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Datr Vol.2 No.1 Editor’s Note The Defence Against Terrorism Review (DATR), first published in the Spring of 2008, is now one year old. DATR presents with great pride its third issue Spring 2009 in which our readership will again find, we hope, a collection of very valuable articles on extremely interesting subjects by distinguished scholars, professionals and experts from around the world. It goes without saying that terrorism has many faces and DATR addresses in this issue only a few of the types of terrorism that the world community is facing. In his article on the threat posed by the weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Guy Roberts discusses the important and dangerous challenges NATO faces and he highlights the complex nature of NATO’s work in trying to create a ‘holistic’ deterrence posture. The author also makes some suggestions towards maintaining NATO’s ability to combat WMD terrorism. Relations between staunch allies Pakistan and the United Stated have since September 11 attacks been deteriorated due to the severe criticisms of the American administration about the reluctance of Pakistani authorities to give all the support they needed in their fight against Al Qaeda, which uses Afghanistan and Pakistan as a sanctuary. Moeed Yusuf argues that once Pakistan’s own threat perception and self-defined regional objectives are held constant, it becomes entirely rational for it to avoid complementing the US objectives wholeheartedly. He, therefore, suggests that the United States should change Islamabad’s cost-benefit equation by altering the incentive payoffs rather than hoping that the moral undertones of the discourse would somehow lead it to oblige fully. With the advances in IT technologies, issues pertaining to terrorism and the fight against it are taken to a new and more complex level, namely the cyberspace. Gilbert Ramsay argues that strategies for offsetting the advantages that terrorists may have in the cyberspace do exist. The author suggests that by recognizing the limitations of the Internet as a tool for terrorism, governments, with their ability to shape agendas across the complete spectrum of media, stand a much better chance of countering threats which do emerge from it. Divine religions or other types of communal spiritual beliefs and acts of terrorism can hardly have anything in common. Andreas Armborst provides a conceptual and descriptive clarification of the notion of killing in the name of a religion by presenting a variety of definitional features. The author argues that as part of the efforts of clerics and jurists over the centuries to adjust Islamic international law to social-political realities of their time in a sophisticated manner, today’s reformists seek for a non-hostile interpretation of jihad. Because terrorism has become truly global, the link between terrorism and how it changes the foreign policy framework of the states gains much currency. Itır Toksöz studies the concept of threat in international politics and deliberates on the types, as well as the old and new usages, of the term of instability. The author argues that without a good understanding of what is domestic and what is international concerning threat perceptions, the role of the military in foreign policy making in the post-Cold War era cannot be fully understood. It is a well know fact that while states must be successful in their efforts to protect their citizens and their strategic assets at all times, terrorists need to be successful only once. Hence, intelligence and security services work hard to thwart any such attempts. Gordon Woo argues that terrorist targeting, attack mode and multiplicity can be analyzed, and the prioritization of targets for attack and defense can be assessed according to criteria of societal criticality, attack vulnerability, and terrorist capability. The author suggests measures to mitigate and avoid terrorism risk by adopting a risk-informed approach to counterterrorism resource allocation. DATR always welcomes contributions from experts, civil and military officers as well as academics who have been involved, in one way or another, in defence against terrorism, which has become not just a professional undertaking of only a number of individuals in various capacities, but rather an overarching duty of all the noble members of the world’s peace loving communities. There is no other way out, but to bring together the efforts of all the concerned body of intellectuals against the terrorism predicament, hopefully, sooner rather than later. Mustafa Kibaro lu Editor-in-Chief DISCLAIMER: The information, terminology used and views expressed in these publications are solely those of the authors and may not concur with the terminology nor represent the views of NATO, COE-DAT, or NATO member countries. Defence Against Terrorism Review Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring 2009, pp. 1-13 Copyright © COE-DAT ISSN: 1307-9190 Hostis Humani Generis: The Threat of WMD Terrorism and How NATO is Facing the Ultimate Threat Guy