Politics 177 (Week 10): States of Terror

Politics 177 (Spring 2004): America and the World

Week 10: States of Terror

6/1: Blowback

0. Imagine a "War on Plumbers" (by analogy)

1. There are millions of plumbers throughout the world.
2. They share an ideology called "plumberism."
3. A few plumbers believe that building codes are inimical to their profession and set out to violate the codes.
4. These violations cause plumbing-related injuries to numerous people.
5. Building code authorities vow that rogue plumbers must be eliminated.
6. In doing so, they target all plumbers as suspicious characters, and arrest many who are innocent of code violations.
7. This causes more plumbers to take up tools and violate the codes.
8. They organize into networks and associations, and begin to plot.
9. The building code authorities declare a "War on Plumberism."
10. As a result of this war, the global infrastructure of plumbinb collapses.

I. Is the War on Terrorism a war of reason or a war of faith?

1. The Bush Administration says "you're either with us or against us": This is a statement of absolutes; there can be no middle ground, no choice, no doubts or questions. Neither the reasons for terrorism nor the methods of responding are open for interrogation.

2. The result is a closure of politics: Politics is about choice and conflict, and it can, at times, involve violence. By claiming the mantle of "good" and naming the other as pure "evil," politics is eliminated. Any contestation comes to be categorized as evil and illegitimate.

3. Such a move does not admit of setbacks or failures: If one is good, and one's intentions are good, regardless of the consequences, there can be neither setbacks nor failure. Undesired consequences are, instead, temptations to yield to evil.

4. The War on Terrorism is subject to this kind of apolitical logic: There are two contingencies that must be avoided: (i) loss of faith and (ii) admission of failure. The first is maintained by the maintenance of fear through repeated warnings and alerts--because no attacks have taken place, the state must be protecting us against terrorism. The second is avoided by increased discipline--if something happens, it will not be allowed to happen again. You must have faith in both of these propositions.
II. What is "terrorism" and what are its sources?

1. Terrorism is conventionally understood as unjustified violence against innocent civilians: There are more than 100 definitions of terrorism in the literature and none are terribly helpful. We might define "terrorism" as the illegal and violent disruption of the "normal political and social order." While war can have the same effect, there are certain accepted laws and practices associated with it (cf. Geneva Conventions, "Law of War," etc.). This is why the Bush Administration can talk about "unlawful combatants," since they also seek to disrupt the laws of war.

2. Terrorists are understood to be attacking political authority: Intercommunal violence between religious groups is not viewed as terrorism, although terrorist groups may have links to such violence. Rather, the target is the state, with the objective of influencing both public opinion and state policy. Hence, the common argument that "publicity is to terrorism as oxygen is to fire." So, it is a form of communication as well as action.

3. The state, by definition, cannot engage in terrorism: Because the state is the repository of legal action, whatever it does is defined in terms of self-defense. Of course, this does not mean that everything done by the state's agents is legal, and many actions undertaken by the state would be considered terrorism if undertaken by non-state actors.

4. Terrorist groups follow a "higher law": Because, by definition, a terrorist sees the state and its actions as "illegal" in terms of some universal law, the state is the source of terrorism. This does not mean, however, that terrorist groups cannot be absorbed into the state: there are any number of state leaders, past and present, who were described, pursued and incarcerated as "terrorists." There is a slippery slope problem here.

II. What is the character of terrorism?

1. Terrorism is ideological; crime is material: Most terrorist groups are not interested in material gain; their objectives are idealist and ideological. As a result, interest-based politics and strategies are not a part of terrorism's repertoire. Criminals, by contrast, are interested in material gains and losses, and subject to a rational economic logic. But there are similarities in how both are organized.

2. Terrorism is decentralized; states are centralized: States have material interests and infrastructures; their populations can be held hostage by other states, and it is assumed that state leaders value their populations or their possessions. Terrorist groups are decentralized and are often organized along the lines of market logic. Guerilla groups, by contrast, have headquarters and hierarchies and seek state power. They can be targeted by states.

