyptic religious vision can be effectively deterred, Al Qaeda has boasted of its "thousands more young followers who look forward to death like Americans look forward to living,"[19] and bin Laden's alleged statement of Nov. 24, 2002 invoked "the Nation that desires death more than you desire life."[20] This change in motives led the 2002 U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS) to argue that "traditional concepts of deterrence will not work against a terrorist enemy whose avowed tactics are wanton destruction and the targeting of innocents; whose so-called soldiers seek martyrdom in death and whose most potent protection is statelessness."[21]

The danger posed by the new terrorism, organized by transnational groups and motivated by an all-encompassing ideology, is significant. As each new attack occurs, Crenshaw writes, terrorist methods are refined, as media exposure and "learn[ing] from the experience of others" leads to a "contagion in terrorist incidents."[22] Moreover, the advance of technology and the increasing ease of obtaining weapons of mass destruction means that the threat is different in kind from that posed by the 'old' terrorism. Terrorist groups whose explicit aim is the deaths of civilians may "prefer weapons of mass destruction--weapons that can be easily concealed, delivered covertly, and used without warning."[23] According to intelligence discovered in Afghanistan, al Qaeda was "working to acquire some of the most dangerous chemical agents and toxins, . . . pursuing a sophisticated biological weapons research program, . . . seeking to acquire or develop a nuclear device, . . . and may be pursuing a radioactive dispersal device."[24] Given the immense damage al Qaeda has inflicted using only flight training and boxcutters, the consequences of an attack involving WMD on a liberal society could be truly catastrophic.[25] Moreover, Ellis claims, the current international counterproliferation regime has demonstrated its "failure to prevent determined states from developing [WMD] as well as increasingly capable missile and related delivery systems." South Africa had produced six nuclear weapons while still adhering to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT); the nuclear programs of North Korea and pre-1991 Iraq were also well advanced, and other sources of weaponry (such as ex-Soviet "loose nukes") may be available to enterprising terrorists.

Yet even if terrorist groups fail to obtain WMD, Hoffman notes, there remain "immense concerns that fit uncomfortably with the capabilities found across the terrorist technological spectrum." The fears are not only of mass casualties via the use of WMD or the targeting of crucial infrastructure, but also of "more prosaic" incidents such as suicide bombings, attacks on kindergartens and primary schools, or the assassination of mid-range political figures--attacks which would not cause extensive loss of life but would still have "profound, far-reaching psychological repercussions." As counterterror measures improve, terrorist groups will be forced to adapt and will continue low-level attacks "mostly against accessible, soft targets" which are difficult to defend--yet which would have severe consequences for the targeted society.[26]

Given the dangers future attacks might pose, the response of the U.S. and other countries to the Sept. 11 attacks has understandably focused on efforts to prevent major terrorist operations before they occur. Because terrorist tactics make it "all but impossible to detect an action until it is well underway or even finished," writes Anthony Clark Arend," preserving a state's right to effective self-defense may require it to target "known WMD facilities or known terrorist camps or training areas long in advance of an imminent attack."[27] Moreover, Lesser holds, a devastating terrorist use of WMD "would transform security perceptions and strategic reality everywhere"; the costs of even a single attack are high enough to require action.[28]

This reasoning has not gone unnoticed by the U.S. security community; Ellis argues that "effectively defending U.S. national security" requires that the U.S. "act offensively today to preclude the development and delivery of graver threats down the line," and Freedman considers it no surprise that the U.S. and its allies "see no reason to wait for problems to develop and wish to tackle them before they reach a critical stage."[29] The NSS states openly that the U.S. "can no longer solely rely on a reactive posture"; given the "inability to deter a potential attacker, the immediacy of [the] threats, and the magnitude of potential harm . . . [w]e cannot let our enemies strike first."[30] The U.S. policy is therefore to "act preemptively," taking "anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack."[31] Indeed, Carr urges an even more expansive policy of regularly attacking the conventional forces of states that knowingly harbor terrorist groups.[32]

The natural incentives that might lead a targeted power such as the U.S. to act preventively, however, also might lead it to undermine accepted norms of the international system that strongly discourage cross-border military action. Although international law recognizes a right to self-defense, Article 51 of the U.N. Charter has often been interpreted as restricting self-defense to cases where an armed attack has already occurred. Moreover, any evidence of a future terrorist attack--which will generally be murky and uncertain--is unlikely to meet the famous condition set out by Daniel Webster in the Caroline incident of 1837, that there "must be a necessity of self-defense, instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation."[33]

