Looking Back,Looking Forward: A Personal Reflection

Terrorism is a Form of War

Terrorism is a method of fighting where relatively weak actors use technology to attack large entities. It cannot be eradicated in the postmodern world, and it will not go away (Jenkins, 1974). Terrorism will occur as long as small violent groups of politically aggrieved people have the ability to travel and they are able to gain access to weapons that can inflict multiple casualties (White & Chermak, 2022, pp. 50–56). Early research also found that terrorism provides a drama, a theater of violence where the audience is targeted by using political violence against seemingly random victims (Cooper, 1977; Jenkins, 1974, 1984; Miller, 1982; Schmid & de Graaf, 1982). In addition to being a form of conflict, terrorism is violent communication.

After spending an academic career focused on terrorism, there are areas where I have predicted or interpreted events correctly, and there have also mistakes and surprises. Rather than producing another scholarly article about the subject, this brief paper is a personal reflection after decades of working in the field of counterterrorism, written at the request of Harvey Kushner, a long-time colleague and expert in the field. It begins with a discussion of the way terrorism slowly became a respectable research topic in criminal justice followed by examples of a method that uses incremental learning to predict behavior of a terrorist groups. After this there are examples of personal successes and failures over the past two dozen years. The final portion of the paper briefly discusses America’s frequent unwillingness to understand the complexity of terrorism.

A Rocky Start: Academic Criticism and Encouragement

While governmental organizations and federal law enforcement agencies have embraced the topic for decades, terrorism research was not popular in academic criminal justice circles prior to the mid-1990s. Social scientists studying terrorism, for example, were frequently criticized for immersing themselves in the “abstract research,” work that impacted neither law enforcement, corrections, nor the court system. Critics said that terrorism studies were not relevant to the discipline. In addition, when presenting research at professional conferences, panels often suffered from sparse attendance. One colleague jokingly told me that my work in the field was a scam. Another associate, one of the country’s most accomplished scholars in law enforcement administration, bluntly stated that the study of terrorism was a waste of time.

Thank goodness some scholars encouraged work in the field. When I first started researching terrorism, I had the fortune of chatting with Brian Jenkins, then at the RAND Corporation. He told me to keep writing. There are a couple hundred of us in the West who study terrorism, he said, and if your work is good, we’ll get to know you. Stephen Sloan, then at the University of Oklahoma, said the same thing. Don’t waste time trying to define the topic, he added. H.H.A. Cooper sent a welcomed letter after my first book was published, encouraging me to continue researching and writing. These comments were helpful. Like all academics, I also benefited from criticism and peer review. Michigan State University’s David Carter, Richard Holden then at Central Missouri State, James Hendricks at Ball State University, and Harvey Kushner from Long Island University provided much appreciated criticism and feedback over many years.

Academic criticism of terrorism studies began softening around 1993. After the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995 and the tragedy of 9/11, academic institutions often applauded terrorism research in criminal justice departments. Audiences at academic conferences began filling the rooms at research presentations. Ironically, several people suddenly referred to themselves as terrorism experts. Some of my colleagues were resentful. One disgruntled professor from Texas told me that although we terrorist researchers had been ignored for years, we would be moving to the forefront of criminal justice research. He also predicted that so-called “terrorism researchers” were going to emerge everywhere. He was correct. In the aftermath of late twentieth century terrorist attacks, “experts” emerged from multiple academic fields, the media, and consulting organizations—people who had never worked in terrorism.

General Predictions Through Incremental Learning

Researchers who actually have specialized in terrorism often notice a trend. Terrorists study their trade, and their tactics change as learning increases. For example, after the failure of the 1916 Easter Rebellion in Ireland, Michael Collins immersed himself in the successful revolutions in France and Russia. The Irish Republican Army’s (IRA) mistake in 1916 was confronting the British with conventional military forces. Collins created an underground army based on his learning. He then developed the model for “selective terrorism”; that is, targeting security forces with small attacks and bombs while protecting Irish sympathizers. The IRA seemed to emerge from nowhere then vanish (White & Chermak, 2022, pp. 23–25). If the British had pinpointed Collins’ level of sophistication and learning, they might have developed more effective security tactics.

The learning process can be used effectively in intelligence gathering and counterterrorist operations. Like Michael Collins, terrorists study the past and follow the paths of those who have gone before (Bodrero, 2002; Kettle & Mumford, 2017). They learn and improve their trade over time. As their experience increases, their tactics change and improve. If analysts examine the strategy and development of a terrorist group, they can make general predictions about probable targets and tactics. In other words, if a researcher understands the capabilities and targets of a group at a particular point in time, he or she can identify trends for future attacks.

