Will the Global War on Terrorism be the new Cold War?

8/4/2019 Will the Global War on Terrorism be the new Cold War?

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Will the ‘global war on terrorism’

be the new Cold War?

International Afairs 82: 6 (2006) 1101–1118© 2006 The Author(s). Journal Compilation © 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd/The Royal Institute o International Afairs

BARRY BUZAN*

Washington is now embarked on a campaign to persuade itsel, the Americanpeople and the rest o the world that the ‘global war on terrorism’ (GWoT) willbe a ‘long war’. This ‘long war’ is explicitly compared to the Cold War as a similarsort o zero-sum, global-scale, generational struggle against anti-liberal ideolo-gical extremists who want to rule the world. Both have been staged as a deenceo the West, or western civilization, against those who would seek to destroy it.As Donald Rumseld says o the ‘terrorists’: ‘they will either succeed in changingour way o lie, or we will succeed in changing theirs’.1 The rhetorical move tothe concept o a ‘long war’ makes explicit what was implicit in the GWoT rom itsinception: that it might ofer Washington a dominant, uniying idea that wouldenable it to reassert and legitimize its leadership o global security. The demand

or such an idea was palpable throughout the 1990s. When the Cold War ended,Washington seemed to experience a threat deficit, and there was a string o attemptsto find a replacement or the Soviet Union as the enemy ocus or US oreign andmilitary policy: first Japan, then China, ‘clash o civilizations’ and rogue states.None o these, however, came anywhere close to measuring up to the Cold Warand the struggle against communism, which or more than 40 years had created acommon cause and a shared raming that underpinned US leadership o the West.The terrorist attacks o 9/11 ofered a solution to this problem, and right rom thebeginning the GWoT had the eel o a big idea that might provide a long-term

cure or Washington’s threat deficit. I it could be successully constructed andembedded as the great new global struggle, it would also underpin the shaky legiti-macy o US unipolarity, maintenance o which was a key goal in the US NationalSecurity Strategy (USNSS) o 2002, and is still visible, albeit in more muted tones,in the 2006 USNSS.2 Will this strategy succeed? Will the GWoT become the newCold War?

* I am grateul to Ole Wæver and Lene Hansen and an anonymous reviewer or International Afairs or commentson an earlier drat o this article.

1 ‘Rumseld ofers strategies or current war: Pentagon to release 20-year plan today’ and ‘Abizaid credited

with popularizing the term, “long war”’, Washington Post, 3 Feb. 2006, p. A08, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/02/AR2006020202296.html and www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ content/article/2006/02/02/AR2006020202242.html, accessed 17 Feb. 2006.

2 Morten Kelstrup, ‘Globalisation and societal insecurity: the securitization o terrorism and competing strate-gies or global governance’, in Steano Guzzini and Dietrich Jung, eds, Contemporary security analysis and Copen-hagen peace research (London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 106–16.



Barry Buzan

1102International Afairs 82: 6, 2006© 2006 The Author(s). Journal Compilation © 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd/The Royal Institute o International Afairs

These questions seem at first to mark disagreement with the recent argumento Kennedy-Pipe and Rengger that 9/11 changed nothing undamental in worldpolitics.3 What it does pick up on is their idea that the only thing that changedis the belie that something had changed. This article is about the strength and

durability o that belie, and whether as a social act it can be used to create anew political raming or world politics. In addressing this question I diferentiatebetween a traditional materialist analysis o threat (whether something does ordoes not pose a specific sort o threat, and at what level) and a so-called securitization analysis (whether something can be successully constructed as a threat, with thisunderstanding being accepted by a wide and/or specifically relevant audience).4 These two aspects o threat may run in close parallel, but they can also be quiteseparate. States, like people, can be paranoid (constructing threats where noneexist) or complacent (ignoring actual threats). But since it is the success (or not)

o the securitization that determines whether action is taken, that side o threatanalysis deserves scrutiny just as close as that given to the material side.

Keeping this distinction in mind, the explicit ‘long war’ raming o the GWoTis a securitizing move o potentially great significance. I it succeeds as a widelyaccepted, world-organizing macro-securitization, it could structure global securityor some decades, in the process helping to legitimize US primacy. This is not toconuse the GWoT with US grand strategy overall, despite the GWoT’s promi-nence in the 2006 USNSS. US grand strategy is much wider, involving more tradi-tional concerns about rising powers, global energy supply, the spread o military

technology and the enlargement o the democratic/capitalist sphere. US militaryexpenditure remains largely aimed at meeting traditional challenges rom otherstates, with only a small part specifically allocated or the GWoT. The significanceo the GWoT is much more political. Although a real threat rom terrorists doesexist, and needs to be met, the main significance o the GWoT is as a politicalraming that might justiy and legitimize US primacy, leadership and unilater-alism, both to Americans and to the rest o the world. This is one o the keydiferences between the GWoT and the Cold War. The Cold War pretty much was US grand strategy in a deep sense; the GWoT is not, but, as a brie glance at the

USNSS o 2006 will show, is being promoted as i it were. Whether this promo-tion succeeds or not will be afected by many actors, not least how real and howdeep the threat posed by terrorism actually is.

The next section surveys the rise o the GWoT as a successul macro- securitization. The one ollowing examines conditions that will afect the sustain-ability o the GWoT securitization. The conclusions reflect on the consequenceso the GWoT should it become successully embedded as the new Cold War. Theargument is that it is unlikely, though not impossible, that the GWoT will beanything like as dominant and durable as the macro-securitization o the Cold

3 Caroline Kennedy-Pipe and Nicholas Rengger, ‘Apocalypse now? Continuities or disjunctions in world poli-tics ater 9/11’, International Afairs 82: 3, 2006, pp. 539–52.

4 Ole Wæver, ‘Securitization and desecuritization’, in Ronnie D. Lipschutz, ed., On security (New York: Colum-bia University Press, 1995), pp. 46–86; Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver and Jaap de Wilde, Security: a new ramework or analysis (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998).



Will the ‘global war on terrorism’ be the new Cold War?


War. One o the reasons or its ragility is precisely that it is not representative o US grand strategy as a whole. Another is that the means used to pursue the GWoTthreaten two o the core things they are supposed to be deending: liberal valuesand the unity o the West.

