The War And The West by James Kurth (fwd)

["Clement M. Henry" <chenry@mail.la.utexas.edu>]

Here is an essay by a conservative Swarthmore professor - somewhat along
the lines, contrapuntally, of our discussion of orientalism today.

*****************************
Clement M. Henry
Professor of Government
University of Texas at Austin
Austin TX 78712
tel 471-5121, fax 471-1061

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2002 20:24:10 -0500
From: Foreign Policy Research Institute <fpri@fpri.org>
To: Clement M. Henry <chenry@mail.la.utexas.edu>
Subject: The War And The West by James Kurth

Foreign Policy Research Institute
WATCH ON THE WEST

THE WAR AND THE WEST
by James Kurth

Volume 3, Number 2
February 2002

Dr. Kurth  is Claude Smith Professor of Political Science at
Swarthmore College  and a senior fellow at FPRI, where he is
chairman of  the Study  Group on America and the West.  This
essay is  an abridged version of one that will appear in the
Spring 2002  issue of  Orbis, featuring a special collection
of essays on America's War on Terrorism.


                    THE WAR AND THE WEST

                       by James Kurth

The war  that began  with the  terrorist attacks of 9/11 has
been defined  in  different  ways  for  political  purposes.
President Bush  immediately defined  the war  as one against
"terrorists with  global reach"  and "the states that harbor
them," being  careful not  to identify  the terrorists  with
Islam and  let the war be seen as a "clash of civilizations"
between Islam  and the  West. Osama  bin Laden, in contrast,
repeatedly spoke  of a  war between "the Islamic nation" and
"the Jews  and the  Crusaders" (or Christians). For him, the
war was  definitely supposed  to  be  seen  as  a  clash  of
civilizations between Islam and the West.

The war  is indeed  a war  against terrorists and the states
that harbor them as Bush stated, but all of these terrorists
and states  are Islamic.  The war  is also a war between the
West and  Islam as bin Laden stated, but the Western peoples
and  their  governments  do  not  habitually  use  the  term
"Western" to identify themselves, nor do the Islamic peoples
and their governments routinely engage in terrorism. The war
is  actually   one  between   Western  nations  and  Islamic
terrorists. Because  it involves  nations that  are  Western
both in  fact and in the minds of the Islamic terrorists, it
engages the  West. The  way that  the leading  nation of the
West, the U.S., wages this war will be greatly shaped by the
nature of both Western civilization and Islam.

A NEW KIND OF WARFARE
The 9/11 terrorist attacks were a monstrous example of a new
kind of warfare, integrating three different and older forms
of political  violence: terrorism,  which  has  had  a  long
history in  both the  West and  the East; political suicide,
which was largely developed in the East during the twentieth
century; and  mass destruction,  which was largely developed
in the West during the twentieth century.

Terrorism has existed since the beginning of human societies
across  all   civilizations,   including   twentieth-century
Western civilization  (e.g., the  Nazi killing  of  European
civilians and  the Allied  "terror bombing"  of  German  and
Japanese civilians  during World  War II).  During the  Cold
War, terrorism  was  used  principally  by  Soviet-sponsored
Marxist revolutionary  movements (first  in Southeast  Asia,
then in  Latin America and the Middle East) and the Western-
supported governments  who sought  to suppress them. The end
of the Cold War and the demise of most Marxist revolutionary
movements largely  brought an  end to this era of terrorism.
By then,  however, the  1979 Islamic  revolution in Iran had
inaugurated Islamic  terrorism, a  new  chapter  (or  rather
renewed chapter,  given the record of Muslim regimes such as
the Ottoman  empire right down to the end of World War I) in
the history of terror.

Political suicide  has been  more rarely  practiced. It  can
also be  found in  most civilizations  going back to ancient
times, but  not in modern Western civilization. (This is one
reason suicide bombers have so shocked Western peoples.) For
Americans in  the twentieth century, the most famous example
was the  Japanese kamikazes of World War II. During the Cold
War, political  suicide was  rare, in  that the U.S. and the
Soviet Union  each claimed  to represent  a version  of  the
Enlightenment (and  thus of  Western  ideas).  However,  the
Islamic revolution  in Iran,  whose  features  included  the
Shi'ite emphasis  on martyrdom,  revived political  suicide.
This  new  chapter  in  the  history  of  political  suicide
included the  1983 truck  bombing of  the Marine barracks in
Beirut by  Hezbollah (supported  by Iran).  But  during  the
1990s, the  true experts  in political  suicide seemed to be
the Tamil  Liberation Tigers  in Sri  Lanka, a case of Hindu
rather than Islamic terrorism.