The concern is that a nation that considers terrorism to be a significant danger, and that believes itself powerful enough to act preventively against terrorists or terrorist-harboring states, will find such standards outdated and inapplicable to the current threat. As Arend writes, the U.N. Charter was in many ways a "pre-atomic" document, and its provisions were fashioned before states recognized the possibility of the instant and overwhelming use of force.[34] Moreover, Walter Slocombe notes, effective action to eliminate the WMD capability of a rogue state may become impossible once that capability has been achieved. "If waiting for 'imminence' means waiting until it is no longer possible to act effectively," he argues, "the victim is left no alternative to suffering the first blow"--a consequence that may be catastrophic.[35] Unfortunately, Arend points out, no "clear legal standard" has yet been established to determine when preventive force is permissible to prevent terrorist attacks or the use of WMD, and such a standard seems unlikely to emerge in the current international framework.[36]

In contrast to such preventive force, a number of commentators have suggested the subjection of counterterrorist efforts to international norms, through the adoption of an alternative, "internationalist" framework. Such a framework would condition cross-border action against terrorism on some form of multilateral approval, often setting it in a context of law enforcement rather than military action. Mary Kaldor argues that a "humanitarian approach" would have "defined September 11 as a crime against humanity," rather than an attack on a single nation.[37] Kaldor analogizes terrorist attacks to "new wars," in which the major participants are non-state actors and "the various parties do not accept the rules."[38] The goal of interventions, she argues, must be to "persuade ordinary people of the advantages of rules so as to isolate and marginalize those who break them."[39] Her goal is to create an international analogy to the domestic legitimacy enjoyed by states, enacting "a legitimate set of global rules" and erecting "a humanitarian regime that takes ultimate responsibility for the protection of individuals and for upholding international law."[40]

This analogy to domestic law enforcement has been suggested by a number of authors. David Held writes of the need to establish and extend "the rule of law in place of war" and to foster "understanding between communities in place of terror."[41] Terrorists "must be treated as criminals, and not glamorized as military adversaries"; military action "should always be understood as a robust form of policing, above all as a way of protecting civilians and bringing criminals to trial."[42] Indeed, Imran Khan argues for "a fully empowered and credible world criminal court to define terrorism and dispense justice with impartiality," and holds that "the world is heading towards disaster if the sole superpower behaves as judge, jury and executioner when dealing with global terrorism."[43] While stopping short of calling for an international criminal court, Gu Guoliang retains the language of law enforcement in describing the role of the U.N. in the international system: "No country is entitled to deprive the UN of its right to judge whether or not a war is justified . . . . Otherwise, any single nation may become the judge and jury of international law."[44]

Such arguments, however, may be less than convincing to those states that consider their security in danger--who may find more persuasive the argument of Michael Walzer, that analogies with the rule of law in the domestic context are inapposite.[45] In the domestic context, Walzer notes, the use of violence without legal sanction is prohibited, in part because political conflicts in democratic states "can be fought to their conclusion with the guarantee that losing won't mean massacre or imprisonment." In the international sphere, however, "no member state can be sure, if it loses out in the 'democratic' decision process, that nothing absolutely awful will happen to it or to its friends and allies." Because the international community cannot guarantee safety with the same credibility as a strong domestic government, individual states retain a right--indeed, Walzer would claim, an obligation--in certain circumstances to use force unilaterally, regardless of the opinions of their fellows. Whatever one makes of the normative strength of this argument, its logic will be compelling to a state that considers its vital interests to be threatened by the new terrorism and that has the power to intervene.[46]

Moreover, there are several reasons why a multilateral process for assessing and responding to terrorist threats is no less a recipe for interstate friction. First, the facts of each case will always be in dispute, even well-intentioned states could disagree as to the nature or extent of a terrorist threat, and some of the parties (including those states which sponsor or harbor terrorist groups) will have strong incentives to deny even facts for which there is strong evidence. Such evidence may not always be available; Lesser writes that "as terrorism becomes more diffuse and its sponsorship increasingly hazy, finding the 'smoking gun' will become more difficult," even though such a 'smoking gun' may be the only means of establishing international consensus.[47] Philip Heymann notes that "even if the United States located and captured terrorist leaders, it would remain difficult to try them and prove personal guilt beyond a reasonable doubt"; how much more so would it be in an international court, where nations may be disinclined to give the benefit of the doubt to the intelligence services of the great powers.[48]

