Audrey Kurth Cronin on Terrorism

Your first book is Every War Must End, by Fred Charles Iklé.

Iklé’s book is a classic from the 1970s, written during the Vietnam War at a time of agonising reappraisal in the US, with tens of thousands dying and no concept of how to bring the conflict to a close. But in the original edition he never actually mentions that war. Instead, he uses a rich selection of examples from earlier history, including the First and Second World Wars and the Korean War, arranged thematically to explore common challenges in bringing wars to an end.

What kind of answers did he come up with?

His central argument is that how a war ends is vital to its long-term impact upon the world – yet it is difficult for governments to be objective once there has been a great deal of violence. Iklé uses numerous historical examples to explain common problems. Policy-makers often succumb to wishful thinking, biased estimates, ideological dogma, and bureaucratic in-fighting, failing to think strategically in the midst of a fight. Our very human capacity to judge costs and benefits is distorted by the passions and sacrifices of an ongoing war. But if we are to act wisely we must consciously envision the endgame so as to craft a long-lasting political outcome that serves the interests of the state and its people. So the book looks at how important it is to remember that how you end a war is more momentous than the means being used in the midst of it.

How has this book influenced your work on terrorism?

The book is a kind of intellectual godfather to the research I have tried to do on the endings of terrorist campaigns. His argument – that in the middle of a passionate and difficult situation, we need to think about the longer-term outcome – is directly relevant to the action and reaction pattern that can unfold in the middle of a terrorist campaign. There isn’t anything worse than the tragedy of innocent noncombatants being killed in a symbolic way just to highlight a political message. I believe that Iklé’s argument applies directly to the horrifying violence that terrorism is designed to be. I should also add that I worked for Iklé early in my career, writing strategic documents in the Pentagon for a short time, so while he might not necessarily agree with my writings (I don’t know – haven’t asked him!), I have been thinking about the lessons of his book for a long time.

Your next book is A Savage War of Peace, by Alistair Horne.

This is a brilliant book. Indeed, I think it is one of the best books written in the 20th century. It is about the Algerian War for Independence, a very violent case study. Horne crafts it into a rare combination of an excellent detailed historical book about a war that also brings along a thought-provoking and timeless strategic perspective. Although originally written in the early 1970s, its themes are directly relevant to today’s challenges, including the ethics of torture, the power of popular ideas, and the fraught relationship between military victory and political outcome. The French engaged in brilliant counter-insurgency tactics and militarily defeated the FLN [Front de Libération Nationale], especially following the Battle of Algiers, yet France lost the war. Why?

Horne is masterful in answering that question, making the complex very simple. He explains not just what was happening on the ground in Algeria (there are a number of other good books that do that), but also opens the lens to encompass political instability in continental France, sanctuary in Tunisia and Morocco, Arab nationalism in the region, pressure from other major powers, and even the vital role of the United Nations. I like to use his book with my students because it graphically demonstrates the dynamic interaction between ‘terrorism’ and ‘insurgency’. It also paints a grand strategic picture beyond what was happening on the ground that helped to shape what it meant to win. This book will persist well into the 21st century.

We are looking at the religious aspect of terrorism with your next book, Terror in the Mind of God, by Mark Juergensmeyer.

When I thought about my list of five, I wanted to highlight books that were written by different kinds of observers. When studying terrorism, it is important to be open to different approaches, to be inter-disciplinary and to avoid the kind of groupthink that can set in among researchers. Juergensmeyer is a sociologist who comparatively studies cultures of violence that are either motivated by or justified by religion. To gain insight into the logic that drives them, he interviewed individual participants across a range of disparate religious campaigns, including violent anti-abortion Christian activists, Jewish extremists, Japanese Aum Shinrikyo cult members, Sikh separatists, and radical Islamists. He writes about the search for meaning and identity that is a part of religion and spirituality, demonstrating through his interviews and other research how that quest can take a violent turn.

Juergensmeyer’s book came out ten years ago and many people have argued in the intervening years that there is too much emphasis on religious ideology in analysing the current terrorist threat. I think this book is a nice corrective to work that seeks to leave behind the awkward fact that religion is part of human nature, and that these kind of laudable motivations can sometimes drive us to do extremely evil things. In a sense religion is the oldest motivation for terrorism, going back at least to the first century of the Common Era. I believe that if we fail to analyse the logic of this thinking, the points at which ideas are distorted or hijacked, we also fail to understand how to disrupt it.

Juergensmeyer has spoken to dozens of individuals and faithfully explored their views of the world; so the book is not a statistically heavy or dry academic analysis. It challenges your understanding of the human spirit directly through the words of the people that he interviewed. And it is chilling.