The War on Terror: A View from Europe Sebestyen L. V. Gorka Orlando, Florida, U.S.A.
Worldviews for the 21st Century: A Monograph Series John C. Bersia, Editor-in-Chief Johanna Marizan, Business Editor Mark Freeman, Marketing Editor Gabriela Othon, Research Editor Joshua A. Smith, Composition Editor The Global Connections Foundation, which evolved from an international awarenessbuilding program established in 1999, is a non-profit, non-partisan, non-ideological educational partnership. Its initiatives include regional forums, speakers, study/research programs abroad, awards and publications. The Office of the Special Assistant to the President for Global Perspectives (Global Perspectives Office) at the University of Central Florida was established by President John C. Hitt in 2001 to sharpen the University s international focus. The office helps advance UCF s goal of providing international emphasis in curricula and research. In addition, it endeavors to expand the University s efforts to enlarge Central Florida s awareness and understanding of the interconnectedness of the global community. The views expressed in this monograph are entirely those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff, officers or advisors of the Global Connections Foundation, the University of Central Florida s Global Perspectives Office or UCF s Political Science Department. Program Offices: University of Central Florida Howard Phillips Hall, Room 202 4000 Central Florida Blvd. P.O. Box 160003 Orlando, Florida 32816-0003 U.S.A. (407) 823-0935/0688 (407) 823-0716 (fax) global@mail.ucf.edu Worldviews for the 21st Century Volume 4, Number 3 Copyright 2006 by the Global Connections Foundation Copyright 2006 by Sebestyen L. V. Gorka, The War on Terror: A View from Europe Copyright 2004 by Associated Press Photo / Paul White, Cover Photo All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First printing, 2006 Printed by Dahlquist Printing and Graphics, Orlando, Florida, U.S.A. The Worldviews for the 21st Century series, a key part of the Global Connections Foundation s educational networking activities, gratefully acknowledges the support of the Darden Restaurants Foundation.
The War on Terror: A View from Europe Sebestyen L. V. Gorka The very day after the horrendous attacks of September 11, 2001, NATO decided to invoke Article Five of the Washington Treaty. For several reasons, this was an historic moment for the organization that had bound North America to Europe since 1949. The most obvious one is that despite being the most successful military alliance in modern history let us not forget, NATO won the Cold War against the former Soviet Union without ever having to fire one shot across the Iron Curtain NATO had never before had to invoke this, the most important article of its founding charter. And why was this the most important paragraph of the Washington Treaty? Because it stipulated that an attack on one was an attack on all. Yet, not only was it the first invocation of this most important agreement, but the circumstances of invocation were just as important. Why? Because the original drafters of that Treaty that bound American security to the security of Europe had a very different threat scenario in mind when they wrote it. In 1949, the expectation of all concerned was that in the near future the hordes of Soviet troops still stationed in Central and Eastern Europe after World War II would decide to finish by force what could not be achieved at Potsdam or Yalta, namely the
communist takeover of free Europe. Grossly outnumbered, the countries of the West would therefore need to call upon the military might of the United States to help them with its expeditionary forces and nuclear weapons. That was the expectation: to facilitate military support to Western Europe by Washington in the event of a conventional attack by the former Soviet Union and its satrapies. Yet Article Five came to life under wholly different conditions. On September 12, 2001, the decision was taken to declare a non-conventional attack upon the United States by a non-state actor as falling under the mandate of Article Five. This surely was not what Truman, Attlee and Adenauer had in mind when they signed the Washington Treaty. But what were the consequences of Article Five s historic invocation? Now, five years later, where does Europe stand in the so-called global War on Terror? Reality is far more subtle than typical press reports would have you believe. To begin with, the striking fact is that despite NATO s taking this momentous decision, post-9/11 military intervention was not done under the NATO flag. Instead, the United States decided to create its ad-hoc coalition of the willing to go first into Afghanistan and remove the Taliban, as well as the numerous al-qaeda bases that the regime was harboring, and then again to invade Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein. Why did the U.S. government reject NATO? For many reasons, not the least of which was the fact that after the Kosovo campaign of 1999, the United States was not very excited by so-called bombing by committee. As we know from that experience, the NATO operation to stop ethnic cleansing of the Albanian population of Kosovo by Serb security forces was severely hampered by all significant decisions having to be taken by the then 19-member North Atlantic Council, NATO s highest decision-making body. Military efficiency was hampered and security severely undermined (a French NATO officer was found leaking information to the Serbs during this campaign). As a result, the United States decided that the post-9/11 operations should be multinational but not in such a way as to affect negatively the U.S. military chain of command. Although understandable from a functional point of view, this decision fed into the growing perception by many in Europe that 4
the United States was becoming dangerously unilateral in its global policies. At the time, there were unkind words spoken off-the-record along the Washington corridors of power that despite NATO s invoking of Article Five, the Europeans were not taking the War on Terror seriously and that they would only do so after their own 9/ 11s, their own mass-casualty attacks. And although not quite on the scale of 9/11, indeed mass-casualty, extreme fundamentalist terror did strike soon enough, first with a synchronized train attack in Madrid and then the metro-and-bus attack in London. Nevertheless, there remained (and this continues today) many commentators and even political leaders who spoke out against the American way of war, some who went so far as to say that the United States represents the greatest threat to international security. As a resident of Central Europe and a keen follower of things transatlantic, I must emphasize that the situation is not in fact that grim. If one speaks to the professionals who work for the security services of even those European nations whose political leaders are most vociferous in their criticism of the United States and the War on Terror, the fact is that there is more agreement than disagreement in regards to the current threat environment. For example, to the Bundesnachrichendienst, Germany s equivalent of the CIA, there is no threat more deadly than extreme fundamentalist Islamicist terrorism. While the United States may be the main target due to its role as the only Western superpower, Europe is just as much in danger, if not more so. Why more so? Because of demographics and immigration policy. The most shocking fact in connection with the recent attempt by terrorists to down several transatlantic flights out of Heathrow with liquid explosives, is that those concerned were not foreign nationals as in the case of 9/11 or even immigrants, but young men born in the United Kingdom. Although modern America was truly built on the backs of European immigrants who often kept their original identity while also successfully integrating into U.S. society, Europe has never been a melting pot, at least not since the disintegration of numerous colonial territories that brought Arab and Muslim immigrants to the continent. The immigration policies 5
of France, the United Kingdom and Germany are obviously failing. There is no other way to explain how the children of immigrants born in the United Kingdom could decide to become extremist mass-murderers. Now Europe s political elite must face the difficult challenge of initiating a blunt discussion on the rights and obligations of its immigrants and on its non-christian citizens. Simple issues, such as the wearing of a full-face veil at work, have already acted as a catalyst for such a debate. In the meantime, given the 2006 election results in the United States, and even prior attempts by the Bush administration to review War on Terror goals and means, there is a chance to reestablish better counter-terrorism cooperation based upon common threat perceptions. We must remind ourselves that, just as during the Cold War, the security of the United States and Europe are intrinsically intertwined. Let us not forget that 9/11 itself was planned out of cells based in Germany, well before any of the hijackers made their way to the United States. 6
Sebestyen L.V. Gorka is the Founding Director of the Institute for Transitional Democracy and International Security (www.itdis.org) in Budapest, Hungary. He is an internationally recognized authority on terrorism and democratic transition. Recently, Gorka served as professor for Terrorism and Security Studies at the George. C. Marshall Center in Germany and as a consultant for the RAND Corporation in Washington, D.C. He often speaks at international venues, including The Joint Special Operations University, NATO and The Economist of London. 7