The same difficulty would arise in cases where states are accused of harboring terrorists. Some states, Heymann writes, "will lack the competence to really help," and others will make efforts "too half-hearted to be effective but real enough to be indistinguishable from . . . incompetence." And there is little that any nation can do "when a state, where terrorists may be planning attacks, plausibly claims that it cannot find them."[49] In cases like Afghanistan and Sudan, Lesser notes, "state behavior may constitute a gray area, with tolerance for terrorist activity short of outright sponsorship."[50] Targeted states may feel a need to engage in the "extraterritorial apprehension of terrorist suspects . . . with or without the cooperation of host countries."[51] Such ambiguities make disagreements over the nature of the threat only more likely, and will give individual states even greater incentives to act on their own intelligence and without regard to international process.

Second, an international process may also fail due to the sensitive nature of intelligence-gathering, which implies that states targeted by terrorism may be highly reluctant to present their evidence for terrorist activity in any international forum. Technological capabilities and human intelligence assets could face a significant risk of exposure. Terrorist groups have become expert at determining the "sources and methods" of intelligence gathering; the German Red Army Faction, Hoffman points out, "routinely studied court documents and transcripts of proceedings to gain insight into the measures employed by the authorities." Once they had learned of these techniques--"often from testimony presented by law enforcement personnel in open court (in some instances having been deliberately questioned on these matters by sympathetic attorneys)"--the group was able to "undertake the requisite countermeasures to avoid detection."[52] If an international court is intended to secure popular legitimacy for anti-terrorist action, it may be necessary for its proceedings to be conducted in public, and for the public to feel confident that the evidence presented supports the verdict. However, the targeted states would have strong incentives not to make their best evidence public, or even to reveal it in a private forum in which the information could later be accessed by terrorist-sponsoring states (such as Syria, currently a member of the U.N. Security Council).

Third, an international process may create conflicts over priorities and prosecutorial resources. To Kaldor, to achieve global legitimacy, a judicial approach "would also have to eschew double standards. Catching Mladic and Karadic, the perpetrators of the Srebrenica massacre, is just as important as catching bin Laden."[53] There ought to be little wonder if such an approach were unpopular in the United States, since the threat to global security posed by Mladic (who no longer retains significant capacity to create disorder and whose influence was restricted to a single province of the former Yugoslavia) differs by orders of magnitude from that posed by bin Laden and his network.[54]

Fourth, how would an international process enforce its judgments? In the case of Afghanistan, for instance, it is unlikely that a more international approach would have persuaded the Taliban government to extradite bin Laden and all of his associates without the threat or use of force. Yet if a summons from an international court may be enforced through military action, the members of the court will face not only the apolitical decision of whether terrorist activity has occurred but also the highly political decision of whether to license the use of force against it.[55] This approach raises the traditional problems of collective security, in which states may have individual incentives not to enforce agreements of which they collectively approve. If the record of collective security in the humanitarian interventions of the 1990s is mixed (itself a rather charitable judgment), how much trust will be placed in the system when the essential security needs of major powers are at stake?

Fifth, the nature of the terrorist threat may cause targeted states to reject even milder constraints on their actions. Arend urges that "the use of preemptive force should be undertaken in the absence of imminence only with the approval of the Security Council," on the grounds that "such a policy would ensure multilateral support for such action and would likely prevent the opening of the flood gates to unilateral preemptive action by other states."[56] Yet if Security Council members disagree on the threat posed by a given terrorist organization, or if they actively desire to constrain another state's freedom of action (e.g., France's open pursuit of a more "multipolar" world), this U.N. approval may be withheld. A system that conditions action on multilateral approval may, if such approval is not generously granted, give a targeted state strong incentives to disregard the system entirely rather than be bound by a legal framework that cannot provide for its essential security; states may be unwilling to relinquish the use of force even after losing their case. The tension between India and Pakistan over the latter's alleged harboring of terrorists will not go away if an international forum holds Pakistan blameless, so long as the attacks continue. Terrorist groups are highly adept at taking advantage of cracks in the system, and the norm of non-intervention (coupled with plausible deniability for the host state) constitutes such a crack.

