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Lyle Brecht
15 May 2004
Lyle Brecht
15 May 2004
The following discussion portrays the present “global war against terrorism” the U.S. is engaged
in as an analyzable game competitively “played” by two opposing sides. 2 What this discussion
1 For example, in a January 25, 2002 memo from Alberto R. Gonzoles to President George W. Bush enti-
tled: “Application of the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war to the conflict with al Qaeda and the
Taliban,” the White House attorney is concerned that Bush administration officials could be prosecuted
for ‘war crimes’ as a result of the measures to combat terror adopted by the administration in response to
the 9/11 attacks by al Qaeda.
2 The benefits of re-thinking the “war on terrorism” is not to arrive at a final solution or descriptive analy-
sis, but to alter perspectives so that creative, potentially productive alternatives to conventional wisdom
may be explored and included in a multifaceted counter-threat strategy. Here the exercise is to model ter-
rorism as a game that is being played in real-time by two opposing sides. This exercise potentially uncov-
ers salient aspects of the “fitness landscape” or underlying structure that is required for any counter-threat
system to adequately address different threat scenarios. This approach also highlights relative levels of
funding required for the various components in an interlinked network of components (the “counter-threat
system”) to produce specific results. In no way does the dispassionate manner in which terrorism dis-
cussed here suggest that the author does not view terrorism as a horrific and morally reprehensible tactic
to achieve political aims.
Instead of thinking about this as a “war against terrorism,” this can be more accurately thought of
as a “proxy war” fought by privatized groups of individual actors (e.g. al Qaeda is presently a
prime example of such a group) who use terrorism as a technique to achieve political objectives
that have the intention of producing structural changes in power-sharing relationships that are
international in scope.4
It is a “proxy war” in that al Qaeda, for example, is fighting as an agent on behalf of its “spon-
sors” rather than for its own power or territorial objectives.5 This proxy war, from the perspec-
3 For example, well-funded hard-power components such as counter-intelligence and military power pro-
duce less value for dollar expended if other soft-power components such as diplomatic, economic, politi-
cal, moral and justice-seeking measures are not also optimally employed as part of an overall counter-
threat systems approach. See Joseph S. Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (Publi-
cAffairs, 2004).
4 Terrorism as used here is systemized violence against a predominantly civilian population that may take
the form of lethal force, symbolic violence, economic disruption, and other forms that impinge or impede
on the normal human freedoms that are reasonable, normative, and expected by such civilian population.
Thus, terrorism has been a common a tactic of war used, for example, by the Germans against the Jewish
populations of Poland, Germany, etc. during WWII; by the U.S. in its fire-bombing of Tokyo, etc. (e.g.
100,000 civilians were killed in one night’s air raids) against Japan in WWII; the U.S. “pacification” pro-
gram in Vietnam; Pol Pot’s “ruralization” project in Cambodia that systematically killed millions of Cam-
bodians; as a tactic of the U.S.-supported mujahideen in the Soviet-Afghan war; Sadam’s use of WMD
against the Kurds in northern Iraq in the 1980’s; etc. “International” describes the fact that the combatants
are not fighting a domestic civil war within their respective domestic nation states, but internationally,
across state boundaries. “Privatized” describes the fact that the terrorists are privately funded and are not
controlled by the policies or directives of any particular nation state.
5This is a real war, at least from the perspective of the U.S., in that the U.S is engaged in the maximum
use of “force to compel our enemy to do our will.” Carl von Clausewitz, On War, edited and translated by
Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 75.
Using the analogy of war, al Qaeda’s attacks of 9/11 and the U.S. immediate response to those
attacks constitute one battle in this “proxy war.” Viewed from this perspective, al Qaeda decid-
edly won this battle, not because of the death and destruction in New York and Washington, DC
on 9/11, but because al Qaeda achieved its two primary political objectives: (1) to provoke a non-
proportional violent response by the U.S. government that leads to escalation of violence, and (2)
to achieve disproportionate economic costs on the U.S. The U.S. immediately attacked Afghani-
stan where ~10,000 civilians were killed in that war. Then the Iraqi war was justified on the basis
of the “war on terrorism” which killed another ~10,000 civilians so far. Economically, the U.S.
response to the attacks on 9/11 that may have cost ~$2 million to plan and carry out was for the
U.S. to spend ~$200 billion on two wars and counter-terrorism measures since 9/11/2001.
