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Discouraging Terrorism: Some Implications of 9/11
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The one sure conclusion emerging from this report about strategies for countering terrorism is that there are no silver bullets or quick fixes available. It is possible to specify more effective and less effective deterrent and preventive policies at various levels and under different conditions. However, the general policy approach has to be adaptive, opportunistic, and multisided. The conventional problem-solving logic so attractive in American culture—find a problem and then fix it—is of limited utility, and a longer term, more contextualized approach is necessary.
Despite this important caution, the panel ventures the following specific recommendations about deterrence and prevention that follow from our analysis:
Deterrence, understood conventionally as the direct use of threats, punishments, and inducements to prevent enemy action, has a viable place in dealing with terrorists.
Many of the assumptions of conventional deterrence, however—availability of channels of communication, credibility among communicating parties, knowing what adversaries value—are not likely to be present in contemporary terrorist situations. As a result, reliance on direct deterrence can be only somewhat effective. In addition, direct threats and perceived overretaliation may have counterproductive effects with respect to generating support for terrorist groups and activities by uncommitted audiences.
Direct efforts to deter should therefore be accompanied by working through all available third parties—societies hosting terrorist organizations, countries trusted by host societies, or the United States’ own allies—who may have more credibility with and influence on terrorist organizations than this country, as enemy, does.
Whenever possible, policies should be directed toward distancing and alienating relevant audiences from terrorist organizations and activities. The incorporation of potentially extremist political groups into the civil society of actual and potential host societies is especially important.
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