Introduction

After a disaster as visible and massive as the attack on the World Trade Centre, broadcasters and correspondents use a language that matches the scale of horror, the anguish of survivors and our feelings of insecurity. But as we move away from the events of September 11 and gain a better perspective, a problem arises when we continue to apply the same style of reportage to explain the nature of the suspected attackers and to anticipate the likely steps to arrest or neutralise them.

Although the destruction, the casualties and the techniques of the attack are unprecedented, bin Laden’s organisation and operational approach are not isolated manifestations of a ‘new era of global terror’. The steps taken to prevent his future strikes and destroy his network will not be the ‘first war of the new millennium’, or even a ‘war on terrorism’.

We have been here before, we have already seen the leading edge of this generation of violence in previous chapters of our civil and military evolution. Certainly , bin Laden and his techniques have characteristics which distinguish them from previous resistance movements, nevertheless much of his modus operandi can be explained by a concept of insurgency which considerably predates him. A global audience has reacted with great intensity to the scale of casualties, the urban damage and its widespread emotional impact. But to a great extent these are the multiplying factors of our own vulnerability which bin Laden understood and deployed against us. Al-Qaeda is not a ‘new era phenomenon’, their use of terror and the western operational techniques to cut them off from their constituency are recognisable elements of insurgency and counter insurgency. The task ahead is not to create a wild new lexicon of raiding techniques for the frontier posse, but to develop what we already know, hand in hand with the pace of global change and the opposing developments which now seem to threaten civil society.

Understanding insurgency

By the 1960s, the west led by the British, had developed an understanding of insurgents that was based on a hundred years of collective experience. Insurgency referred to an uprising by a dissident group, which expanded to overthrow the rulers of a state. Insurgencies could involve communities located in several different states, but usually they concentrated on the defeat of a particular government. The insurgents’ support and energy sprang from a community that was somehow disadvantaged or excluded and as a result harboured an unbearable grievance. Because there was no constitutional path to redress their sense of outrage, a sizeable number of them would favour violent action.

The concept of insurgency was not to confront government forces directly because, in a firefight between troops and insurgents, the state’s military units were usually stronger. Instead the insurgent used the power and the clumsiness of the government against itself in the manner of a judo throw by which a smaller wrestler can topple a stronger and heavier opponent. The insurgents’ tactical aims were to woo the population away from the government, to increase the constituency of their own support and at the same time to reduce the writ and authority of their opponents. Time was always on the side of the insurgent, all they had to do was survive and return to fight another day, whereas the government, particularly in a democracy, had to appear to be credible and in control at all times. To win, the insurgent had to have a well developed political campaign, inspired by a vision for a better future, sometimes published as a lengthy manifesto and for the street level reduced to a slogan: ‘Unite Ireland!’, ‘Tamil Eelam!’. The insurgent’s military strategy hinged on increasing their popular support. ‘People’s War’ referred to the importance of the disaffected population which provided them with recruits, food, intelligence, logistic support and a refuge.

The insurgents moved freely between their identity as civilians and their role as fighters, hiding in adversity and re-emerging when the time was ripe. Their tactics were ruthless, the aim was to incite state military forces to take reprisals on civilian areas in a way which would turn the uncommitted population increasingly against the government. In British doctrine, ‘terrorism’ did not have much importance, it merely referred to the techniques of coercing or extorting the support of unwilling individuals and communities. However, already in the 1960s, the visibility and theatrical impact of terrorist acts gave them a popular significance which exceeded their tactical importance; terrorism was not an end in itself, but one of the many operational tools available to the insurgents.