The misconception of such disproportional retaliation by the U.S. is that such massive use of
force will effectively destroy the fighting forces of the enemy; to “put [them] in such a condition
that they can no longer carry on the fight.”7 However, this approach to this “proxy war” is
doomed because the “sponsor” for whom the enemy (al Qaeda in this specific “battle”) is best
imagined as groups of individuals who believe in the ideals of human freedom and democratic
6 This assumption redefines terrorism as a “political socio-economic act” rather than a tactic to create a
climate of fear and anxiety. Using this definition enables one to model terrorism as a “project” and to
think about counter-projects from a capital budgeting, investment analysis perspective (e.g. what pro-
grams achieve the greatest return (reduction in terrorist “economic acts”) for invested capital?).
To cast the “war against terrorism” in theological terms of “good versus evil” only tends to rein-
force the world community’s understanding of the U.S. as a fundamentally evil, imperial force.
That is because the fundamental charge of the international privatized terrorist against the U.S. is
hypocrisy – “a gap between appearance and reality, between saying and doing, caused by a mis-
placed hierarchy of values and excessive emphasis on external matters [“material things”] to the
neglect of the interior.”9 For, rather than a force for human freedom and democratic self-
determination, the U.S. is perceived as a nation that says one thing, “terrorism as a tactic of war”
is evil, but practices something entirely different, “is willing to engage in terrorism itself for its
own self-serving purposes.”
8It is not accurate to portray “us” as “those who love freedom” and the enemy as “those who hate free-
dom.” The reality is that if “our” freedom despoils or constrains “their” vision of freedom, from the
“other’s” perspective we are oppressors, not lovers of freedom. If we are discussing the Middle East, for
example, terrorism has been used as a technique against oppressive governments (oppressive as measured
by currently accepted international U.N. norms, for example) who could be classified as socialistic,
authoritarian, or totalitarian – many of which at one time or another have received military aid from the
U.S. (e.g. Sadam Hussein’s government in Iraq was a large recipient of U.S. military aid in Iraq in the
1980’s even as he used WMD on his Kurdish population in northern Iraq).
9 This was the charge against the scribes and Pharisees by Jesus as recounted in Matt. 23:13-21. See Dan-
iel J. Harrington, S.J., (Sacra Pagina, Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991), 326. This recollection of
hypocrisy is also attested to in the Nevi’im (the “Prophets) of Jewish scripture which preserved the
prophets’ words as “not only significant for the circumstances in which they were originally pronounced
but potentially relevant for later ones as well…[in their] crucial role in critiquing and trying to change
society.” See Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, editors, The Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication
Society Tanakh Translation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 457-8.
• Palestinian-Israeli conflict involves domestic terrorism (use of lethal force against civil-
ian populations by both sides in the conflict).
• Soviet war in Afghanistan involved international terrorism (use of lethal force against ci-
vilian population of Afghanistan by both Soviet troops and mujahideen funded by U.S.
and Saudis).
• U.S. war against Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan involved international terrorism
(use of lethal force, whether intentional or unintentional, against Afghan civilian popula-
tion by U.S. troops fighting al Qaeda, a known international terrorist organization).
Within domestic terrorism there are two types: psycho-pathological and socio-political:
Within international terrorism there are two predominant forms: publicly financed terrorism and
privately financed terrorism. International terrorism is almost always socio-political terrorism:
terrorism that is attempting to bring about a set of specific political objectives of a “transna-
tional” nature:
• By publicly-financed actors: e.g. U.S. soldiers involved in Abu Ghraib jail abuses
of civilian detainees reported by International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC) as “systematic;”10 C.I.A. operatives involved in interrogations of al Qaeda
detainees that contravene Third and Fourth Geneva Convention Act protocols for
treatment of prisoners. Typically, only internationally constituted 3rd party inter-
veners (e.g. UN “peacekeeping force,” International Red Cross, World Court, etc.)
are an effective counter-measure for this form of terrorism.
