Introduction
After the conclusion of the cold war and with the
recent formation of entities such as the Islamic States, the definition of
Nationalism and Terrorism have changed dramatically. These days security
threats to democracies around the globe, are not limited to interstate
confrontations. With the expansion of globalisation, in which we are currently
entangled through global financial markets and communication channels old
concepts are eroding. In the changed world security threats and strategies created
a dilemma which is evident in the discussion posts of this unit. In the
21st century, it is not necessary that nationalism is helping a society
and in turn fuels the society towards the security of the state. Historically
too, nationalism concepts have always been changing, for example earlier
nationalism was a term used with growing opposition to the multi-ethnic empires
(Ottoman, Russian, British), later in 17th-18th century the term was widely
applied in opposition to colonialism, and afterward in the 19th and early 20th century it was utilized to present concepts
of a safe homeland, shared language, common customs, security against the
hostile surroundings and memories of conflicts.
In a nutshell, the term ‘Nationalism’ confers political legitimacy of the day’s leaders
and impose obligations on their people. Similar phenomena can be remarked in
the concept of Terrorism. However, since George W Bush
declared a “war on terrorism” the ‘Terrorism’ term has lost its sheen(Grassie 2008). Hence,
it's essential to understand ‘Nationalism’
and ‘Terrorism’ in current context.
This report offers an analytic thinking of different perspectives presented on
Nationalism, Terrorism and Strategic surprises covered in a PICX851 discussion
against the below mentioned questions. Topics are interlinked and so are the parts; which is subdivided into below three major
sections highlighting the key issues or concepts.
• Role of Nationalism in welding society's security
of the state
• What is Terrorism ?
• Strategic surprises and ways to negate its impact
.
Section
one
Post of by Dayffyd
Klippel-Cooper on Friday, 28 November 2014, 2:42 PM in Module 2
discussion about Role of Nationalism in welding society's security to that
of the state
“I agree that Nationalism is an extremely useful tool,
especially in states that embrace multiculturalism such as Australia. A
national identity can help new arrivals to feel “at home” and a part of the
greater community. Furthermore, it can lessen and remove any fears that individuals
born in Australia can develop against people that they perceive to be “coming
in” to take their jobs. By encouraging all citizens /residents to identify themselves
as “ Australian” it makes the community stronger and able to fight of
radicalization by outside forces. Mr Abbott is the utilization of Nationalism
as a means to unite the different communities inside…………………………………”
All of us know human as
a social animal. The human’s connection to societies evolved from small, intimate hunter tribes
into large social groups (Grassie 2008). Mutual needs of these social groups gave a birth to the
concept of Nationalism. It refers to the sense of attachment with each other as
a nation and encourages individual sacrifice for mutual needs. It gives a pride
to the individuals to be part of the nation. Among several mutual needs, one
need is a security which is provided by nations in the form of the military superiority against neighbours. Particularly
after World War I when the Treaty of Versailles redraw the map of Europe by
creating new nations; there are the states where the Nationalism played a vital
role in welding society and providing a security to these states, like the
United States of America and the Great Britain (Anderson 1986; Haas 1986; Spencer
et al. 1998). English and American nationalism
was in its origin, linked up with the concepts of individual liberty and represented
nations firmly constituted in their political life. This form of nationalism was
progressive, modern and exhibit a pride in the achievements of their own culture (Spencer et al. 1998).
However, in the name of nationalism some harm has been
done to the society, primarily during the World War II. Immediately after the
war the concept of Nationalism was evolved into the new arena in the form of an
anti - colonial insurgency and political downsizing of states. Early years of 20th
century revolutionary political ideologies against nationalism were the principal
developmental forces acting upon terrorism (Research 2015). Concept of Nationalism encouraged ethnicities and minorities,
not recognised to campaign for autonomy or independence and created a bitterness.
For example, in case of Arabs nationalist,
they feel that they had been betrayed because of their disappointment when British
and French received authority over their land and on a top of it Zionist immigration
into Palestine (Dawisha 2009).
In the current context
when globalisation is at peak, the concept of nationalism is eroding a
democratic society. With the rise of international organisation such as the
World Trade Organisation and European Union, nationalist ideology itself is
eroding. Some European Union states allow residents to decide the political fate
of state like in Scotland, German students are allowed to cast their vote. Another
example of eroded nationalist ideology is, impact of United State of America’s “Credit
Crunch” leads European economies in recession (Campe 2008; Sathyamurthy 1998). Considering the example of Australia itself in 2011-12, Net
Overseas Migration (NOM) contributed 60% of population growth in the country. Means
more than 50% of population growth of Australia is from immigrants who are global
citizens (Markus 2014). With such a huge immigrant population, forced nationalism
concept would create a negative impact on the security of the state. Sometime it
creates a conflict in society, for example, civic nationalist v's ethnic nationalist
(we are tagging such conflict as racism). In the name of nationalism many democracies,
resist acceptance of the rights of national minorities out of fear of fostering
different loyalties, this could be threatening to territorial integrity and social
cohesion of their states (Sabanadze 2010). Not only this, the
generation born from immigrant citizen is in a state of dilemma of which nationalism
they have to follow, either ethnic or civic. It’s a mutuality of human being which
is keeping democratic society united. Collective action is essential for the unforeseen
challenges in todays world like international crime, infectious disease, climate
change, financial instability and terrorism.