Mass destruction  in a single operation largely began in the
West in  the twentieth  century,  with  the  application  of
industrial  technology   to  military   weapons  -first  the
chemical weapons  of World  War I,  then the  high-explosive
bombs of  World War  II and  the atomic nuclear weapons used
against Hiroshima  and Nagasaki. It became institutionalized
in Cold War nuclear strategies. During the Cold War the U.S.
and the  Soviet Union  also developed non-nuclear weapons of
mass destruction,  and by  the end  of the  Cold  War,  many
nations in  the East  (China, North  Korea, India, Pakistan,
and Iraq)  were also developing their own WMD. A new chapter
in this awful history is now being written in the East.

THE WAR AGAINST ISLAMIC TERRORISM
The combination and integration of these three elements into
the 9/11 attacks and the threat of future attacks by Islamic
terrorists has created a new kind of warfare.

The U.S.  has had to wage its war against Islamic terrorists
on both the foreign front, beginning in Afghanistan, and the
domestic front,  which began with security measures directed
against potential terrorist cells within the U.S. itself.

The war  on the  foreign front  over the  next years will be
fought with  many methods,  at the  center of  which will be
"the new  American way  of  war,"  the  product  of  an  old
military tradition called "the Western way of war." Both are
characterized  by   systematic  organization  combined  with
individual   initiative   at   the   unit   level;   intense
concentration of  killing power  achieved through  the  high
technology of  the time;  and relentless continuation of the
war until  the enemy  is annihilated.  The U.S.  used  these
methods to  achieve its victory in Afghanistan, and whatever
their strengths  and limitations  will likely  use  them  in
future battles in the war against Islamic terrorism in other
countries.

The war  on the  domestic front  is much more controversial,
and its  full meaning  much less  comprehended. This  war is
also likely  to be  extended over  many years  and expanded,
beyond the initial (somewhat feckless) security measures. It
may become  even more  important than the war on the foreign
front, because  the U.S.  itself  is the Islamic terrorists'
most important  target. Unlike  twentieth  century  American
wars, in  this  war  the  foreign  front  will  become  more
peripheral as the domestic front becomes more central. Major
adjustments, even  a redefinition  of American society, will
likely  be   required  to   provide  the  U.S.  and  Western
civilization with  an effective  long-range defense  against
Islamic terrorism.

THE THREE WESTS AND THEIR EASTS
Western  civilization   is  the   product  of   three  great
traditions and successive eras: (1) the classical culture of
the ancient  Greece and  Rome; (2)  the Christian  religion,
particularly  Western   Christianity,  stretching  from  the
ancient, through  the medieval,  to the modern eras; and (3)
the Enlightenment worldview of the modern era.

The first  two of  these traditions  were greatly  shaped by
their long  and epic  struggles with  what came to be called
"the Near  East." The  great Eastern  adversary of classical
Greece was  Persia; the  earliest  adversary  for  Rome  was
Carthage. In  their struggles  against  these  empires,  the
Greek and  Roman civilizations evolved from city-states into
empires. Western  Christianity, too,  confronted an  Eastern
adversary, Islam,  for  a  thousand  years,  from  the  Arab
conquest of  Roman Africa  in  the  eighth  century  to  the
Ottoman siege  of Vienna  in 1683.  In its  struggle against
Islam, Christianity  was  also  transformed,  from  being  a
religion for  city-dwellers  to  one  meaningful  to  feudal
knights and  crusaders. In contrast, the third great Western
tradition, that  of the  Enlightenment, did  not confront an
Eastern adversary with strength comparable to its own.

Beginning with  Napoleon's conquest of Egypt, expanding with
the British  and French  empires in the Near East during the
nineteenth and  early twentieth  centuries,  and  continuing
with the  American prominence in the Middle East since World
War II,  the leading  powers of the modern West have greatly
shaped the  Muslim world,  but until now have been much less
shaped by it.