3. The Algerian FLN was considered a terrorist group: It organized along the lines of the cell structure depicted in The Battle of Algiers; this is a classical Leninist approach. But this structure also lends itself to penetration by the authorities. Algeria was won not by the cells but when the FLN's ideological sensibility became the common wisdom of the Arab majority.

4. Terrorists tend to be rooted in the bourgeoisie: Ironically, perhaps, terrorism is a middle-class phenomenon. Petty criminals tend to be lower-class because they have immediate material concerns; terrorists tend to have the initial luxury of pursuing ideological goals because their material needs are taken care of. This poses serious problems for the state, if it is seen to be going after the children of the bourgeoisie.

III. What is Jihadist Islamism?

1. The War on Terror has come to be defined in terms of Islam against the West: In fact, it might be better understood in terms of fragmentation within global liberalism. There is a history of movements of purification within Islam--just as the Great Awakenings have been about purification of the American body politic--and contemporary Islamic jihadism can be traced back at least 200 years. It seems to have been, in part, a reaction against the corruption and decadence introduced into Muslim societies as a result of European colonialism and capitalism.

2. "Jihad" has multiple meanings: We associate the word with "holy war" against non-Muslims, but it also refers to the struggle within the self to be pure and righteous. Jihadist Islam is, thus, a movement to purify the religion, the individual states comprising the Muslim world, and the umma, the global community of Muslims. It comprises only a small fraction of the one billion Muslims in the world, but the effort to eliminate the Jihadists is having the effect of alienating many more (as in the case of Algeria).

3. Islam offers a form of globalism parallel to Western liberalism: It is not only a set of religious practices, it is also a system of beliefs, practices and politics, energized by transnational networks, communications, and movements. It utilizes the modern channels of globalization and provides the infrastructure through which Jihadism can propogate and expand.

4. Jihadism cannot be wiped out: The upshot is that, if Jihadist Islamism is the basis for the ideology and practices of decentralized global networks such as Al Qaeda, there is no way to eliminate it. Movements of purification are inherent in religion and, as we have seen in the United States, may use violence as a means of pursuing their objectives.

IV. What can/should the United States do?

1. The War on Terrorism cannot be won by force: Indeed, if anything, violence will only serve to increase the number of adherents to terrorist groups. Ironically, perhaps, this was not the effect of American intervention in Afghanistan, if only because that country was so poor and isolated from the world, that there was little in the way of media exposure. Iraq is quite different in this regard.

2. The Arab regimes allied to the United States are problematic: As seen in Saudi Arabia, these regimes tend to lack full legitimacy. Even if most Saudis are opposed to Jihadist Islam, the regime is still in trouble. The case of the Shah of Iran is instructive in this regard: he managed to generate a mass oppositional movement, many of whose members had no desire for an Islamic Republic. Keeping these regimes going may require a degree of intervention that even the United States cannot afford.

3. The strategy of empire is problematic: It works only so long as governments are believed to be relatively autonomous, but insofar as empire requires a commitment of loyalty to the core, autonomy is difficult to demonstrate. And, if the policies of a state create large numbers of disaffected, educated people, the government's long-term prospects are not good. Finally, intervention, as we have seen, is as likely to generate resistance as cooperation.

4. Terrorism is not going to go away or be defeated: Terrorism cannot destroy entire societies, but it can certainly generate the kinds of responses that exacerbate instability. As Michael Watts suggested, the intersecting policies of the Bush Administration and tactics of Osama Bin Laden fit together like hand and glove in terms of mutual antagonism. The conditions enabling terrorism are structural and cannot be eliminated without doing mortal damage to neo-liberal globalization. The factors triggering individual and group actions might require the kinds of hands-off policies that could be damaging to U.S. interests.

