September 11, Crisis Resolution

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"Security Dilemma Revisited"

Dennis Sandole
Prof. of Conflict Resolution and International Relations

Letter to the Editor

Barton Gellman's front-page article in The Washington Post, "In U.S., Terrorism's Peril Undiminished" (December 24,2002), makes for grim reading.

Not only is the US as vulnerable to catastrophic terrorism today as it was prior to Sept. 11, 2001 -- despite billions spent on dealing with it -- but most of the effort still goes to the symptoms more so than the roots of the problems that give rise to terrorism.

Indeed, the Post article reminds us that "roots" has been a taboo word in official Washington, with the preferred focus being on evil and "rooting" it out.

The Working Group on War, Violence, and Terrorism of George Mason University's Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR), in cooperation with the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency, has advanced another view in their recently published Terrorism: Concepts, Causes, and Conflict Resolution: yes, by all means, pay attention to the "symptoms" with short-term, tactical, and operational security measures, but also pay attention to the long-term, deep-rooted problems that motivate terrorism.

Otherwise, we are likely to continue experiencing the same "security dilemma" that we had during the Cold War: with each successive increase in combating symptoms at the expense of deep-rooted problems, leading inexorably and perhaps paradoxically to decreases in security.

We only have to look at the Israelis and Palestinians, themselves worse off now than they were two years ago, and architects of an out-of-control conflict that ranks significantly among the problems fueling global terrorism!