Peder
Well-Known Member
Philip Bobbitt is currently the Director of the Center for National Security at Columbia University and has served, among numerous other Government posts, as a Senior Director for Strategic Planning at the National Security Council. This book is about how to confront the terrorist threat in the twenty-first century.
To understand Bobbitt's frame of reference and historical world perspectives it pays to consider 'The Long War of the Twentieth Century.' What war is that you ask? It is 'the' War that embraced The First World War, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, the Second World War, the Korean and Viet Nam Wars, and the Cold War. Viewed retrospectively, this series of conflicts finally settled the question whether the old imperial states that had previously existed would be replaced by fascist, communist or parliamentary states, with the last-named of course having finally won out. In similar manner, looking forward, Bobbitt sees our current situation as being in an opening First Terrorist War, in what will almost certainly be a much longer series of wars to determine whether terror is going to dominate our future governments and societies, or whether we shall still be able to maintain governments by consent of their populations while simultaneously withstanding the threats of terrorism. Those two conflicting outcomes form the title of the book: Terror and Consent.
He opens this book with the unequivocal statement that "The Wars Against Terror have begun," even though not all agree, and adds that "it will take some time before the nature and composition of these wars are widely understood." In this book he takes a much broader and longer term view of the fight against terrorists and terrorism than we are accustomed to seeing in the media and our daily news. In fact he says this book "is not about the 'root causes' of terrorism." Instead he continues his discussion with the provocative statement early on that "almost every widely held idea we currently entertain about twenty-first century terrorism and its relation to the Wars against Terror is wrong and must be rethought."
He follows the thought with a page-and-a-half list of 13 "dubious propositions about twenty-first century terrorism and the Wars Against Terror . . . that are widely and tenaciously held among well-informed people," including for examples: i) "that the threat of terrorist attacks comes from the states of the Middle East or failed states in other remote regions; ii) or that terrorists will be confined to low-technology weapons for the foreseeable future; iii) or that the root causes of terrorism lie in conditions of poverty, economic exploitation, neglect of health and education, and religious indoctrination that must be reversed before the war against terrorism can be won."
"In this book I have tried to begin this fundamental rethinking." He sees three major prongs of the war that must be pursued: i) "an attempt to preempt attacks by global, networked terrorists; ii) a struggle to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; and iii) the worldwide endeavor tor protect civilians from natural catastrophes and nonnatural assaults that result in gross diminutions of of humane conditions, including human rights."
"Therefore this book is not principally about al Qaeda and the anti-Western revolution in Iran. Ultimately it is about the changing nature of the use of force in establishing conditions of consent and legitimacy when confronting terror. This confrontation will transform the emerging constitutional order of the twenty-first century state."
Bobbit very much believes that both domestic and international law will have to be reformed to define new ways of legally handling the new threat posed by terrorism. Domestically, new procedures will be required for combating terrorists within one's own borders. Internationally, new laws will be required that form a consensus around which alliances can be formed for more effective opposition to international terrorism, as for example already exists for the universal law against piracy. One specific example would be a mutually agreed international definition of the word terrorist itself, so that terrorists can be distinguished from 'freedom fighters' for example and subject to legitimate forceful action. He observes that terrorism is not new and the bulk of this dense book is a discussion of historical and legal ways that states have previously shaped their responses to confront their then contemporaneous threats.
By the end of the book he concedes that in his unconventional thinking "there is something to offend everyone." He has argued against some liberals that we truly do now have war. And he has argued against others, who would go it alone, that the war must be subject to law. Further he has argued against some neoconservatives that we can only win this war through alliance. And finally, he has argued against some civil libertarians that the war must change some of our notions of civil liberties. It is by these means that we can strengthen and preserve our civil liberties and our consensual governments, he argues.
I have no hesitation in recommending this book as valuable reading for anyone interested in a deeper understanding of what is at risk in our fight against terrorism and in ways that our effectiveness in preserving our freedoms can be improved.
To understand Bobbitt's frame of reference and historical world perspectives it pays to consider 'The Long War of the Twentieth Century.' What war is that you ask? It is 'the' War that embraced The First World War, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, the Second World War, the Korean and Viet Nam Wars, and the Cold War. Viewed retrospectively, this series of conflicts finally settled the question whether the old imperial states that had previously existed would be replaced by fascist, communist or parliamentary states, with the last-named of course having finally won out. In similar manner, looking forward, Bobbitt sees our current situation as being in an opening First Terrorist War, in what will almost certainly be a much longer series of wars to determine whether terror is going to dominate our future governments and societies, or whether we shall still be able to maintain governments by consent of their populations while simultaneously withstanding the threats of terrorism. Those two conflicting outcomes form the title of the book: Terror and Consent.
He opens this book with the unequivocal statement that "The Wars Against Terror have begun," even though not all agree, and adds that "it will take some time before the nature and composition of these wars are widely understood." In this book he takes a much broader and longer term view of the fight against terrorists and terrorism than we are accustomed to seeing in the media and our daily news. In fact he says this book "is not about the 'root causes' of terrorism." Instead he continues his discussion with the provocative statement early on that "almost every widely held idea we currently entertain about twenty-first century terrorism and its relation to the Wars against Terror is wrong and must be rethought."
He follows the thought with a page-and-a-half list of 13 "dubious propositions about twenty-first century terrorism and the Wars Against Terror . . . that are widely and tenaciously held among well-informed people," including for examples: i) "that the threat of terrorist attacks comes from the states of the Middle East or failed states in other remote regions; ii) or that terrorists will be confined to low-technology weapons for the foreseeable future; iii) or that the root causes of terrorism lie in conditions of poverty, economic exploitation, neglect of health and education, and religious indoctrination that must be reversed before the war against terrorism can be won."
"In this book I have tried to begin this fundamental rethinking." He sees three major prongs of the war that must be pursued: i) "an attempt to preempt attacks by global, networked terrorists; ii) a struggle to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; and iii) the worldwide endeavor tor protect civilians from natural catastrophes and nonnatural assaults that result in gross diminutions of of humane conditions, including human rights."
"Therefore this book is not principally about al Qaeda and the anti-Western revolution in Iran. Ultimately it is about the changing nature of the use of force in establishing conditions of consent and legitimacy when confronting terror. This confrontation will transform the emerging constitutional order of the twenty-first century state."
Bobbit very much believes that both domestic and international law will have to be reformed to define new ways of legally handling the new threat posed by terrorism. Domestically, new procedures will be required for combating terrorists within one's own borders. Internationally, new laws will be required that form a consensus around which alliances can be formed for more effective opposition to international terrorism, as for example already exists for the universal law against piracy. One specific example would be a mutually agreed international definition of the word terrorist itself, so that terrorists can be distinguished from 'freedom fighters' for example and subject to legitimate forceful action. He observes that terrorism is not new and the bulk of this dense book is a discussion of historical and legal ways that states have previously shaped their responses to confront their then contemporaneous threats.
By the end of the book he concedes that in his unconventional thinking "there is something to offend everyone." He has argued against some liberals that we truly do now have war. And he has argued against others, who would go it alone, that the war must be subject to law. Further he has argued against some neoconservatives that we can only win this war through alliance. And finally, he has argued against some civil libertarians that the war must change some of our notions of civil liberties. It is by these means that we can strengthen and preserve our civil liberties and our consensual governments, he argues.
I have no hesitation in recommending this book as valuable reading for anyone interested in a deeper understanding of what is at risk in our fight against terrorism and in ways that our effectiveness in preserving our freedoms can be improved.