This long  era of the West shaping, but not being shaped by,
Islamic civilization has probably come to an end. The growth
of  sizable   (5-10%)  and   unassimilated  Muslim  minority
communities in most Western European nations has raised in a
new way  the perennial  question of identity-be it national,
European,  or  Western-in  these  nations.  Until  now,  the
response of  the governing  political classes  has  been  to
formulate a  multicultural  identity,  with  the  deliberate
intent to blur traditional definitions of identity. But this
multicultural  answer   now  seems   naive.  The  growth  of
terrorist networks  within Muslim  minority communities  has
transformed a  seemingly benign  question of identity into a
malignant threat to security.

The West  of the  modern and  now the  post-modern eras will
likely  be  drawn  into  a  struggle-as  were  the  earlier,
classical and  Christian incarnations of the West-against an
Eastern adversary.  This Enlightenment  version of  the West
may well  be reshaped  in a prolonged struggle with the most
anti-Western and unenlightened version of Islam.

THE NEW ISLAMIC ADVERSARY
The peoples of the Islamic world seem to be united in hatred
toward  Israel,   envy  and   anger  toward  the  U.S.,  and
resentment and  contempt toward  Europe. These attitudes are
deeply rooted  and will not soon disappear. They provide the
setting for  the continual  generation of  Islamic terrorist
cells and the transnational networks that support them.

The threat  to the  West from  Islamic terrorism principally
resides in  these transnational  networks, which differ from
national states.  They can operate flexibly in many locales,
not responsible for any one of them, and hence without fixed
interests  at   stake,  making   deterrence  difficult   and
affording them  advantages  in  conflicts  with  a  national
state.

However,  as   the  case   of  Al  Qaeda  demonstrated,  the
transnational network  still has  to operate in some kind of
territory. In most cases, this means it needs the support of
the state  which rules  over that  territory, even  if  that
state is  more of a gang (as was the case with the Taliban).
The transnational terrorist network may not be vulnerable to
a deterrence  threat from  the  U.S.,  but  the  state  that
harbors it  is. This  is why  President Bush  was  right  to
immediately link  the terrorists  of global  reach with  the
states that  harbor them.  The U.S.  military operation that
destroyed the  Taliban has  greatly enhanced the credibility
of this U.S. deterrence threat aimed at other Muslim states.

In a  few cases,  such as Somalia, there is no state at all.
Here the  local  elements  of  the  transnational  terrorist
network might  actually constitute  a gang.  In this kind of
situation, however,  the U.S. can engage in its own flexible
military expedition, a search-and-destroy operation, without
seeming to  violate national  sovereignty  (which  does  not
exist in such a case). Indeed, had the U.S. followed through
in its military operation in Somalia in 1993, Somalia itself
might have provided a prototype and a model for this kind of
antiterrorist operation.

In these  forms, the  states of  the Islamic  world  pose  a
threat that  the U.S.  should be  able to manage or contain.
The Islamic  world may  be unified  around certain political
attitudes, but it is not unified around any political power.
The Islamic world is divided into almost three dozen states,
many of which are hostile to each other.

Indeed, the very notion of the national state is problematic
when applied  to the Islamic world. The idea of the national
state, imported  from the  West in  the first  half  of  the
twentieth century,  has never  flourished  there.  The  most
successful attempt  to convert  an Islamic  country  into  a
national state  was that  of Kemal  Ataturk in Turkey in the
1920s-1930s. In  later years, others including Gamel Abd al-
Nasser in  Egypt, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the Shahs in Iran,
and Sukarno  in Indonesia,  were less  successful  in  their
attempts to create national states. By the end of the 1970s,
it was  clear that the national project for the Muslim world
had failed,  and this  recognition provided  the opportunity
and perhaps  the necessity  for the new project of political
Islam, which  rejected Western notions of a secular national
identity. After  a quarter-century, however, political Islam
has not  succeeded in unifying any two Muslim states or even
in  abolishing  all  vestiges  of  statehood  (although  the
Taliban in Afghanistan came close).

THE MULTIETHNIC REALITY OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD
The true  basis for most political behavior of Muslim states
is the  ethnic or  even tribal  community. Almost all Muslim
countries are really multiethnic societies, usually composed
of one  large ethnic group plus several smaller ones. Often,
each ethnic  group is  concentrated in  a particular region.
Sometimes the  largest group  controls the state and uses it
to dominate the others (e.g., Iran, Sudan, and Afghanistan),
or a  smaller group  may control  the state  and use  it  to
dominate the  others,  including  the  largest  group  (e.g.
Pakistan and Jordan). In extreme versions, the smaller group
compensates for  weakness in number by extreme brutality and
repression  (e.g.,   Iraq  and  Syria).  In  any  case,  the
multiethnic society  is held  together and  held down  by  a
uniethnic state,  particularly by  its  security  apparatus.
These   Muslim    political   systems   are   really   small
multinational empires.  Indeed, they  are governed  in  ways
similar to those the Ottomans used to govern their empire.

