Terrorism Today. - Review - book review

Terrorism Today. By Christopher C. Harmon. Portland, Ore.: Frank Cass Publishers, 2000. 288 pages. $26.50.

The Future of Terrorism. Edited by Max Taylor and John Horgan. Portland, Ore.: Frank Cass Publishers, 2000. 234 pages. $24.50.

Reviewed by Colonel Richard S. Friedman, USA Ret., who served in a variety of intelligence assignments in the Army and subsequently with the Central Intelligence Agency.

It takes minimal resources, money, or manpower to mount a terrorist operation, although even a single terrorist "engagement" can be as costly and dangerous as a major conventional military operation. Consequently, terrorism is a highly leveraged endeavor. While there are studies of terrorism covering a broad spectrum of literature, with new books being published every month, this review focuses on two of the most recent works addressing the contemporary problem and new threats appearing on the horizon.

Asymmetry is the key to the effectiveness of terrorism. Terrorism provides a small group the mechanism to successfully attack a larger force or a government which it could not take on in direct combat. The bomb used in the 1993 attack on the New York World Trade Center, for example, cost about $400 to manufacture from ordinary commercially available materials, but caused more than $550 million in damages and lost revenue. Realistically, as the recent "Unabomber" case demonstrates, one man with sufficient resources can comprise a terrorist group. Terrorists select the time, place, and targets for their attacks. Terrorist actions are generally of short duration, which does not allow authorities sufficient time to respond effectively. Military forces alone do not deter terrorism--historically, terrorism has developed mainly as a response to strong governmental powers. Doctrine, equipment, and the advanced technologies of a modern army do not provide any advantages in confronting or preventing terrorist action.

Christopher Harmon, author of Terrorism Today, has been Professor of International Relations at the US Marine Corps University since 1993. Dr. Harmon served four years as a foreign policy advisor at the House of Representatives, and his educational specialties are revolutionary warfare, terrorism, and counterinsurgency. He joins the expanding ranks of scholars writing about terrorism. In the late 1960s through the 1980s, students of terrorism concluded that terrorist organizations, mainly secular, Marxist-type groups, were comprised of a hierarchical structure functionally oriented to provide the organization with planning, operations, command, control, logistics, recruitment, and propaganda. Organizations of this type proved to be relatively vulnerable to penetration by police and intelligence organizations.

The trend today, according to the author, particularly in the Islamic groups, seems to be toward cellular structures that are fairly small, ad hoc, quasi-independent, self-contained organizations with very high levels of cohesion. This cellular-type structure provides safeguards against penetration or compromise by governmental authorities in that any one member captured could not identify more than a few of his colleagues. Security is a primary organizing principle. Realistically these terrorist cells can consist of four or fewer individuals. In many cases, these groups are composed of members of a single family or very close friends. The organization of these groups is fairly amorphous. There may be no explicit leader. These groups may be constituted to attack specific types of targets or conceivably only one target. Confounding the problem of group identification further, many of the smaller terrorist groups may subscribe to the objectives of a larger, more well-known terrorist organization, although they do not have direct membership. Thus they may attribute their attacks to this larger group even though there were no direct operational connections. The claim of membership bolsters the prestige, credibility, and self-esteem of the small group. Since the larger organizations perceive a benefit in the practice, they do not discourage it.

Dr. Harmon treats seriously the ideas and writings of terrorists, not just their acts, and disagrees with those who use the word "mindless" when describing terrorists, many of whom are calculating, clever, and well-educated. He argues that what is new deserves analysis and what seems familiar deserves a fresh look. The author holds that "terrorism is the deliberate and systematic murder, maiming, and menacing of the innocent to inspire fear for political ends." In six chapters with an accompanying select bibliography, glossary of terms, and a detailed index, Terrorism Today provides a current study to remind the reader that while there are few instances of terrorism alone accomplishing strategic goals, it often succeeds at the tactical level. Dr. Harmon's translations of the primary published thoughts of various terrorists is a major supplement to this book. The author's discussions of using military force against terrorism as well as the potential use by terrorists of weapons of mass destruction will be part icularly instructive to military professionals.

The Future of Terrorism, edited by two scholars--Max Taylor, Professor at the Department of Applied Psychology at University College, Cork, Ireland, and John Horgan, a researcher and lecturer in the Department of Applied Psychology, also at University College, Cork--takes a different approach to the subject. This work reports details from a three-day meeting at University College during March 1999 at which experts on terrorism, principally from academia and law enforcement, presented and discussed their views on future developments in terrorism. Each of the chapters addresses what the contributor perceives as the next step or steps that terrorist acts may take in the future. Because this book originates in the academic world and each of the authors represents a somewhat different aspect, the abstracts of the articles at the end of the book will be particularly helpful to a reader who may not be interested in "Terrorism and Organized Crime--The Romanian Perspective," or "Terrorism in the Name of Animal Rights. " The reader will then be able to study other items such as: "Terrorism and the Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction: From Where the Risk?" or, "Exploding the Myths of Superterrorism." Because so many of the participants in the colloquium which produced this book came from the field of law enforcement, it is not surprising that a considerable amount of the content deals with terrorism and its relationship to organized crime.

Both of these works provide thought-provoking material on a subject that increasingly intrudes into our daily lives and threatens to continue to do so. Christopher Harmon's book offers a well-balanced and reasoned discussion of developments in terrorism during the past with a glimpse into the future. Messrs. Taylor and Horgan have done a good job working with the material at hand from their conference; however, overall their book may not be as helpful to the general reader or military professional as that of Dr. Harmon.

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