September 11, Crisis Resolution

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Letter to the Editor
(Published in Financial Times, 9/20/01)

Richard E. Rubenstein
Prof. of Conflict Resolution and Public Affairs

To the Editor:

It is vital, at this juncture, that we clear our heads enough to understand what terrorists mean to accomplish by atrocious acts like the attacks of September 11. Ever since modern terrorism was born in Russia in the 1860s, one of the terrorists' primary motives has been to "leverage" violence by inducing powerful governments to turn relatively small-scale conflicts into full-blown wars. Why try to provoke such an over-reaction? Three reasons are particularly important:

First, escalating the violence to the level of war creates thousands of new innocent victims. Every new victim has a husband, wife, or child who thereupon becomes a potential terrorist. Terrorists bank on their Enemy's over-reaction to refill their depleted ranks and create new motives for revenge, generation unto generation.

Second, escalation expands the conflict, dragging in new parties, creating new grievances, and forcing the terrorists' own people to choose sides. This is exactly what they hope will happen. The attackers of September 11 undoubtedly pray for a conflict massive enough split the Islamic world into camps of "faithful ones" and "traitors." They reason that this will induce the faithful ones to follow their lead, and (given America's superiority in conventional weaponry) to multiply terrorist attacks.

Third, provoking their Enemy to declare war makes terrorists VERY powerful. The name of the game, from their perspective, is to "teach" their people that discrete acts of violence by small groups of fighters willing to die for the cause can change history and redeem their endangered honor. Again, the effect is not to stamp out terrorism but to perpetuate it.

For these reasons, among others, our leaders should immediately begin to tone down their rhetoric and abandon plans, if they have them, for massive retaliation. Common sense and long-range concern for American security dictate that a military response be carefully measured, and that we then move on to confront the deeper causes of anti-American passion in the non-Western world.