The rise of the GWoT as the new macro-securitization

The Al-Qaeda attacks on the United States in 2001 brought the post-Cold Warperiod to an abrupt end. It solved the threat deficit problem or the US, andtriggered a substantial shit in security definitions and priorities in many countries.The GWoT played strongly to the long-established propensity in US oreign policyto rame American interests as universal principles. This had worked well duringthe Cold War to legitimize US leadership. Washington saw itsel as representing

the uture, and thereore having the right and the duty to speak and act or human-kind, and this claim was, up to a point, accepted in much o the rest o the West.Right rom the start the GWoT was also presented in this way:

At the beginning o this new century, the United States is again called by history to useour overwhelming power in deense o reedom. We have accepted that duty, because weknow the cause is just … we understand that the hopes o millions depend on us … andwe are certain o the victory to come.5

So ar, the GWoT has been a rather successul macro-securitization.6 That Al-Qaeda and its ideology are a threat to western civilization is widely acceptedoutside the Islamic world, and also within the Islamic world, though there opinionis divided as to whether or not this is a good and legitimate thing. The US-led waragainst the Taleban and Al-Qaeda in Aghanistan shortly ater September 11 wasgenerally supported at the time, and NATO is still playing the leading role in the(so ar not very successul) attempt to stabilize and rebuild that country. Beneathits exaggeration, there is some real substance to President Bush’s boast about thecoalition backing the GWoT:

the cooperation o America’s allies in the war on terror is very, very strong. We’re grate-ul to the more than 60 nations that are supporting the Prolieration Security Initiative tointercept illegal weapons and equipment by sea, land, and air. We’re grateul to the morethan 30 nations with orces serving in Iraq, and the nearly 40 nations with orces in A-

ghanistan. In the fight against terror, we’ve asked our allies to do hard things. They’ve risento their responsibilities. We’re proud to call them riends.7

Immediately ollowing 9/11 NATO invoked article 5 or the first time, therebyhelping to legitimize the GWoT securitization. Since then leaders in most western

5 Dick Cheney, ‘Success in war is most urgent US task, Cheney says: remarks to the Commonwealth Club o Caliornia’, 7 Aug. 2002, http://japan.usembassy.gov/e/p/tp-se1585.html, accessed 26 Dec. 2005.

6 Kelstrup, ‘Globalisation’, pp. 112–13.7 George W. Bush, ‘President Bush discusses progress in the war on terror’, White House, 12 July 2004, http://

www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/07/20040712–5.html, accessed 28 Dec 2005.



Barry Buzan


countries, but also, conspicuously, in Russia, China and India, have associatedthemselves and their governments with the view that international terrorism is acommon threat. In the case o Russia, China, Israel and India, the move has beento link their own local problems with ‘terrorism’ to the wider GWoT raming.

Part o the GWoT’s relative success can be attributed to the way in which it hastied together several longstanding security concerns arising within the liberal order,most notably crime and the trades in drugs and the technologies or weapons o mass destruction (WMD). Within the rame o the liberal international economicorder (LIEO), it is well understood that while opening state borders to flowso trade, finance, inormation and (skilled) people is generally to be promoted,such opening also has its dark side in which illiberal actors, mainly criminals andterrorists, can take advantage o liberal openness in pursuit o illiberal ends. Theproblem is that the liberal structures that acilitate business activity cannot help but

open pathways or uncivil society actors as well. Concern about criminal activity(particularly the drugs trade) has—at least within the United States—been ramedin security terms (the ‘war on drugs’) or some decades. And concern about tradein WMD is institutionalized in the nuclear non-prolieration regime as well as inconventions about chemical and biological weapons technology. The securitizingmoves supporting the GWoT have linked all o these issues. Within the UnitedStates, the link between terrorism and drugs seeks to grat a newer securitizationon to an older one.8 The link predates 2001, and its essence is the charge that terror-ists engage in the drugs trade as a principal source o unding or their activities,

one o which is seeking WMD:

As we enter the 21st century, the greatest threats to our reedom and security will comerom a nexus o new threats: rogue states, terrorism, international crime, drug tra ckingand the spread o weapons o mass destruction.9

And:

Structural links between political terrorism and traditional criminal activity, such as drugs

tra cking, armed robbery or extortion have come increasingly to the attention o lawenorcement authorities, security agencies and political decision makers. There is a airlyaccepted view in the international community that in recent years, direct state sponsorshiphas declined, thereore terrorists increasingly have to resort to other means o financing,including criminal activities, in order to raise unds. These activities have traditionallybeen drug tra cking, extortion/collection o ‘revolutionary taxes’, armed robbery, andkidnappings. The involvement o such groups as the PKK, LTTE, and GIA in these activi-ties has been established.10

8 Dan Gardner, ‘Terrorists get cash rom drug trade: tra cking prime source o unds or many groups’, 14 Sept.

2001, http://www.cdp.ca/terror.htm#trc, accessed 28 Sept. 2004; US Drug Enorcement Administration,Drug Intelligence Brie, ‘Drugs and terrorism: a new perspective’, Sept. 2002, http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/ pubs/intel/02039/02039.html, accessed 19 Aug 2004.

9 Fact sheet, 24 Sept. 1996, ‘Clinton initiatives on terrorism, crime, drugs’, http://nsi.org/library/terrorism/ terrorcrimedrugs.html, accessed 20 Sept. 2004.

10 INTERPOL General Secretariat, written testimony o Ral Mutschke (assistant director, Criminal Intelli-gence Directorate, INTERPOL) beore a hearing o the Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime,





In the EU’s European Security Strategy document, organized crime—especiallytra cking in drugs, women, illegal migrants and weapons—and its links withterrorism, are given together as one o five key threats to Europe, along withterrorism itsel, prolieration o WMD, regional conflict and state ailure.11 This

presentation has evolved rom the pre-9/11 European pattern, where the mainefort went into securitizing a threat package linking immigration, organized crimeand drug—thereby depicting immigrants as the root problem.12 Even beore 9/11,these themes were echoed by some Third World spokespersons seeking to increasetheir leverage or reorm o the LIEO. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, orexample, argued:

We recognise the grave threat posed by the debt question, poverty, corruption, lootedunds, terrorism and drug-tra cking to the stability and prosperity not only o the devel-

oping world but o all countries. They are essentially global challenges or developmentand peace, security, stability and development.13

In relation to the securitization o WMD, the new twist is the addition o astrong concern that not only ‘rogue states’, but also terrorist organizations, mightacquire nuclear weapons or other WMD.