B. ROBERTS Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Weapons of Mass Destruction Policy, NATO Abstract: Terrorism as we have seen in the past can arise from almost any situation and in various forms. The 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington ushered in a new era of potential catastrophic terrorist acts. The first part of this paper considers the important and dangerous challenges NATO faces from the threats of Biological, Chemical, and Nuclear agents/materials by using past examples to illustrate the threat. The second, and central, part of this paper then highlights the complex nature of NATO’s work in trying to create a ‘holistic’ deterrence posture. It focuses on NATO’s work in accordance with the Comprehensive Political Guidance (CPG), which was endorsed by nations, after the 2006 Riga summit. The CPG reinforced the belief that the threat emanating from WMD terrorism remains one of NATO’s primary challenges for the next 10-15 years and stresses the importance of creating and maintaining International Partnerships to combat the spread and use of WMD material. Finally, the paper considers NATO’s remaining challenges and makes some suggestions towards maintaining our ability to combat WMD terrorism. Keywords: NATO, WMD terrorism, Biological, Chemical, Nuclear, Deterrence, Partnerships, Co-operation, CBRN, Defence Introduction On September 12th 2001 many commentators and analysts argued that the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington D.C. have made our worst fears a reality. Yet regardless of the terrifying events of that day we have fortunately not seen our worst fears become reality. Local, national and international terrorism have caused thousands of casualties each year and indeed the events on September 11th 2001 have made us aware that terrorist groups and individuals with similar ambitions are willing and capable of killing and injuring thousands of innocent civilians. 1 2 Guy B. ROBERTS The attacks on 9/11, regardless of their enormous impact, were conventional in nature. A similar attack with Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), defined as a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear (CBRN) device would have had much more of a devastating effect than the attacks of 9/11. So far we have been fortunate that a full blown WMD terrorist attack has not occurred and that attempts have been largely unsuccessful. This however should not imply that we are immune to such attacks in the future. Looking at the past, together with the severe implications of using CBRN materials and coupled with the motivations of certain terrorist groups such as Al- Qaeda (AQ). We must acknowledge the fact that WMD terrorism is a real and even likely possibility. Nevertheless, sceptics point to the fact that terrorists need to overcome numerous hurdles to perpetuate an act of WMD terrorism. They argue that the technical difficulties and the moral boundaries of such an attack are too high and that the motivation of terrorists groups to acquire WMD is too low for such an event to occur. Yet in looking at specific cases it becomes vividly clear that such assessments are overly optimistic, worse still, such assumptions could lull civil society into a false sense of security and result in a failure to adequately invest the necessary time and effort to prepare for the eventuality of a WMD attack.1 NATO has over time adapted itself to the evolving international security environment and has had to ask very stern questions in order to be able to prepare for the worst. How vulnerable are we to a CBRN attack by terrorists and how are we able to respond? Hopefully, the following section can present some of the dangers and vulnerabilities we have encountered and the following section can look into NATOs responses. It now becomes useful for the purpose of this article to delve into the recent past and note the WMD threats, so as to correlate NATO's work with the existent threats. WMD-Terrorism Threat Assessments The Biological Threat - ‘The Poor Man’s Atomic Bomb’ A recent Interpol report states: Current analysis indicates that the potential for terrorist use of biological represents a real threat. The timing of events is difficult, if not impossible, to predict, and the threat is summarized by the statement: not if, but when.2 Experts see the increased proliferation of dual-use civilian biotechnology, as well as scientific know-how to recreate biological lethal pathogens and toxins as an increasingly worrisome source of bio terrorism. The biotechnology industry continues to expand throughout the world, new pathogens and pathogen making technologies are rapidly spreading, increasing the risk that terrorists will acquire these deadly tools. There have been several cases in the past, in which Al-Qaeda or affiliates of the organization have tried to acquire the means for a biological attack. Al-Qaedas leader in Iraq, Abu Hamza al 1 See Osman Aytaç and Mustafa Kibaro lu (eds.), Defense Against Weapons of Mass Destruction Terrorism, IOS Press, Amsterdam, 2009.
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