October 24, 2010 
Ever since 9/11, terrorism receives much attention in both the scholarly literature and the public discourse. I argue that terrorism will be of much less interest in due time. The big threats in international politics still stem from interstate war and conflict, and recently the international security environment has been heating up considerably.
Terrorism is something of a buzz word since 9/11. The public has flocked to the topic just as scholars have. The literature about terrorism is inflationary. But terrorism is as old as mankind. Terrorism can loosely be defined as a strategy of an organized group that tries to achieve a certain political objective through violent and – much more importantly! – terrifying means. Such strategies have been employed ever since. One of the more famous and “recent” examples is given by Gavrilo Princip, the Bosnian-Serb student and member of Young Bosnia, who assassinated Franz Ferdinand of Austria. Young Bosnia is a group that could today easily be defined as a terrorist group. Neither is terrorism the biggest threat to security these days. Terrorism is best at what it received its name for: terrorizing. Not killing. Sure, terrorism is more lethal than before. Globalization and technological innovation allow terrorists to conduct world-wide attacks of high destructive power. But still: comparably few people die from terrorism.
In history, interstate wars posed the biggest security threats, and they do so these days. Major interstate wars are absent at the moment, but the question is why. Some scholars argue that economic interdependence, international institutions, the spread of democracies and liberal values – or all these facts combined – explain the absence of major wars. Other scholars argue that it is the supremacy of the United States that explains it. I agree with the latter explanation. World War II and the Cold War left the United States as the only superpower. No-one could challenge the U.S., and it in turn could act as globocop.
Interstate conflicts are “the next big thing”. The US’ position is weakening, as other powers are rising. (Very) slowly, the world is turning multipolar – again. This means no good. History and theory teach that multipolar systems are competitive and conflict prone. Already, world wide security competition is heating up. Security is a zero-sum game. Interstate war is back on the map of all major states. Just have a look at the military expenditures and military build-ups world wide. China and India have plans to build strong, power-projection capable Navies. Japan reengages in its “defense forces”. Brazil modernizes its armed forces to catch up with its great power aspirations. Europe is developing a strong and independent security pillar. These are no signs of the perpetuality of interstate peace.
In short, terrorists gained in professionalism and destructive power, but the reason they receive so much attention to find mainly in the fact that interstate relations stayed low-profile in recent years. When struggling with major interstate wars, terrorism just won’t seem that important anymore.
I agree with what you’re saying about the history of terrorism and that it’s not a new phenomena. The assumption that terrorism is something new is as wrong as the hypothesis on “new wars”. Nevertheless, I disagree with your conclusions. First, one has to perceive terrorism as but one option out of a bigger set of strategies. You would apply it in regions where you are very weak compared to your opponent. The same group may conduct other types of operations in areas where it is relatively stronger. The Taliban provide an example for this: their operations range from IED-attacks in regions where they are weak, to guerilla-operations and even to de-facto territorial control in their strongholds. This is why you should call them “insurgents” instead of “terrorists” – and insurgencies are for sure among they main security threats. The end of an interstate conflict through defeat is often only the beginning of a long and painful insurgency (so have spanish insurgents triggered Napoleons defeat and diminished his troops, after he easily won the “regular” war against Spain). Weak states, internal conflicts and insurgencies pose threats that are even more difficult to anticipate and encounter than an arms race.
And it is not a good example that rekatively few americans have died on american ground. Consider that this was not any different in the interstate wars of the 20th century. You did not count the american soldiers that died in Iraq and Afghanistan, or maybe also in Afghanistan.
Furthermore, interstate clonflict cannot be complitely separated from terrorism and insurgencies. What about the Pakistani ISI, which has supported terrorist attacks in India? And the many African states that support rebel groups in rival states?
Insurgencies and intra-state conflicts did, infact, kill millions of people. But it’s not only about how many people terrorism or insurgencies kill. It’s about in how far they succeed to undermine your control over a territory – and in many cases, they do so very well, causing dangerous spill-over effects to other parts of the world: international organized crime, trafficking, displaced people etc, and also the terrorist attacks we experienced here in europe since 2001.
I think that the focus will stay very much with weak states that are a safe haven for insurgents, international crime etc. Somalia will not be of less importance to future security conciderations than russia.
Counterinsurgency wars and internal conflicts that burned of the superpowers’ troops have also taken place during the cold war, but they have been perceived as proxy wars between the big powers. Unfortunatly, they continued after the cold war has ended. Today we must say that another war with russia is very unrealistic for the next decade, but another vietnam is not. But to assess these risks one has to see terrorism as just a tool which is only a part of the bigger phenomenas of failed states, insurgencies and so-called “rogue states” (a prestressed expression that nevertheless names an existing phenomena).
Thanks much for your comment! Just a note: I try to bring forward some ideas in this blog, but only rarely try to elaborate exhaustively on a certain topic. Thus it was in this post. Your comment is almost as long as my post; of course terrorism is much more complicated than I presented it!
You got me on definitions, on which I was unclear. As I see it, what you speak of is terrorism as a tactics, and what I speak of is terrorism as a strategy of a non-state group to achieve a certain political outcome. Terrorism as a tactics has a lot of potential – widely understood in other contexts, as well (check http://bit.ly/4DHXNd). I thus agree with many of your conclusions about the importance of non-state actors, state terrorism and rogue states, but it is not what I was speaking about. And I do not see these threats as equal to traditional interstate threats, simply because I think that “good” tactics may shorten existing gaps of capabilities between contesting states, but in most cases not overcome it.
The analogy of American people dying in America is weak, I admit, but the underlying message remains.
I stick with my basic conclusion: Terrorism is not the danger interstate wars are. Imagine the US just leaving Afghanistan today, while all the anti-terrorism measures stay in place. I doubt that any terrorists would be able to EASILY conduct another 9/11, from Afghanistan or anywhere else. Of course it is always possible, but that has been the case ever since, and the only solution to that problem would be to totally isolate our societies – which is not an option. This is the nature of terrorism, and why it always has been terrifying, and always will be. But it won’t bring the devastating consequences of inter-state wars to us.
Thus what remains is our disagreement about the probability of interstate war, which I think is not at all unlikely. Maybe it is unlikely in the next decade, I agree with you on that, but a decade is a short period of time in international politics!
Thanks again, these are valuable and much appreciated inputs! I hope I could give some plausible answers.