Finally, even assuming that such an international system could reduce friction among friendly nations over counterterrorist actions, it is not at all clear that the system would in fact secure the legitimacy necessary to avoiding future terrorist attacks. As Walter Laqueur notes, most terrorists believe that they are "fighters in a just war," who consider themselves "entitled to ignore the tenets of international law" (such as the protection of innocents) when doing so interferes with the achievement of their goals. If terrorist recruits view international law as "merely an invention of the imperialist West" or "of the exploiting classes," or if they believe that "it does not apply to the treatment of infidels or to those who belong to another class, people, or religion," strict adherence to it by targeted states will not create a perception of legitimacy.[57]

Even if no appropriate framework for the use of force in counterterrorist efforts can be found, some authors claim that it can largely be avoided by addressing the root causes and underlying incentives that lead to terror; in such a context, the use of force may in fact be unnecessary or counterproductive. Kaldor characterizes the fight against terrorism as one in which "no military victory is possible"; she therefore argues that an "alternative political narrative, based on the idea of global justice, is the only way to minimise the exclusive political appeal of the [terrorist] networks."[58] Indeed, RAND analysts Kim Crogin and Peter Chalk have examined the counterterrorist impacts of economic development programs in Israel, the Philippines, and Northern Ireland. They conclude that development policies "can contribute to the expansion of a new middle class in communities that have traditionally lent support to terrorist groups," thus convincing individuals of the "economic benefits of peace" and "inhibit[ing] local support for terrorist activities."[59] Such policies can reduce the perceived grievances of terrorist recruits as well as providing economic alternatives to terrorist activity, so long as they are framed "within a strategic political and military framework that goes beyond simply distributing aid."[60]

However, attention to economic factors cannot be a panacea. Although inductees are often attracted by "the financial opportunities . . . provided by terrorist organizations," Crogin and Chalk find that "terrorists can just as easily come from the middle or upper classes as from the poorer sections of society."[61] Lesser adds that "the connection among economic deprivation, political frustration, and terrorism is not clear or direct," and no clear-cut relationship has been established between terrorism and "poverty, scarcity, inflation, or any other socioeconomic indicator."[62] To I. William Zartman, the "perverse effects of globalization, poverty, weakness in international politics, and defeat at the hands of the infidels are perhaps sad aspects of an imperfect world, but they are unlikely to be removed this side of Heaven," and their removal should not be taken as a precondition for the elimination of networks such as al Qaeda.[63]

A more effective approach may be political reform. Lesser argues that states threatened by terrorism have "a stake in prompting political and economic reform as a means of reducing the potential for terrorism," especially in Latin America, the Middle East, and the Gulf states, and calls for a policy to shrink "zones of chaos" (such as Afghanistan, Sudan, and Lebanon) that can serve as terrorist sanctuaries.[64] Zartman claims that al Qaeda is "a movement looking for external causes" when its recruits' "domestic effectiveness is blocked"; the rise of political Islamic movements, he writes, "has been a reaction to the state's shutting out all other channels for political expression."[65] A new political openness may reduce the energy of extremist movements and allow societies to pursue non-violent goals. Yet strategies of political reform, Lesser notes, are "by their very nature longer-term instruments"; measures will need to be taken in the short and medium terms as well, and these measures may well undermine international order.[66]

Similar concerns are raised by attempts to reduce the incentives to acquire WMD. Gu argues that "it is essential to address the root causes of WMD proliferation," holding that "nations' incentives to acquire, distribute, and use WMD must be eliminated." Such an elimination would require the creation and maintenance of "a stable international order in which people of all nations can live free from the kinds of poverty, disparity, discrimination, and resentment that so often yields terrorist activity and the pursuit of WMD proliferation," as well as "a credible guarantee of security [for] those countries that have given up their aspirations to acquire WMD." Yet such an order, to borrow Zartman's phrase, seems unlikely to be realized this side of Heaven, and the dangers posed by WMD proliferation will surface in the very near term. Moreover, it will be difficult to guarantee security to certain states without compromising other goals of the international community, such as the possibility of humanitarian intervention or the ability to respond to other provocations (such as the sponsorship of terror). If Serbia had been a nuclear power, surely the intervention in Kosovo would not have occurred. Such calculations cannot be absent from the minds of leaders who maintain their power through the systematic deprivation of their citizens' human rights. States may even still choose to retain WMD even once they have received assurances of security; North Korea, for example, might find nuclear saber-rattling to be in its economic interest, even if its physical security were well provided for, and an Iraq eyeing the oil riches of Kuwait might desire a nuclear security guarantee of its own.