A global insurgent

Although bin Laden’s operations can be largely explained by a 1960s understanding of insurgency, there are some departures from the established mould. To a western audience it would appear that he has no realistic political manifesto beyond a long-term vision for a restored caliphate, a place for Muslims in the modern world in which they could enjoy a genuine political status, and some expectation of meeting their social needs. Nevertheless in bin Laden’s own constituency this vision is real enough, it provides the mythology for a cause and in a less materially rich culture, something to dream about. Classical insurgency analysts also see an important lack of linkage between the Qaeda network’s tactics in the field and this long-term aspiration. But here again, in the eyes of his own constituency, bin Laden’s overwhelming tactical impact tends to override this apparent strategic weakness. His acute sense of the symbolic and the televisual has created images of his success that are so powerful that they overwhelm the doubts on his logic.

Al-Qaeda’s preference for huge statements, for bold acts of extreme violence in place of a long-term incremental strategy, appeals to the expectations of a society which is also conditioned by the same global imagery as the west. Whether negatively or positively, the 11 September attacks gripped our attention and changed our lives in a way that justifies his military concept from an insurgent’s point of view.

In more important ways bin Laden’s organisation has moved significantly beyond the established template of insurgency. Prior to the end of the Cold War a growing number of secular Muslim states were already struggling to contain their home-grown Islamic insurgencies. In every case these movements still seek to overthrow the government of a particular state. Bin Laden, by contrast is a global insurgent. His constituency is spread over more than 40 states, it cannot be regarded as a national or even a regional phenomenon. The arresting photographs of his attacks, spread around the world by an unwitting but usefully complicit media, have reached a vast audience of potential followers. His constituency is the immigrant and dispossessed family, the internally displaced, the second generation migrants, refugees and rural communities which have fled from war and famine to add to unhappy and overcrowded metropolitan areas.

For many in this dispersed constituency, bin Laden is a very negative force, he threatens the generation of immigrants who have strived to establish themselves in an alien host country. More immediately, many will perish as they flee from the prospect of finding themselves in a zone of reprisal against him. Nevertheless, this is a global constituency which stretches from Oslo to Jakarta, numbers in millions and increases visibly with each renewed migration.

Within these diverse populations the visual impact of bin Laden’s strikes, with its subliminal messages and implicit long-term aspirations, appeal irresistibly to a young, mostly male, energetic, educated and rebellious audience which corresponds to a similarly animated and rebellious stratum of western society. Young Muslim men entering higher education with positive expectations of the West find themselves isolated by poverty and the clumsy insensitivity of the MacWorld society which diminishes and excludes them. Their sense of outrage is exacerbated by an increasing self-image as an underclass, which is confronted in every aspect of its livelihood by the gross, enveloping Western culture.

The last citadels of their religion and Islamic lifestyle are continuously threatened by universal images which bombard them through advertising, television, branded merchandise, globally imposed conventions of eating, sexual codes, politics, education and even dress. At a national level they see corrupt and undemocratic Muslim governments kept in power by United States support and the constant spectacle of the Israeli war machine crushing the Palestinians in their own homeland.

These are communities which are so oppressed by the constant intrusions of a richer, more powerful and more successful culture that they will raise a cheer even for a despotic loser such as Sadam Hussein when he manages to discomfort the MacWorld giant. How much more do they cheer for the lone heroic figure of bin Laden?

Five hundred British supporters are rumoured to have trained with al-Qaeda; a cadre of around 30, intelligent, resourceful and fanatically committed young men is all it took to destroy the World Trade Centre and 7000 civilians with it. It is now possible that bin Laden has such cadres in each of the 40 or so nations where his constituency exists. For this dispossessed and migrant underclass, he is now a symbolic figure and his imprecise, long-term aspirations are well suited to ride across their diverse cultural and national expectations.

A modern insurgent

The organisation of the Qaeda network also reflects this global dynamic. Bin Laden is a modern insurgent; he does not rely on a population to sustain him, his targets lie beyond his centre of gravity but are still within the reach of his operational organisation. He is self-sufficient for intelligence, logistics and above all for funds. He may use these items when they are offered by his constituency but he can continue to operate when they are not.

