A Strategy to Deter Terrorism continues....

And the belief that traditional deterrence is inadequate as a counterterrorist strategy is also shared by President George W. Bush and his administration and whose National Security Strategy documents state: “Traditional concepts of deterrence will not work against a terrorist enemy.”

This overwhelming consensus has now been convincingly challenged by Robert Trager and Desseslava Zagorcheva, two US 13 based scholars in their study.

According to these two scholars, the case against the utility of deterrence strategies in counter-terrorist campaigns appears to rest on three pillars. First, terrorists are thought to be irrational, and therefore unresponsive to the cost-benefit calculation required for effective deterrence. Second, many terrorists are said to be so highly motivated that they are willing to commit suicide for the cause and so not deterred by fear of death or punishment or of anything else. Third, even if terrorists were afraid of punishment, they cannot be deterred because they lack a return address, and hence no retaliation can be visited upon them. If terrorists cannot be found, thinking of use of force against them, it is contended is useless. Also ineffective are counter-terrorist strategies of Liberals in which is advocated addressing the “root causes,” and by “winning hearts and minds” by providing economic packages and promoting human rights, obviously as a long run solution. As John Maynard Keynes had once said of the “long run”: “We could be all dead by then.”

These above three premises, if valid, signal a terrible danger because terrorists may soon acquire weapons of mass destruction (if they have not already) posing the gravest threat to world order. And if they cannot be deterred then mass destruction of human settlements would be carried out by the terrorists. Jessica Stern, for example, has opined that terrorists or their state sponsors could obtain nuclear and chemical materials from poorly guarded former Soviet facilities as well as the expertise of their underpaid nuclear scientists. The moment is at hand and upon us.

to be continued...

( This account is maintained by Har Anand Publication)