10International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), “Report of the ICRC on the Treatment by Coalition
Forces of Prisoners of War and Other Protected Persons by the Geneva Conventions in Iraq During Arrest,
Internment and Interrogation,” February 2004.
The message, or information content, of terrorism as advertising directed at the “civilized world”
is twofold: (1) “your narrative, how you define reality, is incomplete in that it does not ade-
quately take us into account,” and (2) “you are not as strong and powerful and invincible as you
believe that you are.” These are primarily “religious” as opposed to secular messages.
Even though terrorism is carried out by only a relatively “fringe” few on behalf of the am harets,
the underlying message is believed to be “on-target” by the vast majority of the world’s popula-
tion (even as terrorism itself as a technique of political warfare is widely denounced by the ma-
jority of the world’s population). As long as the message is on-target and international privatized
terrorism is viewed as an effective, least-costly means to convey this information to the elite of
the world, there will be an effectively infinite supply of new terrorists to replace those that are
killed or dispersed.
The shift from modernity to post-modernity is primarily a shift in the inclusiveness of human
freedom, defined as self-determination of human development. In modern times, those with dis-
proportionate access to the world’s resources served as colonial powers that exploited less-
powerful indigenous populations for the primary benefit of the colonial power. 12 Post-modernity
is built on the premise that colonialism, in whatever hegemonic form, is not sustainable over
time and is ultimately destructive of both the hegemonic power and the exploited, less-powerful
11 Am harets is a Hebrew word meaning “people of the earth.” In the first century C.E. it was applied de-
risively to refer to individuals as “country bumpkins,” those perceived as “less civilized” whose speech
was less refined and who were not up-to-date on the latest ideas from the centers of culture in that day and
age. In today’s post-modern era, the am harets comprise about five billion of a total 6.3 billion human
population and are found in differing degrees in all nations, including “developed” countries.
12 For example, in the U.S. drive to “liberate” oppressed peoples so that they may experience human free-
dom, it is vitally important that this is achieved in a manner that does not remind an indigenous popula-
tion of “colonialism” or lead to conditions that in any way, shape, or form smack of colonial hegemony.
For a view of colonialism as international privatized terrorism’s roots see Mahmood Mamdani, Good
Muslim, Bad Muslim : America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror (Pantheon Books, 2004).
• Sacred scripture “tells us the kinds of people we are to become if we are to hear its mes-
sage faithfully.”
• Sacred scripture “is both a historical document and a canonical and sacred text for a be-
lieving community.
• “Human love and justice is modeled for us in [sacred] scripture” (e.g. “the golden rule:
do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”).14
Given these starting assumptions, the following predicates for human justice are equally true for
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam:
13There are a whole range of socio-political and political-economic reasons for this paradigm shift from
modernity to post-modernity. However, a practical reason is that historical colonialism, in whatever form,
has always led to conflict and in an era of proliferated WMD, the cost of such asymmetrical conflict with
WMD is potentially unsustainable to even the wealthiest and most powerful countries. For a discussion of
modernity and post-modernity as it applies to statecraft see Robert Cooper, Order and Chaos in the
Twenty-First Century (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2004).
14
John R. Donahue, S.J., “The Bishop and the Proclaimation of Biblical Justice’” in David A. Stosur, ed.,
Unfailing Patience and Sound Teaching: Reflections on Episcopal Ministry in Honor of Rembert G.
Weakland, O.S.B. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2003), 246-248.
2. “Made in the image and likeness of God, all people have a human dignity and fundamen-
tal rights that are independent of their gender, age, nationality, ethnic origin, religion, or
economic status.”
