Can terrorism be defeated

Answer 1

First, I need to explain that my intention is to address this question without political or patriotic or religious leaning -- I'd like to address this as an objectively and as a tactical excercise. I'm going to skip morality and Thomas Acquinas in favor of practicality and feasabiliy and Occam.

It depends on what you want to call Terrorism, and I want to mention at the start of this that there is no currently effective legal or military definition that really works. The US JAG tried to use "combatants of a military or paramilitary group, not wearing uniforms...", but this doesn't work -- SpecOps groups from every nation including the US send in recon groups dressed as civilians -- there's no way to do that job in uniform. Others say it's an action intended to induce terror -- well, what life-threatening action doesn't? The remaining definitions all word differently, but they use the word "unlawful" as a criterion. I cannot recall one war since pre-Napoleanic times that wasn't considered unlawful by all the participants, each in a separate way.

The word "terrorism" won't work, as it lacks definition. If, however, we dumb this down a little for our governments, perhaps we can make some progress. When one looks tactically and not politically at a "terrorist" action, you're seeing a military operation and/or espionage. What's the cause for it? At the tactical level, this isn't really important, as the tactical solution doesn't really need to address the strategic or political raison d'etre. The tactical picture is remarkably clear actually. And as this political picture will always remain muddy, won't Occam's Law help us here? How does a terrorist group attacking a comunications center really differ from regular troops performing that same attack, or an organized private army (circa 1880's Lincoln County Wars US for instance)?. The answer is, tactically, it doesn't.

Want an example? Consider the 9/11 attack on the WTA. Did it matter if it was Al Quaida, The Aryan Brotherhood, The Triads, or Greenpeace? Tactically, no it didn't. Now ask anyone on the street what Al Quaida's goal was in the 9/11 attack, and see how few people really have any idea about the politics of the situation (which are admittedly complex and deeply murky). They usually don't. Even the educated don't typically have access to the classified accounts of Bin Laden's political goals.

At this point, I hope I've made my point that the term "terrorism" is far too vague to effective deal with.

That said, let's look away from the semantics and get into the effects. If we remove the word "terrorism", can we re-ask the question as "Is there a way to contain small-scale partisan action (against urban targets)?" And the answer is a guarded yes -- to a degree.

In warfare and conflict from time immemorium, perhaps the single most important factor in victory was a commonality of action brought on by education, training and shared Intel. So we need to educate our troops, law enforcement and civilians. And here's the rub: We need to give them the truth. This is hard because the truth isn't sexy, and it has no bright shining solution (but then neither does it have a gaping pit at the end).

The truth is, as long as mankind has been around, we've been tossing coconuts or worse at each other, and will continue to do so. There never will come a time when there is no violently illegal action, until mankind changes. We'll always fight.

That said, we can control some of how that fighting works. Since 9/11, the US in particular, but Europe and other countries as well went into a frenzy. Laws and civil rights protections were trashed in favor of increased security. I said at the start I won't get into the moral aspects of this incuding the freedom-vs.-safey debate, but I will say the vast majority of wide, sweeping changes made in the name of security have at the root, the fatal flaw: They Don't Work.

For example, spending zillions to identify everyone who gets on an airplance doesn't pay. In the case of 9/11, we knew every terrorist that boarded, and most had completely legal, completely accurate ID. What we didn't know was their intent. And without that, ID is pointless. Increased ability to wiretap is another. Sounds great until you note that, of the approximately 2,800 applications for a federal wiretap warrant, only four were denied. So making wiretapping legal without a warrant does effectively nothing to increase real security.

Containing terrorism is, instead, going to require a plan that is more sublte and far less costly, both in terms of money and laws. We need to modify our response to be less proactive and more reactive! This is a lot more like the paradigm law enforcement employs than the military btw. We need to plan responses that will not address ONLY previous attacks, but will work in a general and non-specific way to react to emergent events.

Example: Box cutters. We don't really need to prevent them from being on planes anymore. That trick worked on one day, on three separate planes. One hour into the plan, the passengers on the fourth plane figured it out, charged their assailants, and prevented the attackers from completing their mission. Right now, you could carry a scimatr onto a plane and try to commandeer it, and the passengers would tear you to ribbons. We're spending a lot of money making sure there's no replay of 9/11, but there never can be. That trick worked once.

Example: Los Angeles Police Dept. developed a pilot program, open only to plainclothes investigators -- volunteers. After their normal hours, they'd take a half shift in plainclothes, walking the airport at LAX, looking for.... well -- who knows? Emergent events. These street-trained, highly experienced men interdicted a large amount of drug traffic, apprehended a few felons with warrants, and overall did a terrific job -- at a minimal cost. They didn't have pictures of known terrorists. They didn't change any rules of engagement or conduct. They carried their standard sidearms. And it worked.

The problem as I see it, is that there is a huge amount of pressure on law enforcement, intelligence, the military, etc. to show dramatic results in "the war on terror". This is highly counterproductive, as the result we Really want isn't dramatic. It's almost prosaic, banal, dull. It's peace.

Answer 2

Probably not but we can fight it and prevent the worst

but no matter what there will be someone out there who wants to blow someone up

we just have to work together and try and do our best at preventing the effects of it.