Section
two
Would prefer to start this section with comments posted
by Riognach O'Geraghty-Howard on
Thursday, 4 December 2014, 1:16 AM in a module 3 discussion
“In order to answer the question of what constitutes an
unethical act of violence, I want to introduce the idea of what constitutes
ethical violence. To do this I want to introduce the concept of the Just
War, and in particular the concept of "distinction". Admittedly
this is a somewhat ass-about-face way of doing things, but I believe that it
works…………………………………………………………….”
In spite for more than 500 definitions of Terrorism
it’s still very difficult to explain Terrorism and that is clearly visible in
this discussion. Using the “Just War” theory is almost impossible to define
Terrorism, although it was a good yardstick to define the cause, rules and so
called ‘ethics of war’. Basically, in the current context, Terrorism is a
tactic of waging war. I would argue that “Just War” theory itself is wrong
because it contradicts the logic of war, which is winning always,
at whatever cost, by any necessary means (Crawford 2003; Walzer 2006; Zinn 2011). In the wars of 20th century civilian casualties
increased phenomenally because during these days warfare technologies have become more and
more destructive. It is almost impossible to limit wars to combatants
only. We have been preaching that terrorism
is barbaric because it is intentionally targeted at civilians, hence the just means
test of ‘Just War’ theory has failed. But how are we going to explain the firebombing
of Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, or more over the atomic bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki
and the latest examples of surgical air strikes in Iraq & Afghanistan (Walzer 2006; Zinn 2011). I am not justifying or promoting Terrorism but would like to give a perspective
to look at terrorism as a tactics of weak
side in guerrilla warfare. Whether it’s an ISIS, Hizbul Mujahedeen, MKO, Hamas,
LTTE or FARC; none of them would prefer to wage battles without fighter jets, helicopters,
submarines and tanks; they just do not have the capacity to afford it, and so they
are using other means to win a war (McCauley and
Moskalenko 2008; Piazza 2009; Weinberg et al. 2004; Zinn 2011).
Another aspect
pointed out by "Solomon Chiro” on Friday, 19 December 2014
“I
agree with you when you say IS considers everyone to be combatant. They pretend
to preach Islam, yet they are just a group of barbaric people who have a
propensity to kill people randomly if you disagree with their principles (if
ever they have them). They now have 'boy soldiers' in the group who don't know
the difference between life and death.”
This could be classified as another war tactic. As per
Geneva conventions, it is prohibited to engage child soldiers. However, after World
War II the average age of combat soldiers in US was dropped from twenty six years
to nineteen years. It was intentionally done after studying the psychology and physiology
of warfare, because it’s quite possible to
train 26 year old to be killed & kill others, but not possible to make them
think that it is cool. A famous chant of
Marin Corps to promote machismo is “This is my weapon, this is my gun; the
one is for killing, the other for fun”(Grassie 2008). This chant provides a ‘feel cool’ aspect of killing. But in any case, any act which harms the innocent
population is not good for society, whether you call it terrorism or war.
The yardstick
of violence and war is not a good measurement criteria or should not be the only
criteria to define or categorise Terrorism, Even though if we consider violence
as a yardstick, then where Economic terrorism, Cyber terrorism and Narco-terrorism
will fit in. Another point to argue about
is calling violent acts of states as legitimate
and non state sponsored acts as terrorism. This is again not right as we know the
examples of “State terrorism” during the French revolution and then by the erstwhile
Nazi Germany.Terrorism is continuously evolving with time, so it’s very critical
to understand the cause of terrorism along with its definition and then proceed
towards containing it. It is a complex phenomenon which needs lots of research to develop countermeasure
strategies. Be it state sponsored or not, both forms of Terrorism will continue
to deliver strategic surprises to the democratic
societies. And it’s quite possible that strategies developed to deal with one type
of terrorism might not work for another type. In a nutshell, I personally believe
that terrorism is a tactic used strategically by the radicals within a society and
it can be negated by good strategies only (McCauley and Moskalenko
2008).
Section
three and final conclusion
To
start this section I prefer the posting of Keirena O'Keeffe on Sunday,
14 December 2014, 7:13 PM which is stated as
“Strategic surprise is when a state fails
to predict an attack due to their perception of the situation and/or the
enemy’s capabilities.
