How Effective Is the Military Response to Threats from Terrorism

Terrorism is one of the utmost threats to humanity. Its derivation goes back into the history but world shifted its focus to the nuisance of terrorism after devastating attack on world trade centre on September 11, 2001. The way we respond to terrorism is how we conceive it and in order to answer this question we must consider terrorism as a special form of warfare that relies principally on military operations as prime counter-terrorism approach. After analysis of countries like USA, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, we will locate the effectiveness of military response and strategies implemented by these countries which include soft and hard power strategies.

Hard power entails arrest, intelligence, detention, surveillance and attack which cripple damaging initiatives by terrorists while on the other hand soft power approach attempts to deteriorate ideology of terrorism through counter ideology dissertation. However, soft power is futile in absence of hard power and hard power lays foundation for soft power. To protect citizens, state must take all necessary actions especially use of military operations.

Terrorism depends on two variables; motivation and operational capabilities and in our opinion to decline terrorism; their operational capabilities must be weakened by use of hard power.

United States of America has seen a number of infrequent terrorist attacks. However, American policy to fight terrorism was not taken seriously before 9/11 terror attacks. USA never had a single terrorist attack that killed more than 500 people at once before the attacks of 11 September 2001 on USA but after the 11 September 2001 attack; the country has seen the most intensive efforts in fighting terrorism.

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Al Qaeda was held responsible for 9/11 and President George Bush declared a war against terrorism worldwide. The United States formed up an international coalition and launched military operations in Afghanistan against Taliban regime. These operations helped in the overthrow of the Taliban and establishment of freely elected government in Afghanistan. Many of the training camps were targeted and rendered dysfunctional. Former President, Barack Obama coming to Presidents’ office in 2009 promised to eliminate hard power but later found it not to be working and had to rely on hard power and thus ended up using a combination of hard and soft power. This proves that hard power is necessary and without it, soft power is ineffective.

Sri Lanka paid a huge cost in its struggle against terrorism. The Srilankan government tried many reconciliation efforts with the help of international peace keeping bodies to solve the issue of terrorism. Starting from 1976 to 2009, Sri Lanka has witnessed many insurgencies marked with suicide attacks, bombings of buses and trains that killed more than seventy thousand people. The government tried its best to settle these issues in a peaceful manner but the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) continued their atrocious activities to destruct local population. Finally the Sri Lankan government decided to commence a military operation against LTTE. The Sri Lankan army eliminated LTTE leadership and wrecked a thirty three year long civil war.

Pakistan suffered a lot due to terrorism for the last couple of decades. More than seventy thousand lost their lives and many were injured but Pakistan is wining this war against terror by its response to terrorism which includes many of the military operations like Zarb-e-Azb, Karachi operation and the ongoing operation Radd-ul-Fasaad. Due to these successful operations by Pakistan’s military forces, terrorism declined and in 2015 there was a decrease of 45%. According to U.S. Department of State, the number of attacks and casualties decreased from previous years. A decrease of 12 percent was observed in the year 2016 as compared to previous year and 59 percent decrease as compared to peak year of terrorism in 2013.

Drone missile attacks have played an important role in eliminating most wanted terrorists. Drone attacks carried out in Afghanistan and Pakistan border areas have destroyed safe havens enjoyed by terrorists organizations especially Al Qaeda. The Taliban officials in Pakistan admitted in 2009 that drone attacks was the biggest threat because of the unpredictability and level of destruction it caused to their cells. That is why Drone attacks is an effective strategy against terrorism. The government of UK also employed the use of drone attacks. In 2015 Reyaad Khan a British Citizen who joined the IS (Islamic State) was killed in a drone attack and was important to IS who was also pronounced as threat by British Prime Minister Theresa May. There is no doubt that these strikes have helped in decimating terrorist’s leadership, but at the same time it boosted radicalization especially in Pakistan. Due to which new terrorists groups started forming up; Tehrik- e- Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is one of the best example. . Keeping this point in mind it is easy to understand that it is a short term solution to terrorism.

The success of achieving something depends on the goals we set and the ways we achieve them. In case of effectiveness of military response, it can be measured by goals accomplished by military operations, which provides state with sufficient time to work on motivation behind terrorism. The Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) attempted to murder the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in a bombing at Grand Hotel, Brighton in 1984 and after realization of the threat, PIRA stated “ Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once, you will have to be lucky always”. This means that state needs instant military actions and use of hard power to target terrorists before damage and loss.

One of the important strategies that are used by states like USA, Russia and Israel is targeting individuals involved in terrorist activities. In many cases these targeted killings by military forces have achieved the desired results. Russia used this strategy in its struggle against Chechen fighters, Israel is largely employing this strategy and United States has successfully carried out targeted killings to eliminate many of the top leadership of Al- Qaeda. One of the best examples is killing Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, who was considered to be the mastermind behind 9/11 terror attacks on United States. These killings give the impression that the terrorists are looking for cover and are not competent and brave warriors. In this way it helps to discourage terrorist organizations members. In this way it helps to discourage terrorist organizations members. But two questions are to be considered while dealing with such circumstances, can the members of armed forces commit a terrorist act? And secondly how can we differentiate between a terrorist and a freedom fighter . To avoid any ambiguity the concentration should be more on the nature of the act rather than identity of the perpetrators.

By analyzing the three test cases we have come to know that military response is an effective response to terrorism but it is not a complete solution to the problem. If we look at the cases of USA, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, they have achieved a lot in struggle against terrorism but still we cannot express in clear terms that terrorism has been eradicated .In Afghanistan the results in the beginning were very encouraging but by 2006 Taliban and other armed groups were able to re-establish a presence. Similarly in Iraq the war initiated by USA lasted seven years and left a country with deep instability .The Sri Lankan government believes that it has defeated LTTE but due to no post conflict emancipation for the minority Tamils, violence may erupt again. Pakistan has conducted a number of military operations but massacres like Army Public School Peshawar incident occurred in which 141 innocent lives were lost and many injured, which shows that in order to sustain the good results of military response it is important that other strategies like reducing the threat by diplomacy, negotiation, addressing of grievances and other concessions.

It is the fundamental responsibility of the state to defend its citizens from any act of harm. The Security Council has regarded all acts of terrorism as a threat to international peace and security. The targeted killings conducted by states to maintain peace and stability are important. This act is depended by Article 51 of the UN charter which states that, “Nothing in the present charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self defense’’. So it is important that the targeted killings against terrorists are understood in this context.

An important discussion about response to terrorism is the use of soft power like diplomatic, economic and police investigations instead of military response to deal with terrorism. These tactics are meaningless because convictions require evidence that is only available after attacks which is of no use in prevention. It is the military response which forms a base or foundation for the use of soft line approaches. Former U.S President George W. Bush on 11 January 2007 decided to deploy military forces in Iraq and at the same time used diplomatic means to win the hearts and minds of Sunni Arabs, due to which a rapid decline was observed in violence. But later in 2012, when U.S decided to withdraw forces violence once again came into action.

The major force behind terrorism is their war based skills and concept of developing fear among commoners which can only be treated by a same level of response and there’s no substitute for hard power as stated earlier through observation of different countries like Sri Lanka, Iraq, Pakistan and USA that were involved in global war on terrorism. Terrorism is more of a tool than an ideology and this tool is used for insurgency and can only be defeated by hard power responses. Soft power strategies require time, evidence and support which can result in damage and all strategies are of no use if they are implemented after loss. In order to protect state and its citizens immediate operations must be carried out that will weaken terrorism by limiting their powers and this will lay basis, give time and evidence for other soft power strategies to work.

Bibliography

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