Such multiethnic  society/uniethnic state  contraptions  are
unstable. They  are accidents,  secessions,  and  partitions
waiting to  happen.  Whenever  the  state  is  suddenly  and
sharply weakened  (as with  Iran in  1979 and Iraq in 1991),
the subordinate  ethnic communities  try to  break away from
the empire.  The multiethnic  empire survives  when a new or
renewed state  security apparatus is constructed, which then
puts down the secession.

This multiethnic  reality provides  the basis  for a Western
strategy  against   Muslim  states   that   harbor   Islamic
terrorists. With  its  precision-bombing  capabilities,  the
U.S. can  credibly threaten  to destroy  the state  security
apparatus, which  would likely put the state into a long and
difficult ordeal  of ethnic  rebellion during which the U.S.
would have  many opportunities  to support  different groups
and  reshape   a  successor   state  according  to  its  own
interests. This  kind  of  strategy  might  be  particularly
applicable against  states such  as Iraq,  Iran, Sudan,  and
Pakistan.

THE DOMESTIC FRONT AND THE TERRORIST CELLS
As time  moves on,  the central  front of  the  war  against
Islamic terrorism  will be  the  domestic  front.  Here  the
target is  the American  population itself,  and the  threat
comes from  the terrorist  cells who  reside  as  "sleepers"
within  the   U.S.,  living  within  the  Muslim  community,
particularly among Muslims of Middle Eastern and South Asian
origin. Among  such Muslims,  some  are  American  citizens;
many, however, have some sort of immigrant status.

The fact  that the  19 hijackers  were all Muslim immigrants
from the  Middle East  (15 from  Saudi Arabia), living among
other Muslim  immigrants from  the Middle East, should raise
questions  about   what  should   be  a   right  and  proper
immigration policy  for the  new era.  Why should  the  U.S.
indiscriminately  admit   immigrants  from  countries  whose
populations have  a demonstrated  record  of  being  hostile
toward America and providing recruits and funding for the Al
Qaeda terrorist  network? These  countries include,  but are
not limited  to, Saudi  Arabia, the  United  Arab  Emirates,
Yemen, Egypt, and Pakistan.

WESTERN TRADITIONS AND MUSLIM IMMIGRANTS
Additionally, why  should Western  nations  indiscriminately
admit  immigrants   whose  religion   and  culture   have  a
demonstrated record  of being consciously and systematically
hostile to the West?

Each of  the three  Western traditions  can provide  its own
answer to  the question  about the  proper role  of  Islamic
immigrants within  Western nations.  The  classical  culture
would view  the Muslim  culture as  alien and  incompatible.
Muslims might be welcomed as temporary visitors engaged in a
particular business,  but they  would not  be  permitted  to
become permanent residents, much less citizens.

The Christian religion (at least the Biblical version) would
also view  the Islamic  religion as  alien and incompatible.
(Jewish  immigrants   were  accepted   because   they   were
identified with  the Hebrew  scripture, or  "Old Testament,"
the original  source for Christian concepts of community and
sojourners.) Again,  Muslims might  be welcomed as temporary
visitors,  or  sojourners,  but  unless  they  converted  to
Christianity,  they   would  not   be  permitted  to  become
permanent residents or citizens.

In short, if Western nations were still like Greece and Rome
or Christendom,  Muslims would  be excluded  from Europe and
America and  would be  contained within  the Middle East and
the  lands  still  further  to  the  East.  There  might  be
transnational terrorist  networks like  Al Qaeda,  but  they
would not  have cells  located within the West. However, the
West cannot go back to being Greece and Rome or Christendom.
It will  have to  define the  role of  Islamic immigrants in
terms  of   its  third   and  most   recent  tradition,  the
Enlightenment worldview,  which can provide a very different
answer to the immigration question.