6/3: America in the 21st Century

I. Review and summation of the course

1. Understanding and explaining foreign policy: Foreign policies are generally framed in terms of "national interests." Conventionally, such "interests" are regarded as self-evident: security, prosperity, investments, etc. These, however, cannot be defined in simple terms, because as they are dissected and deconstructed, it becomes obvious that they reflect struggles between various social forces within societies as well as outside of them. But, insofar as the practice of politics strives to avoid complex explanations and solutions, there are strong temptations to simplify threats and interests. The policymaker, entangled in a highly-masculinized governmental bureaucracy, cannot afford to seek out complex solutions, for to do so is to appear reluctant, cautious and even fearful, and to lose influence. Moreover, the constraints on U.S. executive authority motivate or compel leaders to act where limits are minimal. Thus, the problem of oil is reframed as "security of supply" which can only be assured through the deployment of military force. Contrast this approach with that of many European countries and Japan, which have implemented a range of domestic policies to make oil expensive and to shift to alternatives. Point: Foreign policy can only be understood and explained by examining both the internal and external arenas of a society.

2. The historical roots of American foreign policy: The relationship of the "inside" to the "outside" is a combination of material considerations and idealist visions. If the former case, the early American colonies were established in what was seen as a dark and uncivilized place, which required conquest in order to eliminate evil. Europe always presented a threat, for those empires might seek to conquer and discipline the colonies. At the same time, the settlers had visions of what it was they were trying to create in North America: a utopian Protestant society that would provide not only the conditions for individual salvation but also a model for world salvation: the City on the Hill, the New Jerusalem. Westward expansion, and the gradual expulsion of the French, Spanish, Russians and British from what became the United States, seemed to fulfill both the material needs and idealist conditions necessary to this image. And, once the United States acquired military power, it became able to expand its sphere of action beyond the country's borders and outside of the Western hemisphere.

3. Antecedents to the Cold War: Between 1865 and 1940, the growth of the economy motivated economic expansion into Latin America and Asia. The recurrent economic crises of the late 19th century, in particular, motivated an outward-looking strategy in the search for resources and markets. But many Americans were reluctant to engage in straighforward imperialism, as they accused other countries of doing. Hence, the notion that America's motives were pure and directed toward spreading the enlightened philosophies of democracy and capitalism became the engines of expansion. Those who resisted, as happened in the Philippines after the Spanish American War, were denigrated as uncivilized and ignorant non-white savages or anarchist aliens bent on destroying civilization. American entry into World War One, under Woodrow Wilson's banner of "Making the World Safe for Democracy," was directed against the "barbarians" of Germany who, beginning during the 1930s, struck back with similar arguments. By 1945, Halford Mackinder's notion that no Great Power should be allowed to dominate Central and Eastern Europe became doctrine and dogma for the United States.

4. Constructing the Cold War Empire: The Cold War should be seen as the product of two dominant "interests": creating an international economy open to American capital and ensuring that no alternative systems be allowed to establish themselves. In this sense, the Cold War was a struggle between systems rather than purely a security dilemma. Through the Bretton Woods institutions, the United States sought to create an open, market-based economic system in which American goods could be exported as necessary and foreign resources obtained as required (free flows of capital were not an integral part of the BW system). By contrast, the Soviet system was based on relatively-closed economic units which traded largely through barter. Any expansion of the Communist block represented a diminution of the areas open to capitalist expansion--and the "loss" of China was especially serious in this regard--and America was especially worried that Europe and Japan might opt for less open economies. But while governments play a central role in structuring political economies, in a market-based system there are limits to how much they can dictate or control production and consumption. By contrast, security matters are not subject to market logic and offer the spearpoint, as it were, for the social struggle.

