Endless War?: Hidden Functions of the 'War on Terror' - Softcover

Keen, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0745324177 ISBN 13: 9780745324173

Verlag: Pluto Press, 2006

Inhaltsangabe

Was the Iraq war really an act of goodwill to liberate people from injustice? Or was it a strategic move to maintain US dominance globally? Endless War? casts a critical light on the real motives behind war and conflict. David Keen explores how winning war is rarely an end in itself; rather, war tends to be part of a wider political and economic game that is consistent with strengthening the enemy. Keen devises a radical framework for analysing an unending war project, where the "war on terror" is an extension of the Cold War. The book draws on the author's detailed study of wars in Sudan, Sierra Leone, as well as in a range of other conflicts. It provides a new approach to conflict analysis that will be of use to students across development studies and the social sciences.

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

David Keen is Reader in Complex Emergencies at the Institute of Development Studies at the London School of Economics. He has written a number of books on conflicts, famines and civil wars. In recent years, he has conducted extensive fieldwork in Sudan, Sierra Leone and Iraq.

Mark B. Salter is Assistant Professor at The American University in Cairo. He is currently working on a history of the passport in world politics.

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Endless War?

Hidden Functions of the 'War on Terror'

By David Keen

Pluto Press

Copyright © 2006 David Keen
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-7453-2417-3

Contents

Acknowledgements, vii, 
1. Introduction, 1, 
2. Fuel on the fire: predictably counterproductive tactics in the 'war on terror', 8, 
3. War systems: local and global, 51, 
4. Elusive enemies and the need for certainty, 84, 
5. The new witch-hunt: finding and removing the source of evil, 96, 
6. The retreat from evidence-based thinking, 115, 
7. Action as propaganda, 131, 
8. Warding off the shame of powerlessness, 145, 
9. Shame, purity and violence, 160, 
10. Culture and magic, 190, 
11. Conclusion, 210, 
Notes, 220, 
Bibliography, 270, 
Index, 279, 

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Aims and argument of the book

Current tactics in the 'war on terror' are predictably counterproductive. These tactics have included the use of military offensives to combat terrorism: notably in the attack on Afghanistan, the attack on Iraq and the heavy handed suppression of resistance and use of collective punishment inside Iraq. Torture has been used in Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba and a range of other countries, and the British government has taken the radical step of telling its diplomats they can use information obtained through torture (as long as the torture is done in some country other than Britain). International law – and often the whole concept of the rule of law – has increasingly been set aside. The counterproductive effects of such strategies are set out in Chapter 2.

During the Cold War (and also before), a militaristic state-based framework suggested that you could sensibly respond to threats with war or the threat of war. But this framework, always risky and costly, is now hopelessly out of date. This is because of the dangers posed by elusive and often decentralised international terror networks, by a proliferation of powerful weapons around the world, and by a type of violence that is continuously fuelled by widespread feelings of humiliation and anger, notably among many Muslims. These feelings in extreme cases have created a willingness to take innocent lives and to lose one's own life in the process. The problem of weapons proliferation has been deepened when suicide-killers have turned even non-weapons like planes and skyscrapers into instruments of death.

In these circumstances, trying to apply the old militaristic model to the problem of terrorism is like trying to destroy a liquid with a sledgehammer or a virus with a bullet. The idea of a centralised enemy and the focus on states – both more plausible during the Cold War – have been disastrously retained. Attacks on states are now particularly redundant and counterproductive. The growing importance of sub-national and transnational dynamics, as Carl Conetta notes, means resentments can't be sealed neatly within the 'black box' of the nation state. And a militaristic approach to terror, apart from being directly counterproductive, has also taken attention and resources away from other, more promising, approaches to dealing with terrorism.

Since terror is fuelled by anger and since terror networks are quite decentralised, trying to physically eliminate terror and terrorists is not going to work. This lesson should already be clear from civil wars. Today more than ever, we need to understand why non-state actors participate in violence and how abusive counter-terror or counterinsurgency operations tend to fuel the fire of violence.

Although it has become clear to most observers, including diplomatic and intelligence officials, that militaristic and abusive actions are proving counterproductive, they have nevertheless been adhered to (and often with renewed enthusiasm and ferocity). Why is this? Simply condemning the tactics or pointing out that they are counterproductive provides no answers here; indeed, it deepens the puzzle. The bulk of statements about the 'war on terror' are concerned either with justifying recent actions (the approach of the US and UK governments and the US 'neo-conservatives'), dismissing abuses as 'mistakes' or 'failings' (broadly, a liberal perspective), or (usually from the left) condemning the US-led coalition's behaviour as immoral and counterproductive. However, trying to explain why these counterproductive tactics have been adopted and retained is a rather different task, and may ultimately help in challenging them. Since the US-led approach has not been based on facts so much as on faith and power, it has exhibited a certain immunity to conventional empirical challenges; it is therefore particularly important to explore its inner logic and the (deluded) beliefs that sustain it.

All this becomes more urgent because George W. Bush has often stressed that the 'war on terror' is both wide-ranging and ongoing. Bush told West Point military cadets in June 2002 that the United States must be prepared to take the 'war on terror' to up to 60 countries if weapons of mass destruction were to be kept out of the hands of terrorists. Iran has been a particular target for belligerent talk, and Bush described Iran in February 2005 as 'the world's primary state sponsor of terror'. For his part, Tony Blair responded in October 2005 to the Iranian President's admittedly outrageous call for Israel to be 'wiped off the map': 'If they carry on like this, the question people will be asking us is – when are you going to do something about Iran? Can you imagine a state like that with an attitude like that having nuclear weapons?'

Chapter 3 looks for political and economic explanations for the current counterproductive tactics. It is suggested that the global 'war on terror' is a system conferring important benefits, where the aim is not necessarily to win. If the 'war on terror' is an endless war in the sense of a perpetual war, it does not appear to be an endless war in the sense that it lacks any goal or purpose. The suspicion that the 'war on terror' may have hidden functions is heightened by the succession of 'wars' of one kind or another in which the United States has declared its involvement since the Second World War. Whilst taking off from the analysis of Chomsky and others, the discussion here draws on my previous analysis of civil war as a system: where militarily and politically counterproductive tactics have been commonplace and where (contrary to common belief) the aim has not necessarily been military victory. A variety of civil wars have shown the militarily counterproductive nature (and the hidden political, economic and psychological functions) of indiscriminate counter-terror.

Chapters 4-9 explore the psychological functions of predictably counterproductive actions in the 'war on terror', and the psychological factors that have shaped the changing – and often arbitrary – definition of the 'enemy'. The book suggests that the search for magical and psychologically satisfying solutions has interacted with old-fashioned militaristic paradigms in profoundly damaging ways. Again, the intention is to examine not only why such counterproductive behaviours and unhelpful definitions of the enemy were originally adopted but also why they have been maintained. The book looks at the appeal of doomed tactics not only for leaders but also for large sections of the electorate. It emphasises the mismatch between psychologically satisfying solutions (eliminating 'the evil ones') and solutions that might actually work.

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Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Pluto Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2006
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0745324177
• ISBN 13: 9780745324173
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 304
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar