CMEPP Events: 2002

GCSP/RAND Terrorism Workshop Examines Asymmetric Conflict in Southwest Asia

In the past few years, Southwest Asia, a region that stretches from the Gulf to Afghanistan and Pakistan, has become a locus of violent extremist groups like the Al Qaeda network. Since September 11th, the area has also become a primary focal point of the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism. RAND's Center for Middle East Public Policy and the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), an international foundation that organizes conferences and training seminars in international security studies, co-sponsored their third conference on June 23-25, 2002. GCSP Director of Research Shahram Chubin and CMEPP Director Jerry Green jointly organized what has become an annual meeting. This year's event focused on terrorism and asymmetric conflict in Southwest Asia.

The meeting began with a keynote dinner address on June 23rd by David Gompert, President of RAND Europe, on "The United States and Europe in the World after September 11th." Gompert noted that unlike U.S. military intervention in Europe and East Asia after World War II, military intervention in Southwest Asia is costly and has failed to stabilize the area in the long-term or promote democracy and economic growth. Some workshop participants argued that the region is more stable than Gompert portrayed it but that it is not yet ripe for Western-style democracy.

Workshop discussions began the following day. The first one examined military lessons learned in Afghanistan, a topic examined in a provocative paper presented by participant Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington. The recent transformation of the U.S. military into a more network-centric organization -- with its combined integrated air support, intelligence and surveillance capabilities, and special forces -- became apparent in the Afghani theater. This transformation arguably allowed U.S. forces to operate more effectively than their U.K. counterparts that joined the campaign there. Discussants explored future coalition approaches that would allow the United States to integrate European forces into its network-centric system, given certain gaps in technological and warfighting capabilities and differing approaches to military operations. Participants pointed out that certain challenges that could have bogged down the U.S. military in Afghanistan, such as offensive chemical and biological warfare and urban operations, never materialized; thus, it might be unreasonable to extrapolate the quick victory in Afghanistan to future battles against dispersed, urbanized terrorist organizations in other areas of Southwest Asia.

Bruce Hoffman, Director of RAND's Washington Office and a leading terrorism expert, discussed "Re-thinking Terrorism and Counterterrorism since 9/11." The new forms of terrorism that are currently emerging, Hoffman argued, require a rethinking of how we deter, protect against, and react to the phenomenon itself. For example, loose terrorist cells scattered around the world, plotting to wreak havoc, present a global threat; no nation is immune. Therefore, a regionalized approach to security no longer works, and security efforts must also be globalized.

It is also important to be able to defend against conventional attacks, like cruise missiles, as well as unconventional ones, such as the anthrax-filled letters that were sent to certain members of the U.S. Congress and media after September 11th. While much attention has been given to Islamic extremist groups, some participants expressed the view that religion is less a motive for terrorism than a communicative tool used by terrorist leaders who politicize it to tap into a wellspring of resentment felt by their recruits.

Mustafa Alani, Associate Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies (RUSI) turned workshop participants to the subject of regional perspectives on potential U.S. military action against Iraq. There was general agreement that Iraq's neighbors were unlikely to support a war to remove Saddam Hussein's regime and that, for now, the only credible strategy to replace Saddam would be to foment a coup by Republican Guard units.

The final topic of discussion, led by Thérèse Delpech, Directeur chargé de la Prospective at CEA in Paris, examined the European perspective on "Euro-Atlantic Relations in the Gulf." While the United States and Europe have similar core interests in Southwest Asia, there is a growing rift between the two sides of the Atlantic on many geopolitical issues -- such as the United States' withdrawal from the ABM Treaty and the International Criminal Court treaties, U.S.-imposed tariffs on imported European steel, and controversy surrounding the latest U.S. Nuclear Posture Review -- that will affect potential U.S.-European collaboration on regional problems.

In addition, Europe and the United States take different approaches to terrorism, a threat that both face. Europeans lean toward maintaining and strengthening international legal safeguards against terror, while the United States has taken a more militaristic approach to confronting the threat. Civil defense, including detection and contingency planning against unconventional threats such as terrorism, is one area where a closer relationship between the United States and Europe could reap dividends.

Participants also discussed the various challenges the United States and Europe face in the region, such as how to improve failing or failed states that destabilize it. There was considerable discussion, but limited agreement, on the need to encourage "democratization" for stabilization purposes in the longer term.

Andrew Rathmell of RAND's Cambridge office served as the rapporteur for the meeting, and his report of this meeting is available online, along with reports documenting the previous two years' conferences, Turkish Society and Foreign Policy in Troubled Times and NATO's New Strategic Concept and Peripheral Contingencies: The Middle East.