The gravest danger our Nation aces lies at the crossroads o radicalism and technology.

Our enemies have openly declared that they are seeking weapons o mass destruction, andevidence indicates that they are doing so with determination. The United States will not

allow these eforts to succeed … History will judge harshly those who saw this comingdanger but ailed to act. In the new world we have entered, the only path to peace and

security is the path o action.14

And, rom Europe:

Prolieration o weapons o mass destruction is potentially the greatest threat to our se-curity … The most rightening scenario is one in which terrorist groups acquire weaponso mass destruction. In this event, a small group would be able to inflict damage on a scale

previously possible only or States and armies.

15

One benchmark or the success achieved in linking the GWoT to WMD hasbeen the ability o the United States since 2003 to set up the Prolieration Security

13 Dec. 2000, ‘The threat posed by the convergence o organized crime, drugs tra cking and terrorism’,http://www.house.gov/judiciary/muts1213.htm, accessed 28 Sept. 2004.

11 Javier Solana, A secure Europe in a better world: European Security Strategy (Paris: European Union Institute orSecurity Studies, 2003), pp. 6–9.

12 Didier Bigo, Polices en Résaux: l’expérience européenne (Paris: Presses de Sciences Politiques, 1996); Barry Buzanand Ole Wæver, Regions and powers: the structure o international security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

2003), p. 359.13 Agence France-Presse, ‘Nigerian president urges rich–poor partnership’, Global Policy Forum, 20 July 2000,http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/fd/nigeria1.htm, accessed 4 April 2005.

14 George W. Bush, The National Security Strategy o the United States o America (Washington DC: White House,Sept. 2002).

15 Solana, A secure Europe in a better world , pp. 7–8.



Barry Buzan


Initiative (PSI). Despite reservations about US unilateralism, opposition to itsinvasion o Iraq and concerns about the legality o intercepting trade, the PSIhas attracted participation rom over 40 countries.16 Even critics acknowledge theGWoT’s success. An Action Aid report on the distorting impact o the GWoT on

aid flows notes that ‘The war on terror is like a new Cold War where everything issubordinated to a single purpose.’17

On this evidence, there can be little doubt that during the hal-decade sinceSeptember 2001 the GWoT has achieved considerable progress as a macro- securitization. It has been successully tied in to some pre-existing securitizationsand has achieved a broad acceptance within international society. The questionis: does its success to date give the GWoT the potential to become embedded asthe successor to the Cold War? How will events rom here on either reinorce orweaken the GWoT’s bid to be the new Cold War?

Will the GWoT securitization be durable?

As the recent uror over the Danish cartoons shows, events are largely unpredict-able: we cannot say who will die when, or get elected when, or when some naturaldisaster will occur. Nor can we orecast the impact o events, which may dependmuch on context and timing. Some events could be so big that they wipe out mostor even all assumptions based on historical continuities and trends (e.g. a large andrapid rise in sea levels caused by a aster than expected meltdown o the Greenland

and Antarctic ice sheets). Nevertheless, concentrating only on the types o eventthat are both plausibly probable and closely related to the GWoT, it is possible tothink in a systematic way about their impact on the intensity and durability o the GWoT securitization. There are five obvious types o event that could signifi-cantly reinorce or undermine the GWoT securitization:

ü the impact o urther terrorist plans and/or attacks (or plans or attacks success-ully attributed to terrorists);

ü the commitment o the United States to the GWoT securitization;

ü the legitimacy o the United States as a securitization leader within interna-tional society;

ü the (un)acceptability and (il)legitimacy o both the GWoT securitization as awhole or o particularist securitizations that get linked to it;

ü the potency o securitizations competing with the GWoT.

The impact of terrorist attacks and/or plans

Easily the most obvious type o event to influence the durability o the GWoT

securitization will be the success o Al-Qaeda and its imitators and successors in

16 Mark Valencia, The Prolieration Security Initiative, Adelphi Paper 376 (London: International Institute or Secu-rity Studies, 2005).

17 John Cosgrave, ‘The impact o the war on terror on aid flows’, Action Aid , 1 March 2004, p. 1, http://www.actionaid.org.uk/100235/our_research.html, accessed 24 Feb. 2006.





sustaining a su cient level o attacks and provocations to eed the securitization.Analysts like Paul Wilkinson (who are themselves part o the securitizing process)argue that the struggle against Al-Qaeda is likely to endure or ‘some decadesahead’—not least because, with networks in 60 countries, Al-Qaeda is ‘the most

widely dispersed non-state terrorist network in history’.18 While it is impossibleto predict what terrorists will do, the spectrum o options ranges rom reduction,through more o the same, to escalation. Reduction means that the terrorist threatades into the background and becomes an acceptable part o everyday lie risks.This could happen because the terrorist cause loses steam or internal reasons, and/ or because countermeasures become efective enough to oil most attacks. More o the same means something like what we have had since 9/11, with a airly regulardrumbeat o medium-sized attacks su cient to cause local disruption and somegeneral angst, but not on a scale su cient either to threaten the operation o the

global economy or to cause major upheavals in the relationship between state andsociety. Escalation means that the terrorists’ motivation and organization remainstrong, countermeasures are only partly efective, and periodically, or even worseregularly, some efective, high-casualty and/or high-cost attacks are mounted onsot targets, with the worst case being use o WMD. The escalation option wouldstrengthen the GWoT securitization, and the reduction option would weaken it.More o the same does not look su cient to sustain the costs o a long-term macro-securitization unless the ear o escalation can be maintained at a high level.