6. “On earth, we belong to one human family and as such have mutual obligations to pro-
vide the development of all people’s across the world.”15
15 Donahue, 240-2.
16 The argument here is that as soon as an adherent steps outside the boundaries of normative community
behavior, the individual is acting on their own individualistic beliefs that may be framed for them in a
religious context (quoting “scripture,” using traditional “religious” vocabulary to rationalize their actions,
etc.), but have almost nothing to do with the base religion – which is defined by the community, not the
individual. Historically, sometimes the broader religious community is wrong (as in Germany during
WWII where the mainline Christian denominations were complicit in the persecution of the Jews by the
Nazis), but in almost all cases, the splinter community advocates traditional normative behavior not vio-
lent means to achieve relief from oppression (e.g. Dietrich Bonhoffer’s splinter “Confessing Christian
Church” that pledged solidarity with the Jews during the Nazi oppression and attempted to enlist the Al-
lies to help). A counter-argument to this thesis is Charles Kimball, When Religion Becomes Evil (San
Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2002).
2. One should never negotiate with terrorists. Turkey effectively diffused internal terrorism
by the Kurdish P.K.K (Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan) by negotiating with Ocalan, the
P.K.K. leader, and making good on its promises if Ocalan stopped terrorism against the
Turkish government. In contrast, Russia refused to negotiate and is still contending with
Muslim Chechens in southern Russia seeking independence.
3. The best means to fight terrorism is through military pre-emption. According to the
C.I.A., the U.S. war in Afghanistan, at best, scattered al Qaeda operatives making them
harder to find and strengthened al Qaeda’s regional leadership structure in over 60 coun-
tries.
4. All terrorists are evil and deserve death. I agree that violence is usually evil. However,
one must remember that during the War of Independence, the British called the American
colonists “terrorists” because they shot at British soldiers from behind trees, which was
considered “cowardly.”
Redefining the problem of international privatized terrorism requires that we first stop viewing
the objective as to “fight” terrorism. Especially harmful is the concept of a “war on terrorism.”
This framework for policy and action only leads from violence to counter-violence and then
more violence in retaliation, etc.(e.g. the ever-escalating and pervasive cycle in violence between
the two sides in the Israeli–Palestinian terror war).
17
Task Force of the National Advisory Council on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, “A Call to Action:
Changing the Culture of Drinking at U.S. Colleges,” April 2002.
If one bothers to ask basic questions regarding political realities that engender terrorism as pollu-
tion of the political process, a number of universal drivers emerge, which are constellated in
unique ways depending on which terrorist political group one is examining. Such universal driv-
ers for terrorism include socio-political drivers revolving around issues of: (1) population pres-
sures and demographics, (2) affluence differentials, (3) technology access, (4) relative poverty,
(5) market failures such as ``perverse pricing” of externalities, (6) policy and political failures of
inclusiveness and power-sharing arrangements, (7) the scale and rate of economic growth, (9)
cultural and religious values, and (10) the local impacts of globalization. Fix the politics, prose-
cute the terrorists, and avoid the violence/counter-violence spiral is how to solve the problem of
international terrorism. Counter-violence without addressing the underlying drivers will only
lead to more terrorism – on a grander scale than what the U.S. has yet experienced.
A range of scenarios can be modeled whereby the terrorist side’s attack comprises the detonation
of one or more CBRN weapons in one location, in multiple locations, over a relatively short time
period or over a period of weeks, months or years. The type of attack can also be modeled to in-
clude a biological, chemical, or radiological component along with or in lieu of the tactical nu-
18The purpose of this section of the discussion is to explore game simulations where the terrorist side
opens with an attack using tactical nuclear weapons (and/or comparable CBRN weapons). To those unfa-
miliar with such simulations, the prospect of thinking of a terrorist attack as a game of moves and
counter-moves must seem somewhat bizarre and horrible. However, the purpose is to model potential un-
folding scenarios to determine the robustness of plans and capabilities of the underlying support systems
necessary to carry out these plans. In the contest against international privatized terrorism, one of the most
important uses for such a model is to determine: (1) if our counter terrorism strategy is sound; (2) if we
are allocating adequate capital to our counter-terrorism systems; and (3) if we are funding each compo-
nent of this system in an optimal fashion.
19 Various assumptions concerning the exact attack scenario and probabilities related to the ability of a
terrorist group to obtain tactical nuclear devices (or other CBRN weaponry) and carry out complex logis-
tical planning and execution steps leading to a CBRN attack can be assessed and argued.