Thus, the prospects for refraining from the use of force in combating terrorism appear to be slim. Addressing the "root causes," even if effective, can only be a long-term strategy, and the nature of the threat is such as to goad states into action in the short and medium terms. Moreover, because of the possibility of catastrophic attack and because of the necessarily ambiguous nature of the evidence, states which consider themselves strong enough to act against terrorists on their own will have strong incentives to act outside any international framework that could constrain their counterterrorist efforts. Unless the international community is willing to give a generous license for the use of force to states targeted by terrorism, it appears unlikely that counterterrorist efforts will remain consistent with current norms of international order.

This is not a conclusion that should inspire much satisfaction. Although the targeted states may be justified in claiming a right to act independently, the inevitable frictions that will arise among allies will complicate counterterrorist efforts and reduce their effectiveness. As Lesser notes, "mutilateral coordination will become essential" to efforts to apprehend suspects and prevent terrorist attacks.[67] Heymann adds that it is "critical" for the United States and other nations to convince hostile publics that they do not want to be an enemy--not because such efforts "are likely to reduce the number of potential terrorists to a safe number, but because they are likely to make it possible for a friendly state to do that."[68] The frictions and conflicts that will result in the future may well be a direct consequence of the choice of terrorists to violate international norms on the use of force, concealing their identities within civilian populations and specifically targeting non-combatants. Yet the fact that moral blame lies elsewhere does not diminish the responsibility of responsible nations to work productively to minimize the terrorist threat.

[1] Seyla Benhabib, "Unholy Politics," Social Science Research Council (November 2001), http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/benhabib.htm.

[2] Louise Richardson, "Global Rebels," Harvard International Review 20:4 (Fall 1998).

[3] One example of the former category, Richardson claims, is the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine--General Command, which depends almost exclusively on Syria for financial and logistical support and maintains a headquarters in Damascus. In the latter category she puts Hamas, which she describes as balancing funding from Iran with support from Palestinian expatriates and private individuals in other Arab states. Groups may even accept help from nations that are theoretically their "sworn enemies"; Richardson writes that Syria, Iran, and Iraq have all contributed to the efforts of the Kurdistan Workers' Party to destabilize Turkey.

[4] Richardson also identifies the possibility of even looser relationships between states and terrorist groups, such as where a state offers support to a group due to a temporary confluence of interests. Libya's support for the IRA was not based in an ideological commitment to the unification of Ireland, but rather a desire to punish Britain for its support of the bombing of Tripoli.

[5] Bruce Hoffman, "Al Qaeda, Trends in Terrorism, and Future Potentialities: An Assessment," RAND Corporation Pub. P-8078 (http://www.rand.org/publications/P/P8078/P8078.pdf, 2003), p. 9 ("In the Sudan alone, according to Peter Bergen, he owned all of that country's most profitable businesses, including construction, manufacturing, currency trading, import-export, and agricultural enterprises").

[6] Ian O. Lesser, "Implications for Strategy," Countering the New Terrorism (Ian O. Lesser et al. ed., 1999), p. 107.

[7] Jonathan Stevens, "The Two Terrorisms," New York Times (Dec. 2, 2003), http://nytimes.com/2003/12/02/opinion/02STEV.html.

[8] Martha Crenshaw, "The Logic of Terrorism: Terrorist Behavior as a Product of Strategic Choice," Origins of Terrorism (Walter Reich ed., Woodrow Wilson Ctr. Series, 1990), pp. 10-11. Crenshaw's portrayal has a clear domestic focus: "By spreading insecurity--at the extreme, making the country ungovernable--the organization hopes to pressure the regime into concessions or relaxation of coercive controls" (p. 19).

[9] "Bin Laden's 'Letter to America," The Observer, Nov. 24, 2002, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/worldview/story/0,11581,845725,00.html.

[10] Caleb Carr, "Terrorism as Warfare," World Policy Journal 13:4 (Winter 1996-97).

[11] John Arquilla, David Ronfeldt, and Michele Zanini, "Networks, Netwar, and Information-Age Terrorism," Countering the New Terrorism (Ian O. Lesser et al. ed., 1999), pp. 68-69. In fact, the new paradigm may be chasing out the old: as Stevens writes, traditional terrorist groups such as the E.T.A. and the Tamil Tigers "have been compelled to distance themselves from al Qaeda and its affiliates by refraining, in at least some measure, from violence. This development has given the governments they oppose an opening to resolve conflicts."