One cannot rule out the possibility that governments with a strong vested

interest in maintaining the GWoT securitization (most obviously Russia, China,India and the Bush and Blair administrations) might resort to agent provocateur actions in order to strengthen a terrorist ‘threat’ that had itsel become too weakto serve the political purposes o maintaining the GWoT securitization. Since theagencies that deal with counterterrorism are among the most secretive in govern-ment, and since these agencies control reporting o alleged terrorist plots uncov-ered and oiled, there is quite a bit o scope or manipulations ranging rom spin towholesale abrication. There will always, o course, be conspiracy theorists whowill think this anyway; but we have already been treated to enough government

lying, secrecy, deception, and abandonment o legal and moral principles duringthe GWoT to give this option some plausibility. And, as will become clear below,what the terrorists do, or are thought to be capable o doing, may well be the mostcrucial variable afecting the sustainability o the securitization. I done convinc-ingly, such action could help to sustain the GWoT. But i done and exposed, itwould help to undermine its legitimacy.

The commitment of the US to the GWoT securitization

Since the United States was the initiator o the GWoT ater 9/11, and remainsits leader, its commitment will be a crucial actor in whether the securitization

18 Paul Wilkinson, International terrorism: the changing threat and the EU’s response, Chaillot Paper 84 (Paris: EuropeanUnion Institute or Security Studies, 2005), pp. 13–16, 25.



Barry Buzan


flourishes or ails. On the ace o it, there is every reason to think that the UScommitment will stay strong. Legions o the commentariat on both sides o theAtlantic have observed how deeply the 9/11 attacks impacted on the United States,and this impact has been played to and strengthened by the subsequent rhetoric o

the Bush administration.19 On the other hand, that same administration could wellbe the agency that delegitimizes the GWoT securitization. Its gigantic strategicerror in invading Iraq, its incompetence as an occupier, its appalling behaviourover torture and prisoners o war, and the visible damage all this has done to itsreputation abroad could be enough to discredit the GWoT securitization simplyby its association with a particular administration, even within the United States.The campaign rhetoric and the outcome o the 2004 presidential election wouldsuggest not, but the continuing catastrophe in Iraq, and the shocking spectacleo the US Vice-President deending the right to torture, might yet be enough

to turn public opinion. The observation attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville that‘America is good. And i America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to begreat’ plays strongly in US domestic politics, and politicians seen to be violatingAmerica’s goodness need to watch their backs.

The outcome o this is again impossible to predict, and is likely to be stronglyafected by how the terrorist threat unolds. Americans, like most other citizens o democracies, quite willingly surrender some o their civil liberties in times o war.But it is easy to see the grounds within American society or reactions against theGWoT securitization, especially i its legitimacy becomes contested. One source

o such reactions would be civil libertarians and others opposed to the reasser-tion o government powers through a state o permanent ear and emergency.Another would be isolationists and ‘ofshore balancers’ who oppose the currentlevels and logics o US global engagement. A Pew poll rom October 2005 ound42 per cent o Americans avouring a more isolationist policy, on a steeply risingtrend that already surpassed the highest level on the question reached immedi-ately ater the Vietnam War.20 There is also room or a similarly inormed disputeover what kinds o emergency action are legitimized by the GWoT, includingtreatment o prisoners o war (aka ‘enemy combatants’), torture, pre-emptive war,

regime change and unilateralism generally. It will be interesting to see whether thepresent substantial consensus on the need to improve ‘homeland security’, both inthe United States and in many other countries, becomes embedded or is increas-ingly attacked. Grounds or opposition include its costs, in terms o both moneyand liberty, and the inefectiveness o a permanent increase in the state’s surveil-lance over everything rom trade and finance to individual patterns o travel andconsumption. The reusal o Congress in late 2005 to grant the administration’srequest or a long-term extension o the Patriot Act, and the political fireworks

19 Pierre Hassner, The United States: the empire o orce or the orce o empire?, Chaillot Paper 54 (Paris: European UnionInstitute or Security Studies, 2002), pp. 8–9; Melvyn P. Le er, ‘9/11 and the past and uture o Americanoreign policy’, International Afairs 79: 5, 2003, p. 1049.

20 ‘Public unenthused by democracy push’, Pew Research Centre, 3 Feb. 2006, http://people-press.org/commen-tary/display.php3?AnalysisID=126, accessed 18 Feb. 2006.





over unauthorized government wire-taps on US citizens,21 are perhaps indicativeo a growing, though not yet decisive, reaction against the domestic and interna-tional efects o the GWoT securitization.

A possible straw in the wind was a recent shit o rhetoric by some top o cials

o the Bush administration in the way they talk about terrorism. They stoppedtalking about a ‘global war on terrorism’ and began to use phrases such as a ‘struggleagainst global extremism’, or a ‘global struggle against the enemies o reedom,the enemies o civilization’. This repackaging could be seen as a retreat rom theGWoT securitization, with ramings in terms o ‘struggle’ leaning towards morenormalized, politicized responses. But given the parallel use o ‘long war’ rhetoric,it was more likely an attempt to reormulate the GWoT so as both to justiy abroader response and to counter criticisms o the excessively military ocus gener-ated by the ‘war’ raming.22 And in any event, the USNSS o 2006 reasserted the

‘war’ raming, which leans strongly towards maintaining the securitization.

The legitimacy of the US as a securitization leader within international society

Even i the US itsel holds to the GWoT securitization, will it be able to holdothers in a su cient consensus to sustain it as a dominant macro-securitization?The answer to this question depends on several actors, not least the importance o the terrorist threat remaining strong enough, as discussed above. It also depends on

the credibility and legitimacy o the United States as a leader within internationalsociety, which will be the subject o this subsection, and on the acceptability andlegitimacy o the GWoT securitization itsel, which will be the subject o thenext.

The US successully generated and led the macro-securitization o the ColdWar against communism generally and the military power o the Soviet Union inparticular. It was aided in this both by the broad acceptability o its own qualities asa leader in the West, and up to a point even in the Third World, and by the act thatother states, especially west European ones, plus Turkey, Japan and South Korea,

shared the ear o communism and Soviet military power. The GWoT has thepotential to draw together an even wider grouping, comprising not just the westernstates and Japan, but also other major states such as Russia, China and India, all o which have reason to bandwagon with the GWoT as a way o addressing theirown internal conflicts. It is, however, hardly controversial at this point to observethat the legitimacy and acceptability o the United States as a leader have declinedsharply under the stewardship o the Bush administration. The embracing o

21 ‘Daschle: wiretaps never discussed with Congress: ormer Senate Majority Leader domestic war powers werealso rejected’, CNN.com, 23 Dec. 2005, http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/23/domestic.spying.ap/,

accessed 26 Dec. 2005.22 Kim R. Holmes, ‘What’s in a name? “War on terror” out, “struggle against extremism” in’, Heritage Foun-dation Policy Research and Analysis, 26 July 2005, http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecu-rity/wm805.cm, accessed 8 Dec. 2005; Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, ‘Washington recasts terror war as“struggle”’, 27 July 2005, New York Times as reprinted in International Herald Tribune, http://www.iht.com/ articles/2005/07/26/news/terror.php, accessed 8 Dec. 2005.



