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The new enemy
□http://www.economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=780351
Sep 13th 2001 | WASHINGTON, DC From The Economist print edition
The assault on the United States will forever change the way America looks at itself and at the world.
Reuters
SEPTEMBER 11th 2001 will be a date that America never forgets. Early on Tuesday morning terrorists simultaneously commandeered four passenger aircraft flying from Newark, Boston and Washington, DC. On the evidence of cellphone calls from inside the hijacked airliners, groups of between three and six terrorists herded passengers and crew into the back of each craft, threatening them with knives and cardboard-cutters.
Two of the planes flew straight into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre, felling both structures an hour later while thousands of people were presumably still trapped inside. A third ploughed into the Pentagon. The fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, apparently after the passengers decided to overpower the hijackers when they heard, again over cellphones, of what had happened in New York. The aircraft had been aimed, it seems, at the heart of Washington.
For Americans, these terrible events are epoch-making, changing the landscape of geopolitics as indelibly as they have defaced the skyline of Manhattan. Current debates about budget deficits and the Internet boom now seem frivolous. The country’s sense of invulnerability, built on its superpower status, has been violated. America has learned that it is not merely vulnerable to terrorism, but more vulnerable than others. It is the most open and technologically dependent country in the world, and its power attracts the hatred of the enemies of freedom everywhere. The attacks have shattered the illusions of post-cold war peace and replaced them with an uncertain world of “asymmetric threats”.
The parallels with Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941, which brought America into the second world war, have been widely drawn and are in large part justified. There was the same shock of surprise. Colin Powell, the secretary of state, said there had been no credible warning. The enemy struck at the symbols of American might—its economic, military and (in intention at least) political power. The principal difference was that the targets were on the mainland, not thousands of miles offshore.
Even though the dead will not be counted for days, the casualties were almost certainly greater than the 2,403 who died at Pearl Harbour. This was the deadliest day’s military action against Americans since the civil war. It represents a profound change both in the scale and the complexity of operations mounted by any terrorist group.
At Pearl Harbour, America could immediately identify its aggressor. The experience of the Oklahoma City bombing—blamed at first on Middle Eastern action, but later discovered to be perpetrated by an American—enjoins caution this time. But a growing amount of evidence points towards Islamic extremists, including, some say, the date itself. September 11th 1922 was the day when a British mandate came into force in Palestine, over the heads of unyielding Arab opposition.
In particular, America’s leaders seem increasingly convinced that Osama bin Laden was responsible. He is one of the very few terrorists with the organisational power to carry out such an operation. Mr bin Laden’s people recently talked of planning “very, very big attacks” on America. As Peter Bergen, the author of a forthcoming book on Mr bin Laden points out, all his operations have been preceded by boasts of this sort. They were not, alas, credible enough for the CIA.
Assuming that the enemy is Mr bin Laden, then the biggest difference from Pearl Harbour may eventually be that America has no clear idea about what it means to go to war with him. In the immediate aftermath, America briefly behaved as if war had been joined in the old way. Financial markets were closed. Traffic into the capital was turned away. The ordinary business of life—airline flights, sporting events, shopping malls, Disneyworld—was shut. For a few hours, the government itself seemed headless, as the secret services spirited away the president and leaders of Congress to secure, secret spots.
Yet the assault of September 11th presents America not with a military challenge of the old definable sort but with a dilemma of a new type. The attacks were essentially on America’s way of life. The temptation is to defy those attacks by going about the nation’s business as usual. But that, of course, is not possible or desirable. At a minimum, stricter airport security will be imposed. The bigger question is how America, without compromising its own open society, can defend itself against a suicidal enemy who uses the very infrastructure of an open economy in order to wage war.
The answer will not be clear for years, and will depend crucially on the outcome of America’s likely reprisals, unlaunched as The Economist went to press. But a few conjectures can be attempted.
Mr Bush called these “not acts of terrorism but acts of war”. In other words, he will treat the assault not as a matter for an international criminal tribunal (as happened after the destruction of Pan Am 103 in 1988) or a cause for pinpoint cruise missiles (as after the bombing of America’s embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998) but as a casus belli. Who then would be the targets of that war? Mr Bush answered: “We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbour them.” This must mean America is considering attacks on the military bases and government buildings of the countries that give Mr bin Laden and his like safe harbour: Afghanistan, of course, but possibly also Iraq (implicated in an earlier attempt on the World Trade Centre) and Iran, with the fainter likelihood of Pakistan, Sudan and Syria.
Such a policy would obviously challenge America’s allies, some of whom, notably France, have condemned mild attacks on Middle East terrorists. But the scale of the killings may change allied minds. The day after them, NATO invoked Article 5 of its treaty for the first time: this says that an attack on one member is an attack on all. Mr bin Laden has previously shown an interest in acquiring chemical and nuclear weapons. The mass murders in New York and Washington show the seriousness of that possibility. NATO may well take the view that the next time he strikes, there will be a mushroom cloud.
Counter-terrorism will also take centre-stage in America’s reordering of its defence priorities. In March, a commission on national security chaired by former Senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman argued presciently that a “catastrophic attack against American citizens on American soil is likely over the next quarter-century. The risk is not only death and destruction but also a demoralisation that could undermine US global leadership. In the face of this threat, our nation has no coherent or integrated government structures.”
The report argued that the Pentagon should be reorganised to reflect these threats; that the special operations division dealing with “low intensity” conflicts should be given more clout (critics claim it has been downgraded by the priority given to missile defence); and that a counter-terrorism tsar should be created, with cabinet rank, to co-ordinate the many different agencies that get in each other’s way when responding to terrorism. On May 8th, the vice-president said he would take over this task.
Lastly, the attacks may seem to vindicate critics of Mr Bush’s proposed missile defence, who say the biggest threat to America comes not from missile programmes of rogue states, but from terrorists’ “suitcase bombs”. Logically, that point may be justified. But in their new vulnerability Americans may want defence of all sorts—and be willing to pay for it. You don’t tear up your fire insurance because your house has been flooded.
Such arguments will form the debates of a new era of shadow war. No one can know in advance where they will lead. But wherever it is, the starting point is the awful wreckage in lower Manhattan under which so many Americans lie buried.