The Enlightenment  has been especially committed to the idea
of  universality.  Indeed,  it  does  not  take  either  the
classical culture  or the  Christian religion  seriously; it
holds that  religious or cultural traditions provide no good
reason to  exclude anyone from immigrating to an enlightened
society. The Enlightenment thinker has tended to assume that
a Muslim  who is  exposed to or immigrates to an enlightened
society will eventually give up the Islamic faith and become
an   enlightened,    universal   individual.    The   recent
indiscriminate admission  of immigrants,  including Muslims,
into Western  nations has  not only  been permitted  by this
particular tradition; it has been its fulfillment.

Of course,  just as  Christianity could  be  interpreted  to
allow the  immigration of  Muslims if  they converted to the
Christian faith,  so the  Enlightenment could be interpreted
to allow  the immigration  of Muslims  if they  adopted  the
Enlightenment worldview.  Until changes  in the  immigration
law in  1965, the  U.S. took  something like  this position.
There was  a systematic  effort to  bring about  immigrants'
assimilation  into   the  national  culture.  Known  as  the
Americanization  program,  its  content  was  "the  American
Creed," which  was very  much the  expression of  the Anglo-
American version of the Enlightenment.

This  approach   to  ensuring  that  immigrant  values  were
compatible with  Enlightenment values  was  abandoned  after
1965. The new immigration law provided for no discrimination
according  to   culture,  and   the  simultaneous   rise  of
multiculturalism rejected  the very idea of Americanization.
What  remained   was  the   universalist  element   of   the
Enlightenment  worldview.   The  consequence   has  been   a
universalism of multiculturalism.

Because  of  its  universalist  imperative,  the  currently-
reigning  version  of  the  Enlightenment  worldview  cannot
discriminate against  any particular  groups within society,
i.e.,  it   cannot  engage   in  any  kind  of  cultural  or
geographical   "profiling."   Any   security   measures   it
implements must  be imposed  universally; this  has  largely
been the  case with security checks at American airports. As
these airport  checks illustrate, however, security measures
that are  applied to everyone will be either loose, symbolic
and ineffective  or strict  and effective but onerous, time-
consuming, and  ultimately inoperable.  New information  and
computer  technologies  may  enable  the  development  of  a
surveillance  and   profiling  system   that  would  not  be
physically onerous  and overtly  discriminatory, but  such a
system could  erode a  central pillar  of the Anglo-American
Enlightenment: individual liberty and privacy.

An alternative  way of  dealing with  the  terrorist  threat
would be  a return to an earlier form of the assimilationist
or nationalist  version of  the  Enlightenment.  This  would
entail reestablishing  a  sharp  distinction  between  those
persons who  are assimilated  into the  national culture and
those who  are not. This distinction would roughly correlate
with that  between citizens  and immigrants (or "aliens," as
earlier and more blunt language put it). The assimilationist
or  nationalist   conception  can   confidently  distinguish
between citizens and non-citizens and engage in cultural and
geographical profiling.  It  therefore  can  adopt  security
measures focused  on  particular  persons;  these  would  be
onerous and  burdensome for  only a  small  minority  (e.g.,
Muslim immigrants) of the population, favoring majority rule
over minority  rights (to  use multiculturalist language) or
promoting the  greatest good  of the greatest number (to use
utilitarian language).

Some compensation  would be  appropriate  for  the  innocent
members of  the minority,  for the  additional hassles  that
they would  experience.  But  since  discrimination  against
particular ethnic minorities-Muslim as well as non-Muslim-is
the policy  and practice  in virtually  every Muslim  state,
Western states  would be  doing no  more (and  indeed rather
less) than  what the immigrants' own communities do to other
minorities back in their home countries.

Security  measures   based  upon  cultural  or  geographical
profiling would  be more  effective than the current general
and universal  ones, but  they would  not be  completely so.
Terrorist cells  would  try  to  infiltrate  the  circle  of
citizenship or  assimilation.  But  the  pool  of  potential
terrorists and  the probability  of successful attacks could
be substantially reduced.

However, just as the West cannot go back to being Greece and
Rome or  Christendom, perhaps  in this  era of globalization
and multiculturalism  it  can  no  longer  go  back  to  the
national identity  which, until  recently,  was  so  much  a
feature of  the modern era. If so, there is really no longer
any West  at all,  except in  the fevered imagination of its
Eastern   adversaries.   There   is   only   the   post-West
civilization, defined  by its  universal, transnational, and
global pretensions  but potentially  unable to  develop  the
effective  means  to  defend  itself  against  transnational
terrorist networks of global reach.


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