The West and Terrorism: Opportunities and Challenges for a Common Transatlantic Response

Nine years after September 11, 2001, we have not entirely come to grips with exactly what happened, either in terms of scale or substance. The al-Qaida attacks targeting innocent human beings and civil facilities in the US have spawned a new brand of terrorism with a strategic leaning: terrorism that not only aims at changing policies of individual governments, but which also undermines common perceptions and the way of life of entire nations. While it is distinguished by certain ideological motives, it is at the same time politically motivated to a radical extent. It is a type of terrorism which successfully weaves global networks and operations into strategic goals.

History has yet to find the answers to the nature of strategic terrorism or to evaluate the adequacy of the US’ reactions and the world's response. There is no doubt, however, that connecting the dots of the whole picture reveals evidence of an objective process—one of a political radicalisation on religious grounds. Such processes are not operationally centralised but are, in a way, subordinated to a common goal—the conquest of ‘space’ through violence, hostility, coercion and denial. The mix of political, ideological and terrorist components makes those processes difficult to distinguish from aggressive populism and nationalism. The longer these processes keep gaining social and political ground, both in Islam and the West, the more difficult their proper treatment will become. The fact of the matter is that the transatlantic world is divided on the reasons why a religiously based terrorism has emerged; this lack of agreement is also relevant to the nature of countermeasures against it.

As far as the US is concerned, the world has been moving in the wrong direction since the 9/11 attacks. For the very first time in its history, the country and the lifestyle of its people are subjected to a tangible threat that cannot be addressed militarily. The US still has the military power to win any war. The country is experiencing, however, a lack of political resources to reach its own goals. The war against globalised terrorism and the subsequent occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has critically reduced the resources of the country to ensure swift success and therefore to engage new priority issues. It appears there is neither a universal concept nor specialised forces to carry out and facilitate the shift from military missions to nation building; from counterterrorism operations to humanitarian missions; from preventive actions to long-lasting commitments.

In practical terms, Europe faces similar challenges. The Islamic element of contemporary relations between civilisations is a part of European nations. Governments find themselves forced to be far more cautious than the US administration is because the control of any conspiracy network is quite a challenging task. There have recently been more jihadist attacks in Europe, and the likelihood of their occurrence in the future is not declining, despite Europe's moderate foreign policy and radical domestic measures. Even at present, when compared to the rest of the world, Europe seems to suffer the largest number of warnings prompted by possible terrorist attacks. The old continent's immediate surroundings bear the scars of a significant number of frozen and open conflicts, which among other things are a medium for international terrorism.

Transatlantic relations have experienced several years of acute hardship as well. The consequences of the period of tension are mainly that the Allies are beginning to feel less of an urge to cooperate. Certainly, this is a dangerous trend. It has led us to feel that transatlantic relations stand today at a crossroads, regardless of the fact that they are universally acknowledged as the most successful and most integrated partnership in history. After nine years of fighting against terrorism, it is an undeniable fact that the successful strategy can only be the collective one. It is a strategy that requires a strong and sustained political will, new operational capabilities, new procedures for decision-making and management and, ultimately, a new type of transatlantic partnership.

The development of the transatlantic partnership is not only a must for combating terrorism. Terrorism is unlikely to dominate the twenty-first century, because it simply cannot muster all the resources needed to turn it into a dominant feature of our time. Europe and the US are the engines of globalisation and will remain so for decades to come. They are capable of transforming the effects of globalisation into a win–win strategy, thereby contributing to the overall development of the world. It is exactly this win-win strategy that will be the most powerful countermeasure against social support for religious fanaticism. Moreover, the actions of the transatlantic community are based on clear values that everyone can recognise, monitor the degree of their observance and judge their correspondence to one's own values and interests. Thus, security interests are linked with the interests of the kind of development that creates a basis for new, unique links between the global values and universal concerns.

Transatlantic alliance relations are an imperative. They are imperative not only for us as Europeans, Americans and Canadians, but also for the whole world. The question of our joint approach to the contemporary problems of security and development is not based on nostalgia. The US and Europe must work together, not just because they have common problems to address, but also because the solutions they need must be complex, effective and long-lasting.

The general opinion is that both the structure and the resources of transatlantic relations have to be reviewed and updated. In the context of combating terrorism, we need a serious improvement of the legal and operational mechanisms, which, under conditions of an ever-growing EU institutional expansion, should facilitate to a maximum the resolution of our political and operational differences. We must improve the cooperation between intelligence and counter-intelligence services. Effective intelligence cooperation must become a political objective of the transatlantic community, in order to achieve a realistic definition and prioritisation of the threats in detail, and to confirm the conviction that no society is immune to terrorism. On this basis, a system should be implemented for fair and responsible cooperation in the areas of collecting and analysing information and in coordinating proactive countermeasures, multilateral protection and mutual assistance in detecting the crimes committed by terrorists and eliminating their consequences. Finding proper and timely solutions regarding data protection problems ¹ requires attention. We have to implement major new changes to both building and using our capabilities in the fight against terrorism. The same goes for crisis management, which should correspond to the objective of building vibrant communities and sustainable states.

The most important element in this construct, however, is the intensity of the commitment from each and every state. The degree of commitment results primarily from shared values and the level of intersection of national interests with collective ones. From this point of view, the participation of Bulgaria in the debate on the transatlantic security agenda is a matter of principle that underpins our foreign policy.

By joining NATO in 2004 and the European Union in 2007, Bulgaria became part of this common European space of freedom, security and justice in which the free movement of citizens and protection of their fundamental rights and freedoms is guaranteed. Being a part of the outer border of the EU makes Bulgaria's commitment to counter terrorism and contribute to security even more important. As in many other aspects of its external policy, Bulgaria is coordinating its counterterrorism policy and the measures it takes within the framework of its EU membership, in solidarity with the rest of the Member States, as well as in accordance with the values of transatlantic cooperation. Bulgaria condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, committed by whomever and for whatever purposes. We firmly believe that terrorists should be brought to justice and tried in a court of law. Led by this understanding, Bulgaria has ratified the most important conventions concluded under the auspices of the UN in the field of combating terrorism.

As for sharing information, from the very beginning Bulgaria has shown firm support for the conclusion of agreements between the EU and the US on passenger name records, financial transaction data and data protection.

As an EU and NATO member, as well as globally, Bulgaria will continue to regard countering terrorism as a task of great importance. Cooperation with our partners from the EU and NATO will be a priority in our participation in collective efforts to combat terrorism. Furthermore, we will actively support efforts made within the UN framework, which provides the broadest international platform of cooperation among states in countering international terrorism.