[12] "RAND's Bruce Hoffman on the Implications of a Post-9/11 World," Foresight 9:3 (2002), http://www.kltprc.net/foresight/Chpt_61.htm.

[13] See Lesser, p. 141 ("Much counterterrorism experience is losing its relevance in light of the 'new' terrorism").

[14] Bruce Hoffman, "Defining Terrorism," Terrorism and Counterterrorism (Russell Howard and Reid Sawyer eds., 2002, http://www.mhhe.com/terrorism/chapter1.pdf), pp. 21-22.

[15] Paul R. Pillar, "The Dimensions of Terrorism and Counterterrorism" (2001), Terrorism and Counterterrorism (Russell Howard and Reid Sawyer eds., 2002, http://www.mhhe.com/terrorism/chapter1.pdf), p. 30.

[16] Lesser, p. 130.

[17] The failure of deterrence may even extend to unconventional attacks by other states delivered via transnational terrorist groups. According to Hoffman, "the lesson of Iraq's overt invasion of Kuwait," immediately punished by a U.N.-approved coalition, "suggests that future aggressors may prefer to accomplish their objectives clandestinely with a handful of terrorist surrogates." Such an approach would help protect the sponsor state from retaliation, and might be far more cost-effective as compared to conventional warfare (especially against an adversary as powerful as the U.S.). (Bruce Hoffman, "Terrorism Trends and Prospects," Countering the New Terrorism (Ian O. Lesser et al. ed., 1999), p. 15.) The experience of India, which has been targeted repeatedly by terrorist groups operating out of Pakistan, is instructive in this regard: the Pakistani government has always denied knowledge of the terrorist groups' actions, and because it is difficult for the Indian government to determine the truth in any particular case, the credibility of retaliatory threats is reduced.

[18] Lawrence Freedman, "Prevention, Not Preemption," Washington Quarterly 26:2 (Spring 2003), p. 105ff.

[19] Hoffman, "Al Qaeda," p. 10.

[20] "Bin Laden's 'Letter to America."

[21] U.S. National Security Strategy 2002, Chapter 5, http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss5.html.

[22] Crenshaw, p. 11. Even such long-established tools as diplomatic kidnappings and hijacking of airplanes are both "essentially new," having largely been developed "as a systematic and lethal form of coercive bargaining" in the late 1960s (p. 15).

[23] Freedman, "Prevention, Not Preemption."

[24] Jason D. Ellis, "The Best Defense: Counterproliferation and U.S. National Security," Washington Quarterly 26:2 (Spring 2003), p. 115ff.

[25] Pillar, however, argues that the risk of terrorism using WMD is smaller than normally thought. The large and well-organized groups with the best chance of obtaining WMD, he writes, are also the groups that "have the most to lose by outraging their constituencies or inviting forceful retaliation," and so "are most likely to be deterred from using such a capability." Thus, the "actual threat" of WMD terrorism "has probably risen somewhat over the last few years but is much less than the alarmist treatment of the subject in the United States would lead one to believe" (p. 31). Yet it is difficult to believe that a WMD attack by al Qaeda or a similar group would "outrag[e] their constituencies," rather than function as a PR coup and a recruiting tool, and the opportunities for retaliation may be limited.

[26] Hoffman, "Al Qaeda," pp. 13, 15-16.

[27] Anthony Clark Arend, "International Law and the Preemptive Use of Military Force," Washington Quarterly 26:2 (Spring 2003), p. 89ff.

[28] Lesser, p. 132.

[29] Ellis, "The Best Defense"; Freedman, "Prevention, Not Preemption."

[30] NSS, Chapter 5.

[31] NSS, Chapter 5. Freedman argues that the more appropriate phrase would be "act preventively."

[32] "If America were to announce that the conventional military forces of states that sponsor terrorism were to be held accountable for the actions of those terrorist groups," he argues, ". . . we may be sure that a host of such groups would suddenly be looking for new homes." Because states have interests in maintaining their sovereignty that might come before the sponsorship of terror, self-interest would lead them to reduce their participation, and terrorist groups "would be forced to scurry from nation to nation seeking safe havens" (Carr, "Terrorism as Warfare").

