RAND analysts in the 1990s pointed out that terrorists until then had come in five different categories—revolutionaries, dissatisfied individuals, ethnic minorities, economically disadvantaged groups, and anarchists. They warned that henceforth the greatest danger would come from another group, religious extremists. Their next targets would be Western financial institutions like the World Bank, American and Western corporations, and other religions and their leaders, as prefigured by Mehmet Ali Aga’s attempt on the life of Pope John Paul II. Above all, terrorists would concentrate on the symbolic value of their targets, for they would seek not military victory but the psychological defeat of their adversaries through fear. RAND warned that at some point in the future terrorists might resort to weapons of mass destruction, like nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, especially state-sponsored terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, backed by Iran, and Hamas, sponsored by Syria.
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By 2006, following the U.S.- led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq to smash al Qaeda and to remove terrorist-friendly regimes, Jenkins added a cautionary note: American military responses to terrorism might prove counterproductive. If the United States attempts to eliminate all terrorist groups and attacks all nation-states that host terrorists, the conflicts will only spread the terrorist seed around the globe, much like the mujahideen morphed and scattered after Afghanistan. Terrorism will be defeated by a combination of tactics and weapons, but, above all, by ideas. Armed force alone will not succeed; conviction and ideology will. Jenkins also urged that the drive to eliminate terrorism not trigger a change in American values. Counterterrorism will triumph if America preserves its traditional freedoms, abjuring torture, partisanship, and needless bravado. Should American democracy and the American Constitution be among the victims of terrorism, America’s most potent weapons—its traditional freedoms—will be lost for the sake of a Pyrrhic victory. As Jenkins concludes, “Whatever we do must be consistent with our fundamental values. This is no mere matter of morality, it is a strategic calculation, and here we have at times mis-calculated.”
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