5. Economic change and globalization: There is a surprise inside of capitalist prosperity: "all that is solid melts into air" (Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto). As capitalism expands and production grows. Under Fordism, wages rise and profits decline. Producers seek to reduce their costs and improve productivity: they innovate both technologically and socially. New machines and new ways of making things drive new forms of social organization and create social disruption. The success of the Bretton Woods system led to its eventual collapse during the economic crisis of the 1970s. The rise of neo-liberal ideology and practice, beginning around 1975, and based on the new commodity frontier of knowledge, has been a source of revived economic growth (especially during the 1990s) and a driver of social re-organization and disruption. The United States, as the primary engineer of the rules governing the global economy, and the source of the global reserve currency, has been in a strong position to foster economic growth, which is packaged in terms of the diffusion of democracy and capitalism (the "Washington Consensus") as a means of making the world friendlier to the United States and as an ideological vision of human improvement and progress.

6. Petropolitics: Oil has long been important to the United States and its economy. For many decades, the management of global oil fell to the international oil majors--the Seven Sisters--who operated as a cartel to control production and marketing. Development of Saudi Arabian oil was especially important to the U.S. for both strategic reasons--in the event of another World War--and economic reasons--it provide Washington with considerable leverage in relation to its European allies and Japan. The oil cartel collapsed during the 1970s, to be replaced by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which attempted to control output in order to maintain a high price for oil. This worked so long as world demand for oil is high and OPEC provides the marginal (or "swing") production; when demand is down, the OPEC countries compete with each other for market share, and the price of oil drops. The invasion of Iraq might have been driven, in part, by the projected need to manage Middle East oil so as to ensure a reliable and growing supply over the next few decades. Private investment is necessary for development of these sources, and it will not be forthcoming under conditions of high political uncertainty.

7. Imperium: The end of the Cold War, and the conjunction of global economic and military dominance, provided an opportunity for the United States to institutionalize a form of empire, based more on established rules of behavior and economic influence than on outright territorial control. The Clinton Administration tried to accomplish this through a largely multilateral strategy and the Washington Consensus. There were no systemic threats and no coherent military strategy for dealing with security problems. The Bush Administration, under the influence of the Project on the New American Century, tried to move toward unilateral pursuit of the imperial option, but was not fully committed until after 9/11. The invasion of Iraq and the Greater Middle East Initiative are elements of the effort to back Imperium up with threats of force.

8. States of terror: Inherent in neo-liberal globalization is the notion of self-discipline and its potential failure. Terrorism can be seen, in part, as the failure of self-discipline, but it is also a facet of globalization. In this regard, then, punishment must be very severe in order to inhibit free individuals from attacking the system, but sufficiently severe punishment would impose limits on neo-liberal globalization that it could not survive.

II. What kinds of foreign policy issues confront the United States?

1. For the time being, the Bush Administration is distracted by Iraq: The rest of the world has not gone away, and most of the rest of the world is concerned about things other than Iraq. Yet, the United States has managed to "securitize" many, if not all, of these other issues. This arises, in part, from what Chalmers Johnson describes as the "militarization of diplomacy."

2. The issues fall into three categories:

i. Strategic matters: For example, relations with China, Russia, Europe, Japan--after the imperial project, how will these be handled?

ii. Economic matters: Much of the world remains quite interested in access to American markets and concerned about the twin budget deficits and their long-term effect on the U.S. economy. What should/can be done?

iii. General well-being: Hunger, poverty, disease, development, migration, environment, etc. are all issues that could occupy the United States government full time.

3. Congress will not be strongly inclined to raise taxes or to pay for such matters: To a growing degree, and as a result of 20 years of anti-government rhetoric, the public is disinclined either to pay for services it does not use or to believe that the United States has some ethical responsibility to the less fortunate. Congress is quite sensitive to these feelings, and is loathe to go against them.

4. Yet there are global public goods that ought to be provided in some way: If the United States insists on deciding by itself how funds are to be allocated, other countries will be reluctant to contribute to the costs of such public goods. We tend not to be aware of the extent to which we are dependent on these public goods for our prosperity and well-being, and will not do well if they disappear entirely.

5. The fundamental question, then, is: what kind of global order will provide such goods? Here is where the United States must make a much stronger commitment to the UN: financial, military, organizational.