Military strategists have used this technique for centuries. They study the capabilities and behavior of adversaries, predict general behavior based on these factors then gather up to date information—known as real-time intelligence—to add specificity to their findings. For example, during the 7 Years’ War (1756–1763), Prussian King Frederick II usually sent a small portion of his army to strike at a given point, then moved the main body of his troops to launch the actual attack at another point. As his enemies gained experience, they began to model the behavior of the Prussian army. They could predict Frederick’s probable actions based on his current understanding of battle. The same process works when analyzing individual terrorist groups, and three personal examples can be used to illustrate this.

First, in early 1995, I was giving a briefing to Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) special agents in Detroit, Michigan. During the question-and-answer period, one agent, who was less than satisfied with the presentation, said, “You’ve given an academic analysis of the violent extremist right. Get practical. What are they going to do next?”

Of course, it was impossible to answer the question without specific pre-incident intelligence, but a general answer was available because terrorists learn in increments and choose tactics based on their location on a learning curve. Bombing was the most frequent tactic at the time and vehicle bombs were growing in popularity. The violent extremist right also has a deep hatred of the U.S. government. I confessed that I could not answer without real-time intelligence but given the pattern of vehicle bombs and hatred of the government, I said there was a high probability that right-wing extremists would target a government building with a car bomb. Timothy McVeigh attacked the federal building in Oklahoma City a couple of months later. This was not clairvoyancy. It was the outcome of studying the way terrorists learn their trade and their current level of sophistication.

A second example of the process comes from the summer of 2001. I was a subcontractor with a defense firm working with an agency in the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC). The company wanted to demonstrate methods for gathering counterterrorist intelligence through drones. I had been hired to plan a simulated terrorist attack on the United States while the company wanted to demonstrate how aerial reconnaissance methods could thwart the plan. The client ordered the company to use Iran as a state sponsor. I protested saying the attack would come from radical Sunnis and not Shi’ites, but the protest went unheeded. Accordingly, knowing that jihadists had tried to destroy the World Trade Center in 1993 and that they tend to hit targets repeatedly until they succeed, I planned a suicide attack on the twin towers using conventional explosives and chemicals. I never guessed that airplanes would be used in a suicidal onslaught, but the behavior of jihadists provided insight of probable targeting.

Finally, during the same summer, I was also a consultant with a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) anti-terrorism training program. DOJ summoned five contractors to Washington, DC to brainstorm ideas for future training. When the program director asked for thoughts about potential directions, I said that the volatile situation in the Middle East was about to create havoc for the United States. Again, this was not clairvoyant, it was simply an analysis of past events. Any analyst can do this in general terms, and if real-time intelligence is available, it can lead to greater specificity. The director grimaced and said that nobody was interested in the Middle East. I wish he had been correct. I later learned that intelligence officials had failed to convince the incoming presidential administration of the same point seven months earlier (War on the Rocks, 2021a).

Missing the Mark

Despite long-term work in the field of terrorism, my record of analysis was far from perfect. While incremental learning patterns allow general predictions, I have encountered major surprises in the two decades since 9/11. The most unsuspected event was the invasion of Iraq. It made no sense to me, especially because al Qaeda hated Saddam Hussein. Osama bin Laden favored a puritanical ideology falsely ensconced in religious language while Saddam Hussein, at least during his dictatorship, only gave lip service to Islam while following a path of ruthless authoritarianism. Even the most rudimentary analysis of the suspected relationship between al Qaeda and Iraq would have revealed deep-seated hatred between the two entities (Clarke, 2008; Daader & Lindsay, 2004, p. 143).

Further research demonstrated the reason the Iraq/al Qaeda nexus could not form (Bapat, et al., 2007). Although both President Bush and Vice President Cheney believed that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were allied, most scholars demonstrated that the two men could not work in conjunction with each other. While the two men worked against U.S. hegemony in the Islamic world, deeper issues kept them separated. Neither Hussein nor bin Laden served the same cause, and each man feared that the other would eventually utilize the proposed alliance to turn on the other. In short, they did not trust one another.

I assumed that many government officials understood this and many other aspects of the Middle East, but I was totally incorrect. After being asked to brief a group of DOJ executives on Middle Eastern terrorism, I started receiving confused looks a few minutes into the presentation. The briefing was making little sense to the audience. After asking the executives a couple of questions, it became obvious that they were not familiar with basic issues in the Islamic world. When I back tracked and started explaining the fundamental principles of Islam as well as theological and political rivalries, some people began taking notes. The briefing reverted to a lecture on the beginning of the caliphate, differences between Sunnis and Shi’ites, and the resentment and latent impact of European colonialism. After asking if this type of information was too elementary, they shook their heads no and asked me to continue. I thought DOJ leadership would be well-versed in Middle Eastern issues.