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unipolarity as a justification or unilateralism by that administration shocked andalienated many o its allies who had got used to working within the multilateralsystem largely constructed by the United States during the hal-century ollowingthe end o the Second World War. Within that general reaction there have been

a whole host o well-rehearsed specific disagreements about issues ranging romthe International Criminal Court, through the environment and arms control, tothe invasion o Iraq, torture and the treatment o prisoners o war. A weight o punditry agrees that the Atlantic has got wider, to the point where even the ideathat there is a western community is now under serious threat.23

There are two linked questions in play here: one is about the weakening o USlegitimacy as international leader generally, arising rom its unilateralist turn; theother is about whether the GWoT itsel, or more particularly the specific way inwhich the Bush administration has defined and pursued it, is itsel undermining

the legitimacy and attractiveness o US leadership. These questions reflect sets o dynamics that are in principle separate, but which can easily become linked. AUnited States that had remained committed to multilateralism might have weath-ered better the disagreements, particularly those concerning Iraq, that have arisenover the GWoT. But a unilateralist United States that has made itsel unpopularfinds that this unpopularity and the disagreements over Iraq become mutuallyreinorcing.

This situation raises interesting questions about the position o the United Stateswithin international society, and about the nature o international society; and it

is these questions that underpin the potential political significance o the GWoTsecuritization. Tim Dunne argues that US unilateralism has been taking it outsideinternational society, though he is uncertain about whether this means that inter-national society has, in efect, shrunk by losing a member, or been pushed into amore hierarchical orm by the suzerain behaviour o its most powerul member.24 Kelstrup reaches a clearer ormulation.25 He sees that the successul securitizationo the GWoT has created a ‘ormative moment’ in the global system in which theUnited States is bidding or ‘a new strategy o governance in the global system’ thatrejects the traditional multilateralism and avours a more power-based unilateralism.

Such a shit would normally, as Dunne partly argues it is doing, take the UnitedStates outside international society. But Kelstrup’s concern is that a successul anddurable securitization o the GWoT might be strong enough to legitimize a shittowards the more hierarchical orm o international society also pointed to byDunne, echoing the wider debate about whether the United States is now a type o empire. I the combined orce o reactions against US unilateralism and its conducto the GWoT take it outside international society, then both its leadership position,and international society at the global level, are gravely weakened. I the GWoTsecuritization is strong enough to legitimize a more hierarchical international

23 Michael Cox, ‘Beyond the West: terrors in Transatlantia’, European Journal o International Relations 11: 2, 2005,pp. 203–33.

24 Tim Dunne, ‘Society and hierarchy in international relations’, International Relations 17: 3, 2003, pp. 308, 314–15.

25 Kelstrup, ‘Globalisation’, pp. 113–15.





society, then the United States’ leadership position is greatly strengthened. Athird option is explored by Press-Barnathan, who argues that in several importantrespects the classical institutions o international society have been strengthened bythe GWoT, despite some appearances to the contrary.26 The thrust o her argument

is that the United States will probably have to drit back into line, having had itsunilateralist bid rejected, and not being able to aford to stay outside or too long.Its implication is that the United States will then be in a weaker leadership position,having broadly ailed to translate its unquestioned power to destroy into a basis o legitimacy or a more hierarchical international society.

To the extent that the United States is unpopular apart rom the GWoT, itsattempt to use the GWoT securitization to consolidate its sole superpower positioncould encounter resistance simply because it could do so. In other words, statesmight support or oppose the GWoT not only on its merits, but also because o

how it plays into the global hierarchy o power.27 The unolding o events at thetime o writing suggest that Press-Barnathan’s position is closest to the likelyoutcome, though successul escalation by the terrorists could easily rewrite thisscript to match Kelstrup’s scenario.

The unacceptability and illegitimacy of the GWoT securitization as awhole and/or of associated particularist securitizations

The durability o the GWoT securitization, and the ability o the United States to

lead it, are also afected by the extent to which both the GWoT securi tization as awhole and/or particularist securitizations that get linked to it become unacceptableand illegitimate. Although the general GWoT macro-securitization has in manyrespects been rather successul, it has not gone entirely unopposed, and it is notdi cult to imagine where additional lines o opposition might come rom. So ar,opposition is not so much to the general securitization itsel as to the raming o itas a ‘war’ and, increasingly, to the practices that the US tries to legitimize withinthe GWoT rame. Even i the general securitization continues to command widesupport, reaction against it could also grow rom US attempts to link to it issues

that are either related, but hotly contested (most obviously Israel’s own WoT), orhotly contested because the acts o the link to the GWoT are themselves contro-versial (most obviously the invasion o Iraq on the grounds o its alleged possessiono WMD and its links to Al-Qaeda).

In terms o the GWoT securitization as a whole, some o the lines o oppositionare the same in the rest o the world as they are in US domestic debates, particu-larly over what kinds o emergency action it legitimizes. To the extent that theGWoT becomes associated with actions that seem to contradict the values thatthe West seeks to represent against the likes o Al-Qaeda, the legitimacy o the

securitization is corroded. I the GWoT means that prisoners or war are denied

26 Galia Press-Barnathan, ‘The war against Iraq and international order: rom Bull to Bush’, International StudiesReview 6: 2, 2004, pp. 195–212.