20Each of these four propositions or explanations are themselves controversial and demand considered
debate. However, for the purposes of this discussion, we will assume that they are true or nearly true and
see where the game scenario leads us. Then, once we have followed through with one complete game
scenario, we can modify these assertions to see how that would impact our counter-terror moves to such
an attack.
For example:
• For less than $2 million, the attacks on 9/11 produced about $90 billion in property dam-
age and lost income (experiential data) and created a one-time, short-term (less than 2
years) structural $200 billion dollar cash outflow (as measured by the U.S. war response
to these attacks).
• For less than $50 million, one could model a series of CBRN attacks timed over a short
period that could produce a long-term 2%-3% reduction of each year’s annual GDP or
~$600 billion cash impact over a period of 2-5 years.
• For less than $500 million, one could model a series of CBRN attacks timed over a
longer period that could produce a long-term 10% reduction of each year’s annual GDP
or $2,000 billion cash impact over a period of 3-7 years.
21 The model itself is based on an assumption that the game we are presently playing with terrorists today
is one of wealth destruction and escalation of a violence/counter-violence cycle. The objective of the
game from the terrorist’s perspective is to destroy as much of America’s wealth as possible for a given
dollar of cost and to encourage the U.S. to respond with disproportionate violence.
22From this perspective, the international privatized terrorists attempt to damage our productive capacity
and our will to carry on economic activity in the face of adversity. These terrorists function as modern
anti-entrepreneurs leveraging capital to destroy rather than to create wealth. With this perspective of ter-
rorism as primarily a dis-economic activity, monetary measures can be used as a proxy to discern results
of various counter-terrorism strategies. While many scenarios can be envisioned where the terrorists bun-
gle such an attack, from a game strategy perspective, we believe that one must assume that the best game
move will be chosen by the opponent – that is, the terrorists will make the best use of a tactical nuclear
device (or other CBRN weapon), and not a sub-optimal use.
The results of the analysis so far suggest that indeed, once our opponent plays CBRN weapon in
the game, the terrorist always wins under the U.S. present counter-terrorism strategy, as there are
not winning conventional countermoves readily available. 23
Presently, our approach to counter-terrorism, while multi-faceted, relies heavily on threat as-
sessment (primarily through intelligence gathering), forward deployment of military and para-
military forces, and law enforcement. Planned activities include pre-emptive attacks; a true
homeland security strategic capability that includes hardening of domestic infrastructure; and a
more coordinated perimeter policing, among other defensive measures. However, this strategy
and its attendant budget are precisely what the models suggest that the terrorist opposition can
and will contravene and ultimately win against through the use of CBRN weapons.24
23 If one believes that there are strategies and vetted counter moves (tactics) that enable the U.S. to con-
tinue with its present counter-terrorism policies and strategies after such an attack, these need to be input
into the models and exposed to debate as to their soundness. Absent such new ideas and analysis, clearly a
discussion of the game itself and what changes might be made to its underlying structure rises to upper-
most importance.
24While the counter-terror models are sensitive to budget (how much we have to spend to accomplish a
certain level of threat preparedness), they are also sensitive to speed – how fast can we close off a specific
threat opportunity, and more importantly – how fast can responsible organizations learn to counter new
threats that the terrorists think up. Thus, pouring more and more dollars into solving the problem will not
necessarily produce more security if the result is a bigger and slower bureaucracy.
Unfortunately, there is little data to support the supposition that such a set of assumptions is valid
or a greater degree of success can be achieved than for example, discovering the plans of organ-
ized crime syndicates and interdicting drug shipments into this country. With enough diligence
and organization, over time one can expect to be successful at learning the plans of and interdict-
ing some percentage of drug shipments into the U.S. However, when one considers the conse-
quences of an attack using CBRN weapons, the percentage of leakage matters a lot. One means
to measure the probability of a CBRN weapon entering the U.S. is to assess the relative probabil-
ity of a specific drug shipment entering. That is, when we are able to close our boarders to all
illegal drug shipments, one may also assume that it is equally improbable for a CBRN weapon to
enter.
To win against international privatized terrorism we must change their will to play
this game! [soft power discussion, in detail, along with hard power components that are multi-
lateral and meet 3rd and 4th Geneva Convention rules and guidelines]