There was also the issue of suspected weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Like officials in the Bush administration, I assumed Saddam Hussein was developing such weapons and that they could eventually be used in a terrorist attack. My conclusions were not even remotely correct. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, and they did not have the capacity the make them.

The irony is that Iraqi officials claimed to be developing such weapons. One of my DOJ colleagues debriefed Tariq Aziz, the former Iraqi deputy prime minister, after he was taken into custody. He asked him why Iraq taunted the world with rumors about weapons of mass destruction. Aziz told him it was to scare the Iranians. They were afraid that Iran would launch another war against Iraq. Aziz said that Iraqi leaders did not believe the United States would invade their country.

Another issue that surprised me was the bureaucratic “mission creep” in Afghanistan. Mission creep is military slang for creating new objectives before the original task is completed. I thought our military would be guided by the Powell Doctrine; that is, General Colin Powell’s directive that when the United States decides to employ military force, the goals of the operation were to be specified in detail. Powell insisted that the mission should be clear and readily achievable. Further, military forces should depart as soon as the goals were achieved. Given the Powell Doctrine, I assumed the United States would strike with overwhelming force, destroy al Qaeda, and leave. I was wrong again.

While the original objective in October 2001 was to neutralize al Qaeda, the task was soon obscured by the fog of war. To begin, American military efforts were focused on Iraq, not al Qaeda. Although NATO fully supported American efforts in Afghanistan, insufficient troops were deployed to surround and destroy al Qaeda. This forced the allies initially to rely on local militias. Main elements of al Qaeda escaped to Pakistan and NATO found itself being opposed by the Taliban and rival militias. Instead of destroying al Qaeda and leaving, NATO was forced to deal with various militia factions, the Taliban, terrorist networks in Pakistan, and clandestine elements of Pakistani military intelligence. The military mission increased with each new political scenario.

Eventually the United States and its allies decided to overthrow Taliban controlled government and to introduce a centralized democracy. NATO was essentially charged with building a government and creating a new economy. These efforts caused military forces to create a centralized Afghan army in a country traditionally dominated by tribes. In addition, NATO was forced to fight political corruption in a country that had never experienced democracy. Critics complained that neither the United States nor NATO was able to complete the mission because the objectives kept expanding (Daader & Lindsay, 2004; War on the Rocks, 2021b).

NATO convened summit to examine its failure in Afghanistan after a disastrous retreat in 2021. Commanders concluded that both the United States and its NATO partners fell victim to “mission creep.” Each new phase of military activity was accompanied by new objectives that had little to do with counterterrorism efforts against al Qaeda (Cook & Keyton, 2021; Military.com, 2021).

Another surprise came in the years following 9/11. Violent domestic right-wing extremism surged in the 1980s and early 1990s, but it seemed to be losing its appeal by the turn of the century. In addition, after al Qaeda’s attack in 2001, America experienced an outburst of patriotism and unity. It seemed the trend in anti-government and racist violence would wane or possible even fade away in the outburst of patriotism. It did not.

Research from the Southern Poverty Law Center demonstrated that the so-called Patriot movement started to decline after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 (Potok, 2009). Many analysts assumed this trend would continue. After 9/11 the DOJ anti-terrorism training team brought in two dozen law enforcement intelligence analysts from all parts of the country to look at trends in domestic terrorism. We believed the decline of violent right-wing groups would continue and that we would find growing pockets of Salafi Jihadis. The analysts reported some violent Islamic radicalism, but we were surprised when they showed evidence of a much larger militant Christian movement. Christian patriotism, white nationalism, anti-government extremism, and the sovereign citizen movement were increasing. It continued to surge during the first two decades of the twenty-first century (Jones, 2020).

There were a variety of reasons for growing right-wing militancy. Globalism brought a tremendous shift in the American economy and many traditional working-class families were displaced. In addition, some Americans, especially white people, thought the southern border was out of control. They responded by forming armed groups to “protect the border.” The election of Barack Obama exacerbated the growth of white nationalism, and members of the Patriot movement felt that had a champion in Donald Trump. Violent right-wing extremism became the greatest domestic terrorist in the United States (Jones, 2020).

Another surprise was the rise of social media and its impact on terrorism. Scholars have studied the impact of the media on terrorism for nearly fifty years. Terrorism is theater; that is, a small group of relatively weak people use violence to send a message. The media, especially television, becomes the conduit for communication. Members of the mass media gradually developed an awareness of the way they were being manipulated, and they began to monitor the way they covered terrorism. They were wary of becoming a force multiplier for violent groups (White & Chermak, 2022, pp. 88–116).