27 I am grateul to Ole Wæver or this point.



Barry Buzan


the rights o the Geneva Conventions; that some orms o torture are used asinterrogation techniques; that the United States arrogates to itsel the right toattack others on grounds o suspicion o links with terrorists; that civil libertiesand economic reedoms are restricted in the name o homeland security; then

many will think that the GWoT securitization is doing more harm than good to‘the civilized world’. Wilkinson, who has solid credentials as a hard oe o theterrorists, echoes a sentiment widely held across the political spectrum when hesays that ‘I we undermine or destroy our hard-won liberties and rights in thename o security against terrorism we will give the terrorists a victory they couldnever win by the bomb and the gun.’28 In this respect it is o more than passinginterest that all o the current strategies being used to pursue the GWoT seemactively to damage the liberal values they purport to deend. I shall return to thispoint in my conclusions.

It is also conceivable that the GWoT securitization will come under attackbecause o the way in which it acilitates the linkage o religion and politics. Mostwestern leaders (the ever undiplomatic Berlusconi having been a notable excep-tion) have tried hard right rom the beginning not to stage the GWoT as a warbetween the West and Islam. They have trodden the di cult line o maintainingthat, while most o the terrorists speak in the name o Islam, that does not meanthat most adherents o Islam are terrorists or supporters o terrorists. But despitethis, the prooundly worrying relinking o religion and politics in the UnitedStates, Israel and the Islamic world easily eeds zero-sum conflicts. This linkage

could help to embed the securitization o the GWoT, as it seems to have donewithin the United States and Israel. I religious identities eed the growth o a‘clash o civilizations’ mentality, as seems to have happened in the episode o the Danish cartoons, this too could reinorce the GWoT securitization. It could,equally, create a reaction against it rom those who eel that their particularreligion is being misrepresented by undamentalists, and/or rom those who objectto religious influence on politics. The latter is certainly part o what has widenedthe gap between the US and Europe.

Another weakness o the GWoT macro-securitization is that Al-Qaeda and

its like, while clearly posing a threat to the West, do not represent a plausiblepolitical alternative to it, Islamist antasies about a new caliphate notwithstanding.The contrast with the Cold War could not be more striking. Then, the designatedopponent and object o securitization was a power that represented what seemeda plausible political alternative: one could easily imagine a communist world. Thepost-9/11 securitization ocused neither on an alternative superpower nor on analternative ideology, but on the chaos power o embittered and alienated minori-ties, along with a handul o pariah governments, and their ability to exploit theopenness, the technology, and in some places the inequality, unairness and ailed

states generated by the western system o political economy. While serious, theterrorist threat seems to lack the depth o the Soviet/communist one. It thereorehas shallow roots, and could well be harder to sustain.

28 Wilkinson, International terrorism, pp. 17–18, 24–5.





In addition to the general vulnerabilities o the GWoT securitization, thereis the problem o controversial securitization linkages being made to it. Like theproblem o GWoT-legitimized actions that go against western values, contestedlinked securitizations also threaten the legitimacy and attractiveness o the wider

securitization. The most obvious, widespread and deepest dispute o this kind hasbeen over the invasion o Iraq. The US and British governments attempted to justiythe invasion by linking Saddam Hussein’s regime to both terrorists and WMD.This securitizing move was successul within the United States, but vigorouslycontested in many other places, resulting in serious and damaging splits in both theEU and NATO. Russia was generally very supportive o the GWoT securitization,seeking to link its own di culties in Chechnya to it, but Putin joined Germanyand France in strong opposition to the US-led invasion o Iraq. The ill-preparedoccupation that ollowed the successul blitzkrieg against Iraq only deepened the

splits, with many opponents o the war agreeing with Dana Allin’s assessment that‘Iraq was probably the war that bin Laden wanted the United States to fight’,29 and Wilkinson’s that it was ‘a gratuitous propaganda git to bin Laden’.30 Duringthe 2004 US election, even John Kerry began to argue the point that invasion o Iraq was distracting efort away rom the GWoT.31 As the political disaster in Iraqcontinues to unold, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that it was both a tactical andstrategic blunder o epic proportions in relation to the problem o global terrorismrepresented by Al-Qaeda. The steady flow o bad news rom Iraq, and the lack o sound options or either staying in or getting out, corrodes the legitimacy o the

GWoT securitization by associating it with bad decisions and unsuccessul, evencounterproductive, actions. Whether this type o association is su cient to bringdown the GWoT securitization is an interesting question. I the Vietnam War istaken as an analogy, then the answer is probably no. Vietnam weakened the UnitedStates because, probably like Iraq, it came to be seen both as a mistake and as adeeat. But it did not much damage the wider macro-securitization o the ColdWar, despite being closely linked to it.

Somewhat diferent rom Iraq, but similar in creating tension over the broaderGWoT securitization, was Israel’s attempt to link its own war against the Arabs to

America’s GWoT. This move was largely successul in the United States, where itincreased the already strong US tilt towards Israel, and largely rejected everywhereelse (where Israel’s problems were seen to be largely o its own making because o its expansionist settlement policy). Like the invasion o Iraq, this particular securi-tization divided the United States rom many o its allies in the GWoT, and soweakened the consensus on the overall securitization o the GWoT. This typeo linkage strengthened the view that the GWoT represents not just a legitimateresponse to a genuine threat, but also a manoeuvre by the Bush administration tomanipulate the 9/11 trauma to create a climate o ear which could help it achieve

the radical political goals which it brought with it to o ce. The attacks o 9/1129 Dana H. Allin, ‘The Atlantic crisis o confidence’, International Afairs 80: 4, 2004, p. 652.30 Wilkinson, International terrorism, p. 21.31 ‘Bush, Kerry clash on Iraq war’, Chicago Sun Times, 30 Sept. 2004, http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/

01bush.html#, accessed 26 Dec. 2005.



Barry Buzan


ofered the Bush administration not only a huge opportunity to pursue its domesticagenda within the United States, but also, as it thought, an opportunity to remakethe world.32 To the extent that links to Iraq and Israel reinorce the view that theGWoT is just a plot on the part o the Bush administration, the legitimacy o the

GWoT securitization will be eroded.

