Military

DATE=05/27/02

TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT

TITLE=WIDENING WAR ON TERRORISM (1)

NUMBER=5-51693

BYLINE=ED WARNER

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: As the war on terrorism widens, it is more difficult to keep it in focus. Al-Qaida operatives are thought to be in some 70 countries. The pursuit of them leads inevitably to complications in defining that war and finding ways to win it. In the first of two scripts, V-O-A's Ed Warner provides some views of the challenges facing the United States.

TEXT: The horrific 9/11 assault on America required an immediate response, and that was done. In an astonishing short time, U-S forces routed the Taleban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

In a sense, say analysts, that was the easy part. What follows is the war on terrorism, sharply defined by President Bush but less focused as it is fought and encounters the world's complexities.

There are wars within that war, notably the conflict between India and Pakistan and the Israeli-Palestinian struggle - not to mention a host of lesser disputes.

These have seriously complicated the war on terrorism, says Robert Litwak, director of international studies at the Woodrow Wilson Center and author of "Rogue States and U-S Foreign Policy:"

/// LITWAK ACT ///

The Bush administration has sought to execute a clearly delineated war on terrorism, starting with President Bush's speech in which he discussed states that are either with us or against us. As the administration has implemented its policy, it has had to deal with some of the complexities and contradictions of the world. These have been realized most acutely in the context of the Arab-Israel dispute.

/// END ACT ///

President Bush has continued to try to keep the war in focus. On his European trip, he called the terrorist threat a totalitarian successor to Hitler and Stalin.

This is a mistake, says Robert Higgs, a senior analyst at the Independent Institute -- an economic and political research organization in California. He thinks mislabeling an enemy leads to the wrong kind of actions against it:

/// HIGGS ACT ///

The president is attempting to do what many presidents have done before, which is to demonize the enemy by evoking symbols of the best accepted demons Hitler and Stalin. It is clearly overwrought, and I do not think a lot of people are buying the message, but that does not prevent the president from trying.

/// END ACT ///

To be sure, the comparison is inexact, says Mr. Litwak. Hitler and Stalin had the power of a state behind them. Today's terrorists are stateless.

But he thinks tough presidential rhetoric has its uses:

/// LITWAK ACT ///

It is an instrument of political mobilization for the administration. They also feel that it has yielded some dividends. For example, the tough talk vis-à-vis North Korea is pointed to as a factor that has contributed to bringing North Korea back to the negotiating table.

/// END ACT ///

In combating terrorism, says Mr. Higgs, military force is only one instrument and not always the most useful one. There is a danger in taking action without sufficient thought:

/// HIGGS ACT ///

Even the superpower that the United States is today has its limits, and clearly a leading limit springs from lack of intelligence about who these terrorists are, where they happen to be at the moment, what they plan to do next. Just roaming around the world with military forces does not avail very much in terms of actually allaying the threat.

/// END ACT ///

In the New York Times, Serge Schmemann writes that "terrorism lurks wherever there are grievances, failed states, chaos and despair. The arms and alliances that won World War Two and the cold war are not sufficient to meet the new challenge of secretive global networks or rogue operators. They will require forms of international cooperation, anticipation and perception yet to be devised." (Signed)

NEB/EW/SAB