Social media changed this. Large media networks acted as gate keepers of information. News frames told the story with pictures, narrative, and interpretation. Editors and producers, operating within corporate guidelines, explained events with complete control. As social media grew, control passed from media elites to the users of social media, including terrorist groups. Users had the power to frame their own messages. Not only that, but the messages also took on new meanings as they grew on the social network. For example, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) had an entire operation to post the messages on Facebook. Consumers added their own interpretations, and the original messages took on new forms with every new post. Managers of media outlets no longer had the exclusive ability to frame the narratives (White & Chermak, 2022, pp. 107–113).

Americans Misunderstanding Complexity

As we move into the future, I think one of the greatest threats of terrorism is not the tactics of groups or their attempts to control media narratives. America and a large part of the West has been increasingly dominated by political populism. This simplifies complexity and muddles understanding. I fear that populism will cause Americans to misunderstand the nature of terrorism.

Several scholars have pointed to the dangers of populist simplification. Domestically, some researchers have noted that Americans simplify issues by reverting to a type of tribalism (Shapiro & Fogel, 2019). There is a tendency to apply stereotypes to ethnic and religious groups, and this was even recently encouraged by an American president (Lindsay, 2000; Schertzer & Woods, 2021). The current political divide in the United States causes us to demonize one another and it threatens the fabric of democracy (Mondon & Winter, 2021). These trends also impact approaches to internationalism. Complex foreign affairs are categorized with similar simplified labels (McKinley, 2021). For example, the American right has developed a closer relationship with Russian totalitarianism (Michael, 2019). If these trends remain intact, our ability to grasp the nuanced complexity of domestic and international terrorism will be diminished.

Former CIA counterterrorism specialist Paul Pillar (2016) brilliantly summarizes the mind set of U.S. populism in Why America Misunderstands the World. He says that a variety of factors—such as America’s isolation between two oceans, neighbors to the north and south that present no military threat to the United States, and a general apathy to foreign affairs—keep us from understanding complexity. Americans do not know what it is like to live in a hostile international environment where differing ethnic groups with their own cultures and languages struggle for limited resources. This situation is perpetuated by America’s political system because candidates who could explain complexity usually lose to people who opt who ignore it (Burchill, 2020).

Pillar’s conclusions are correct, and they are exacerbated by both traditional and newer media. The flow of information over the past twenty years has been depressing. Many forms of media—especially, cable news opinion shows, talk radio, and social media—have increased public ignorance. A number of Americans have chosen to become woefully ill-informed and their opinions are reinforced by their sources of information. They seldom look outside their “news bubble” for differing perspectives on events. Further, they frequently confuse opinions with factual data. This not only obfuscates the complexity of terrorism, but it also creates an environment where critical issues like pandemics, politics, racism, and a host of global problems are simplified and politicized. Such willful tribalism suggests that the American public has no interest in understanding terrorism.

A practical example of this problem appeared in the 2016 presidential election. One candidate promised to handle ISIS by bombing the s*** out of them. The answer resonated with his followers in their information bubble. The problem is terrorists cannot be bombed out of existence. ISIS remains. Both sides of the political spectrum engage in this type of baseless truth, and this quashes any hope of discussing the nebulous nuanced environment of terrorism.

Terrorism will not disappear as long as small groups of aggrieved people have access to destructive instruments and the ability to travel quickly. Despite this, Americans have institutions which have dealt with and will continue to deal with the complexity of terrorism. The real question is, will political actors and the American public support these institutions, or will we choose to isolate ourselves in ideological bubbles that refuse to understand the realities of complexity. Most Americans seem to abhor critical reflection and informed analysis of political issues. Pandemics, politics, economic, and social issues are complicated. Understanding issues like terrorism embody a willingness to engage with these complexities. Responses demand more than political jargon and sloganeering.

Since this article is focused more on personal reflection rather than scholarly research, I would address critical reflection with an incident. Several years ago, I had a chance to attend a training session that included a presentation from the German special border guard unit known as GSG-9. I was very excited about this and called one of my friends, a Michigan sheriff. When I asked him to attend the session with me, he broke out in laughter saying that if he ever had a terrorist in his county, he would be the first to call me.

About fifteen years later I received a call. It was my friend the sheriff asking me if I had ever heard of an anti-Semitic group claiming that white Americans were the true descendants of the lost tribes of Israel. His deputies had a man in custody who was advocating a white revolution to overthrow something called ZOG (an acronym for the Zionist Occupation Government). The sheriff said the man had threatened to begin a revolution by killing cops.

“My friend,” I said. “That’s Christian Identity and violent anti-government extremism. You have a terrorist.”

In America we tend to react. When faced with a crisis, we usually focus on it after the fact. I lament that a significant portion of the population abhors critical thought and reflection, but when faced with a pressing problem we are frequently willing to do the hard work. Even though we are divided, I believe we will deal with a number of difficult issues, including the messy complexity of terrorism. After all, my friend started studying domestic terrorism and I was the first person he called.