The potency of securitizations competing with the GWoT

The final obvious type o threat to the durability o the GWoT securitization is thatit will be overtaken by a competing securitization and pushed into the background. Just as the GWoT pushed other concerns into the background ater 9/11, so too itmight be subordinated to more apparently urgent concerns. Recall also that theenvironment or the GWoT securitization was particularly propitious, given that

the United States had been casting about during much o the decade ollowing theend o the Cold War or some new threat around which to organize its oreign andsecurity policies. The GWoT had no strong challengers and was thereore easilyable to fill the vacuum.

There are quite a variety o possible candidates or competing securitizations.Rising sea levels or approaching asteroids, or the spread o a new killer plague,could easily put planetary environmental concerns at the top o the securitiza-tion agenda. But in conventional mode the most likely threat to the GWoT asdominant macro-securitization comes rom the rise o China. That the GWoT did

not eliminate other, more traditionally state-centric, US securitizations is shownby the 2002 National Security Strategy, which pointedly reasserted the US inten-tion to retain military superiority over all others: ‘We must build and maintainour deenses beyond challenge … Our orces will be strong enough to dissuadepotential adversaries rom pursuing a military build-up in hopes o surpassing, orequaling, the power o the United States.’33 The idea o China rising to superpowerstatus and becoming a peer competitor to the United States has been strong in theUS since the end o the Cold War,34 and the empirical case or China achievingsuperpower capabilities within the next couple o decades is plausible.35 It was

perhaps only the perceived remoteness in time o China achieving superpowerstatus that prevented this securitization rom becoming the dominant rhetoric inWashington during the 1990s. As time marches on, the rise o China becomes morereal and less hypothetical.

32 Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay, America unbound: the Bush revolution in oreign policy (Washington DC:Brookings Institution Press, 2003), pp. 78–97.

33 Bush, The National Security Strategy, pp. 29–30.34 Richard K. Betts, ‘Wealth, power and instability: East Asia and the United States ater the Cold War’, Interna-

tional Security 18: 3, 1993/4, pp. 34–77; Thomas J. Christensen, ‘Posing problems without catching up: China’s

rise and challenge or US security policy’, International Security 25: 4, 2001, pp. 5–40; Adam Ward, ‘China andAmerica: trouble ahead?’, Survival 45: 3, 2003, pp. 35–56; Robert S. Ross, ‘The geography o peace: EastAsia in the twenty-first century’, International Security 23: 4, 1999, pp. 81–118; Denny Roy, ‘Hegemon on thehorizon? China’s threat to East Asian security’, International Security 19: 1, 1994, pp. 149–68; David Shambaugh,‘Containment or engagement o China? Calculating Beijing’s responses’, International Security 21: 2, 1996, pp.180–209.

35 Barry Buzan, The United States and the great powers (Cambridge: Polity, 2004).





Given an ongoing disposition within Washington to construct China as athreat, the likely increase in Chinese power, both relative and absolute, and theexistence o tensions between the two governments over, inter alia, Taiwan, tradeand human rights, it is not di cult to imagine circumstances in which concerns

about China would become the dominant securitization within the United States.Certainly such a securitization would at least in part restore the parallel to the ColdWar, inasmuch as China is a potential superpower plausibly capable o becominga challenger to the United States’ sel-understood unipolar status. The Chinesegovernment is also authoritarian, though there is no longer any parallel to theideological competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. Whatis interesting here is that it is the United States that is most likely to be influ-enced by this competing securitization. Should this scenario unold, it would o course impact strongly on the role o the United States as leader o the GWoT

securitization. The two are not likely to merge because China has no interest insupporting Islamic terrorists. It is also entirely possible that i competition withChina becomes the dominant securitization or the United States, this securitiza-tion will have little appeal or use as a macro-securitization to audiences outsidethe United States. Indeed, so long as China conducts its so-called ‘peaceul rise’in such a way as not to threaten its neighbours or the general stability o interna-tional society, many outside the United States might actually welcome it. Europeis likely to be indiferent, and many countries (e.g. Russia, China, India, Iran,France, Malaysia) support a rhetoric o multipolarity as their preerred power

structure over the predominance o the United States as sole superpower. I playedcleverly, China’s rise might seem threatening only to the United States, and not tomost other countries. I so, such a rise might well weaken the GWoT as a macro-securitization by lowering it in US priorities, while not replacing it with any othermacro-securitization. Only i China rises in such a way as to threaten its neigh-bours would it provide the basis or a securitization that the United States couldshare with others.

In sum, the durability o the GWoT as a macro-securitization looks quite doubtul.

Although outcomes or each o the actors above are di cult to predict with anycertainty, the GWoT macro-securitization is vulnerable to being derailed i anyone o them ceases to be supportive o it in a major way. In other words, every-thing has to go right i the GWoT is to inherit the mantle o the Cold War. Thiscould, o course, happen, especially i the terrorists succeed in escalating theirattacks. But given the number o things that could plausibly go wrong or it, thechance that the GWoT securitization will endure does not look all that strong.

Conclusions

To conclude, I want to ocus on the contradiction between pursuit o the GWoTmacro-securitization and maintenance o both domestic and international polit-ical and (especially) economic orders based on liberal values. The argument is that



Barry Buzan


pursuit o the GWoT inevitably generates prooundly di cult choices or liberalsocieties between efective counterterrorism policies on the one hand and quiteundamental compromising o the principles o the liberal order on the other. Thisdilemma is made more poignant by the act that terrorism is the dark, uncivil, side

o liberalism’s much prized liberation and cultivation o domestic and global civilsociety as an antidote to excesses o state power. The GWoT is mainly about thestate versus uncivil society. This is the traditional orm o the Hobbesian insecurityagenda, where the state protects its citizens against each other by creating a legalramework, and enorcing a monopoly o legitimate violence against warlords,terrorists, organized crime and whatever uncivil elements seek to disrupt the peaceor deploy orce against the citizenry or private ends. But under globalization awider dimension gets added. The openness o a liberalized economy providesopportunities or transnational criminals and terrorists and extremists o all sorts

to operate on a global scale. As a consequence, the traditional Hobbesian domesticsecurity agenda gets pushed up to the international level. Because a world govern-ment is not available, the problem pits international society against global uncivilsociety. An additional di culty, as Wilkinson notes, is that Al-Qaeda and its ilkhave such prooundly revolutionist objectives that a negotiated solution is notreally an option.36 Rumseld is quite right that the struggle is to the death.