According to Handel, the most effective way
to negate strategic surprise is by ‘paying close attention to indicators and
warnings’. (1) Strategic surprise can also be negated by an unbiased
understanding what an enemy is capable of. Bias comes from many factors
including believing that because you wouldn’t attack if you were in the enemy’s
……………………………………………………………………..”
The key issue which we were
trying to understand in this module discussion was intelligence failure and their
causes. The majority of the examples highlighted
in the discussion by fellow members was related to war. Theories about strategic
surprises was developed in 1980 by scholars like Richard Betts and Michael
Handle so study of these concept with theories of 80’s is not sufficient (Dhal 2004). Bringing the context which is terrorism and intelligence failure along
with these theories would present clear understanding. The strategic surprises in
the current context are explained beautifully by Janne E. Nolan and Douglas
MacEachin in his book titles as “Discourse, Dissent, and Strategic Surprise”.
Keirena’s post is presenting only one aspect, However, anatomy of strategic surprises proves that it is the failure of seniors to absorb and use
the information provided by professionals in the field, is the major contributor
in creating a strategic surprise than missing or faulty intelligence (Nolan and MacEachin 2006).
There are other very good examples of strategic surprises
in the current context to understand where intelligence failed like failure to detect
the Cuban missile crisis, the Iranian revolution and Iraq crisis (Jervis 2011), terrorist bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and
Tanzania, the U.S. and Soviet proxy war in Afghanistan and the Asian financial crisis
of 1997–98 (Nolan and
MacEachin 2006). Except for Asian financial crisis, either the information
was contained, misinterpreted or ignored by senior officers. This problem of misinterpretation
or ignoring relevant information happened because system discouraged alternative
approach due to healthy consensus, which is a mode of operation of democratic society
(Betts 2013; Jones and Silberzahn
2014). If decision making process is driven by mindset that
consensus is truth, it discourages professional
in the field from offering dissenting advise in future, which will lead to another
issue in which decision makers makes a decision which is not linked to the ground
realities and perspective like regional and country specific expertise.
Another problem of
intelligence failure is excessive compartmentalisation of intelligence can restrict
the necessary flow of information to decision makers (Betts 2013; Dhal 2004).
In this sense organisation structure does matter, as key players tend to ignore
or filter Information perceived to be threatening or irrelevant to their organisations’
culture or perceived mission, thereby distorting policy analysis and decision making.
Global problems (Economics, Terrorism, Ethnic confrontation) have been downplayed
as a threat to national security because issues accorded the highest priority by
senior officials who face huge burdens and competing demands may overwhelm their
time and attention, making it virtually impossible for them to pay attention to
other issues being reported by professional analysts (Betts 2013; Dhal 2004; Jervis 2011; Jones and Silberzahn
2014; Nolan and MacEachin 2006).
Coming to the second part of same discussion which is quite well explained
by Molly Rydon on Monday, 8 December 2014, 8:07
PM in following words
“I do not believe that strategic surprise can be negated. To negate means
to nullify, to deny the existence of. As Handel also outlined, there are issues
at several levels of analysis (and I would extend this to include problems at the
collection level also) that prevent the negation of strategic surprise. ……………………………………………”
Although Molly believes that strategic surprises cannot be negated
still she agree with the Handle’s argument that technological advancement could
help us to negate the strategic surprises. Surprises are inevitable and
definitely it's not possible to predict all moves of the opponent, that’s why
we are discussing term negating, not the term avoiding. To succeed the initiator must be able to
exploit the opportunity created by surprises, otherwise initial shock might be
short lived and the impact can be easily
minimised (Kass and
Phillip 2014). Being a information
age optimists, I personally believe that
intelligence will be able to use modern technology to improve its chances against
terrorist threats (Dhal 2004; Lowenthal, 2008). Human nature and behaviour still need to be relooked
at every steps with caution because human
are indented to believe the truth that pleases them most.
In the 21st Century the study of intelligence
failure and strategic surprise has not reached the point of diminishing returns
(Dhal 2004; Grassie 2008). A strategic planning process requires not only uniting
around a vision, but also thinking backwards to the most efficacious actions
and leveraged intelligence for creation of interventions. It would be a valuable
exercise for the business communities, civil societies and religious organizations
within democracies to engage in beyond the scope of occasion and format to creat
diplomatic resolutions (Grassie 2008; Ungerer and Bergin
2008). Diplomacy has become an essential instrument to resolve
security dilemmas which needs lots of work to establish correct and accurate context
(Nolan and
MacEachin 2006).
Bibliography
5. Campe, Christian von (2008), 'Globalisation and its effects on
nationalism', 1-10. <Error! Hyperlink reference not valid..
23. Research, Terrorism (2015), 'The Evolution of Terrorism', <http://www.terrorism-research.com/evolution/>, accessed 20/02/2015.
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