[33] Gu Guoliang, "Redefine Cooperative Security, Not Preemption," Washington Quarterly 26:2 (Spring 2003), p. 135ff.

[34] Arend, "International Law."

[35] Walter B. Slocombe, "Force, Pre-emption and Legitimacy," Survival 45:1 (Spring 2003). While Slocombe recognizes the theoretical justification for preventive use of force, he notes that it is difficult to apply this reasoning in practice; in the cases of both Iraq and North Korea, intelligence on their weapons programs was sufficiently limited as to make it impossible to prevent with certainty any pursuit of WMD.

[36] Arend, "International Law."

[37] Mary Kaldor, "Beyond Militarism, Arms Races and Arms Control," Social Science Research Council (December 2001, http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/kaldor.htm).

[38] Kaldor, "Beyond Militarism"; Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era (2nd ed., 2001), p. 128. Kaldor views such wars as focused on local conflicts based on ethnic or religious divisions, as in Central Africa and the former Yugoslavia. They are fought, not by states, but by sub-state actors in areas where state authority has broken down--including "paramilitary units, local warlords, criminal gangs, police forces, mercenary groups, and . . . breakaway units of regular armies." (Kaldor, New & Old Wars, p. 8).

[39] Kaldor, New & Old Wars, p. 128.

[40] Kaldor, "Beyond Militarism."

[41] David Held, "Violence, Law, and Justice in a Global Age," Constellations 9:1 (2002), p. 82.

[42] Held, p. 82.

[43] Quoted in Held, p. 82.

[44] Gu, "Cooperative Security."

[45] Michael Walzer, "Lone Ranger," The New Republic (April 27, 1998), p. 11ff.

[46] Indeed, Walzer points out, the incentives to do so will be especially strong when the conflicts concern possession of WMD, "which are developed in secret, and which might be used suddenly, without warning, with catastrophic results."

[47] Lesser, p. 137.

[48] Philip B. Heymann, "Dealing with Terrorism," International Security 36:2 (Winter 2001-02), p. 34.

[49] Heymann, pp. 34-35.

[50] Lesser, p. 130.

[51] Lesser, p. 131. For instance, in November 2002, the U.S. used a UAV drone to attack a car containing suspected al Qaeda members in Yemen. In this case, it had the permission of the Yemeni government to act (ABCNews.com, "U.S. Predator Kills Six Al Qaeda Suspects," Nov. 5, 2002, http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/
DailyNews/yemen021105.html.). But there are likely to be many cases (such as the 1998 cruise missile attacks on Afghanistan) where such permission has not been and would not be granted. The forcible apprehension or incapacitation of terrorist suspects abroad may not threaten international order in the case of the U.S. and Afghanistan, because the latter is too weak to respond in a meaningful way; however, it could create severe difficulties between relatively equal powers such as India and Pakistan, which may not take kindly to the capture or killing of Pakistani nationals who are accused of transnational terrorist activity.

[52] Hoffman, "Terrorism Trends," p. 25.

[53] Kaldor, "Beyond Militarism."

[54] Kaldor's argument is not helped by her contention that a humanitarian approach "would have sought United Nations authorisation" for any action in Afghanistan and would have "put pressure on terrorist networks through squeezing financial assets," both of which were actually pursued by the Bush Administration after Sept. 11 through UNSCR 1373, among others.

[55] For instance, in late 2002 it was uncontested among Security Council members that Iraq had been in material breach of its obligations under past U.N. resolutions; where the Council disagreed was on the appropriate remedy.

[56] Arend, "International Law."

[57] Walter Laqueur, "Terror's New Face," Harvard International Review 20:4 (Fall 1998).

[58] Kaldor, "Beyond Militarism."

[59] Kim Crogin and Peter Chalk, Terrorism & Development: Using Social and Economic Development to Inhibit a Resurgence of Terrorism, RAND Corporation (2003), p. x.

[60] Crogin and Chalk, p. xiv.

[61] Crogin and Chalk, p. x-xi.

[62] Lesser, p. 104.

[63] I. William Zartman, "The Attack on Humanity: Conflict and Management," Social Science Research Council (http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/zartman.htm).

[64] Lesser, pp. 128, 134.

[65] Zartman, "The Attack on Humanity."

[66] Lesser, p. 128.

[67] Lesser, pp. 135-36.

[68] Heymann, p. 27.