The Qaeda network has international depth. Although bin Laden’s face now personifies his entire network, he is not alone and is supported by a well-established operational staff. This is spread across the globe in the manner of an international corporation, in which each unit maintains its security as a distinct and unconnected cell. In the attack on the World Trade Centre, it required several concurrent organising activities to investigate and develop an operational plan and at the same time, screen , position and train the operational cadre. These activities, estimated to have taken up to five years, had to be organised by an operational executive which lay beyond bin Laden’s location.

Counter-insurgent strategy

Bin Laden’s global dynamic raises considerable problems for a counter-insurgent strategy. By the 1960s the British had developed a successful approach to contain and then gradually destroy insurgencies in their former colonies. Their concept was to engage at the same level as the insurgent; their operational aim was to win back the disaffected population to the government side, isolating and finally destroying the insurgent organisation. This formula did not always succeed and even when it did, would take several decades to achieve. In some cases the best that government forces could do was to contain the insurgency and reduce its effects so that normal life could continue.

To succeed in separating the insurgent from their supporting constituency, the government side had to regain the political initiative, discredit the insurgents’ slogans and manifesto and remove the unbearable sense of grievance which energised their supporters. Very often to do this the government was forced to acknowledge the wrongs inflicted on the disaffected communities.

The paradox of a successful counter-insurgency was that the insurgents aims were usually achieved for them within a democratic framework that was controlled by government forces. Turning the population round in this way required the government side to have a political policy that took precedence over the military action. By the 1890s the British had understood that while overwhelming military retribution satisfied their primal instincts, it had the effect of driving the uncommitted into the arms of the insurgents. Their own notable lapses in following this principle, at Amritser and much later Londonderry, emphasised this truth. Where the British formula was notably successful they usually had the advantage of being able to control all the levers of the state government, the civil organisations as well as the military, which they organised under a single directorate .

These principles are only useful as a point of departure because bin Laden has altered the template: he is a global insurgent, the consequence of a different environment. His constituency is created by collapsing states and migrating populations; his financial, logistical and organisational assets do not come from the same source as his popular support, as they would in a national insurgent organisation. His hold over his followers is emotional, no one has seen him but he has the exposure of an international star, which is beamed intensively by a complicit media, using the proliferating communicating systems of the MacWorld society.

This raises considerable problems for a counter-insurgent strategy. Securing our cities and airways, arresting bin Laden and destroying his organisation must be immediate priorities, but the more important long-term task is to undo the conditions which produced him.

At the highest level, the global developments which impoverish and destabilise the already weakened states, will continue to create new and larger dispossessed communities from which another bin Laden figure will recruit his future cadres. These global developments cannot be arrested by a democratic, free market society; they are the consequences of that society.

The currently assembling coalition of likeminded states ‘to wage war on terrorism’ is an old fashioned emergency structure that would address a Clausewitzian threat to security, but not the virus of its own condition. Echoing the principles of successful counter-insurgency, the sense of outrage has to be removed and the increase of dispossessed communities stemmed. This requires a behavioural revolution in the MacWorld society: the undoing, or at least the mitigation, of the impact of globalisation. These ambitions could only be achieved by a genuinely effective world government which could organise an effective counter strategy.

In this unlikely event, we must opt for containment measures. Mitigating action must include the repackaging of the MacWorld image (an Islamic version of MacWorld?). Arresting the continuing build-up of further disaffected communities means securing social space for the displaced in their own countries. This urges for a more effective world order in which international forces secure the zones where vulnerable populations are threatened.

Their task would be to restore order and civil society, just as North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) forces have, very convincingly in their areas of strategic concern but not in the vulnerable homelands beyond. This calls for a stronger United Nations which will counter insurgency and warlordism in the poor regions of the world as well as the richer ones.

Mitigating the impact of globalisation also means a more responsible use of information, balancing the public lust for sensational imagery against the knowledge of how this serves the insurgent tactician.

Finally and most difficult of all, disarming the hatred of the disaffected Islamic communities means a new US policy on Israel and in the long-term, for the US to follow its own advice to its insurgency affected colleagues – Britain and Sri Lanka – to learn to talk to insurgents.