The dilemma arises out o the policy choices aced by liberal societies inresponding to terrorism. The three options currently in play all require thatterrorism be securitized and emergency action o some sort taken to try to counter

and eliminate it. In each case, the necessary action requires serious compromisingo liberal values.

Insulation

Insulation is exemplified by homeland security and hardening the state both againstpenetration by terrorists and against vulnerability o inrastructure to terroristattack. Pursuing the logic o homeland security quickly begins to undermine somecore elements o the LIEO. The ree movement o people or purposes o business,

education and the arts is restricted by tighter controls on travel and immigration.The ree movement o goods is restricted both by increased requirements orinspection and traceability, and by the imposition o more controls on the exporto technology related to WMD. The ree movement o money is restricted bythe measures taken to disrupt the financial networks o terrorists. By hardeningborders, homeland security measures erode some o the principles o economicliberalism that they are designed to deend; and the same argument could be madeabout the trade-of between enhanced surveillance under the GWoT and the civilliberties that are part o the core reerent object o western civilization.37 At various

points insulation blends into the next option: repression.

36 Wilkinson, International terrorism, pp. 133–16.37 Je Huysmans, ‘Minding exceptions: the politics o insecurity and liberal democracy’, Contemporary Political

Theory 3: 3, 2004, pp. 321–41. See also Stephen Gill, ‘The global panopticon: the neoliberal state, economic lieand democratic surveillance’, Alternatives 20: 1, 1995, pp. 1–49.





Repression

Repression is about carrying the fight to the terrorists in an attempt to elimi-nate them by police and/or military action. It is the sharp end o the GWoT, and

involves a wide spectrum o activities rom, at one extreme, taking down wholestates (e.g. Aghanistan, Iraq), through sustained occupations (e.g. Israel in theWest Bank and Gaza) and military searches or and assaults on terrorist bases (e.g.in Pakistan, post-Taleban Aghanistan, the Philippines), to, at the other extreme,targeted assassinations (e.g. Israeli policy against Hamas and the PLA) and arbitraryarrests and detentions (the US extra-legal gulag in Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere)o individuals. War is seldom good or liberal values even when ought in deenceo them. It undermines civil liberties, peace, the openness that the LIEO requiresand, as US practice shows, the commitment to human rights.

Equalizing

Equalizing starts rom the assumption that the root causes o terrorism lie in theinequalities and injustices that are both a legacy o human history and a eatureo market economies. The long-term solution to terrorism in this perspective isto drain the waters in which the terrorists swim by redressing the inequalities andinjustices that supposedly generate support or them. It is not my concern here toargue whether this contested cause–efect hypothesis is correct or not. My pointis that i a policy along these lines is pursued, it cannot avoid undermining theoundations o a competitive market economy. Redistribution on the scale requiredwould put political priorities ahead o market logics, and in doing so quench thefires o the market which uel the liberal project. A possible liberal counter to thisview is that a liberal policy would be not so much redistributive as ameliorative,making the liberal system work better by, or example, eliminating rich countryprotectionism in agriculture. However, while this might reduce inequalities in thevery long run, in the short and medium term it is likely to cause huge amounts o pain (as in the recent shit in the textile regime, which enabled China to drive manyThird World producers out o the market). I inequality is the source o terrorism,neo-liberal economics does not provide a quick enough solution.

It thus becomes clear that terrorism poses a double threat to liberal democraticsocieties: open direct assaults o the type that have become all too amiliar, andinsidious erosion as a consequence o the countermeasures taken. It is easy to seehow this dilemma drives some towards seeking a solution in total victory that willeliminate both the terrorists and the contradiction. But i it is impossible to elimi-nate terrorists, as is probably the case, then this drive risks the kind o permanentmobilization that inevitably corrodes liberal practices and values.

I the priority is to preserve liberal values, one is pushed towards the optiono learning to live with terrorism as an everyday risk while pursuing counter-measures that stop short o creating a garrison state. This choice is not to securitize



Barry Buzan

1118InternationalAfairs 82: 6 2006

terrorism, but instead to make it part o normal politics. Taking this route avoidsa contradiction between counterterrorist policies and liberal values. The necessarycondition or doing so is that state and society raise their toleration or damageas a price they pay or openness and reedom. Kenneth Waltz long ago made the

point that ‘i reedom is wanted, insecurity must be accepted’,38 though it has tobe said that this part o his analysis has made little impact on US thinking aboutnational security.39 This is not to say that under this policy nothing would be doneto counter terrorism; but the countermoves would stop short o declaring warand/or a state o siege. Terrorism would be treated like tra c accidents: a struc-tural problem dealt with through normal politics, despite the quite large numbero deaths and injuries involved. Citizens would have to accept the risk o beingkilled or injured by terrorists in the same way that they accept the risk o accidentwhen they enter the transport system. In principle, this should be possible—trans-

port accidents kill ar more people than terrorists do—though whether any ormo polity, and especially a democratic one, could in practice sustain it is an inter-esting and di cult question. Perhaps, with brave, honest, charismatic and deter-mined leadership, it could be done. But these qualities are not abundant in politicallie, and there is a question whether such a policy could or should be sustainedi terrorist violence escalated beyond current levels. Short o such escalation, astrategy along these lines should be possible. But i terrorism is a problem o thelong term, as it well might be or advanced industrial societies, it would require alevel o democratic sophistication and commitment rather higher than anything

yet seen.I this is the way to go, then Europe, which has already learned to live with

a degree o terrorism as normal politics, may have much more to ofer than theUnited States, which is driven by much higher demands or national security.Robert Kagan had a point when he noted that the US and European positions in theworld were determined by their respective power and weakness.40 But in relationto the GWoT, and the deence o liberal values, the positions may be reversed.Europe is more resilient and better able to deend its values without resorting toexcesses o securitization. By comparison, the United States seems a soter target,

too easily pricked into intemperate reactions that in themselves work to under-mine what it claims to stand or.

38 Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory o international politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979), p. 112.39 Buzan, The United States and the great powers, pp. 172–3.40 Robert Kagan, Paradise and power: America and Europe in the new world order (London: Atlantic Books, 2003).

Documents

Will the Global War on Terrorism be the new Cold War?