Customer Reviews

The Lessons of Terror: A History of Warfare Against Civilians

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This is a timely book that is well written in the main. It is somewhat marred by the author's absolutism in arguing his main thesis that warfare against civilians (terrorism) is always a losing strategy for the perpetrators. His secondary thesis is that surgical, preemptive strikes have been consistently the most effective way of eliminating terrorist threats (all the more interesting since Carr wrote this book before the Iraq War).

Caleb Carr looks at history from Roman times to the current Arab-Israeli conflict to argue that terrorism always loses. Terrorism, or attacks on civilians, differs from guerilla warfare in that guerillas use their irregular forces and tactics to target opposing/occupying military personnel and targets. Terrorists just kill and maim wantonly, under the mistaken belief that carnage and death will force change or lead the terrorists to their goals. The historic evidence is otherwise. Terrorism almost always hardens the hearts and steels the minds of both targets and local populations against the perpetrators and frequently begets terrorism as a response.

Carr's examples are many. The Romans struck not the military might of the German tribes across the Rhine, but the villages and peoples thereof. German tribes became ferocious opponents and were the ones who ended up sacking Rome. Michael Collins was on his way to winning independence for all of Ireland. His turn to terrorism stiffened British resolve (leading one British prime minister to state he would not conclude a deal with the IRA because he "would not shake hands with murder.") and undercut his local support. Palestinian terrorism has not shaken the resolve of Israel; it has produced hard line Israeli governments less likely to negotiate Palestinian autonomy or statehood. These are a few of the historic examples Carr cites in support of his argument.

While I think he is generally right, he mars his well argued position by stating that warring against civilians and non-military targets always loses. Certainly the American Indian experience shows that wars of annihilation can sometimes (obviously) reduce an opponent to absolute subjugation for the long-term. And while Rome was sacked by the descendants of tribesman who sufferings were legion along the Rhine, several hundred years elapsed from then until Rome's fall. Also, General Sherman's romp through Georgia is referred to several times, but America healed fairly well and fairly quickly after the Civil War.

Nevertheless, the author's failed attempt to prove his observation correct in every case does not mar this book's demonstration that his thesis stands up well in most cases. On the contrary, the evidence marshaled by Carr is persuasive and the conclusion convincing.

Carr also shows what has worked historically in dealing with perpetrators of terrorism. Preemptive war, surgical strikes, leadership strikes have all proven the most consistently successful means to deal with history's bad actors. The reason is simple. Responding to terrorism with terrorism creates nations of opponents among people who generally want to live in peace and are probably suffering under their terrorist leader, warlord, or ruthless tyrant and would like nothing more than to see that person removed. As Jefferson showed in dismantling the Barbary pirates (at least as a threat against American interests) and President Bush has just shown against Saddam, the surgical strike first articulated by Frederick the Great removes the problem by attacking leadership and military interests without killing so many civilians that a nation of revenge seekers is created.

Failing to act preemptively begets larger threats over time. The suffering nation is perceived as weak (terrorists and tyrants look to prey on the weak) and the threat grows. The recent evidence of this progression can be seen in the mid to late 1990's as American embassies, interests, and the USS Cole were progressively attacked by Islamic terrorists who came to believe that America's only response to such outrages would be a few cruise missiles thrown against desert encampments. As unseemly as preemptive war seems to Americans, it is certainly better than the alternative of massive casualties inflicted upon us by those who come to believe they can act with impunity because we are not willing to persecute these threats until they are eliminated.

This is an interesting and persuasive book that should be read by every member of Congress as well as all that want to know how to best protect America in this age of terrorism.

This book, by a trained miliatry historian, lays out a case for the avoidance of terror against civilian populations. It then goes on to define terror in ways I had never considered.

Particularly disturbing are several discussions about the consistency with which indiginous military trained by an outside invader turn on that selfsame invader after the invasion is over. ( Sound familiar? Mujahadeen anyone?)

The early sections on the tactics of the Roman Empire were quite revealing, particularly given the parallels with modern practice.

Well worth the time.

Caleb Carr does an excellent job of explaining the military nature of terrorism and its connection to the more "conventional" militaries of the world. Unlike most authors on terrorism, Carr does not split hairs between say, the PLO blowing up a bus and the Allied bombing of German cities (except of course in scale). Deliberately targeting civilians whether done by regular or irregular forces is always wrong and above all never works.
Carr points out that military effectiveness demands an end to attacks on civilians. Military leaders who have understood this have been very effective. Those who haven't, have dragged their nations down and increased the misery of war. Military force can only be effective when it is applied against the enemy's military, never when it is applied against the enemy's population. Terror does not end a conflict, it only insures that the conflict will continue.
The only real criticism I have is Carr's strange choice of the more enlightened military figures: Cromwell, von Moltke, Guerdarian. Their theories may be what Carr is getting at, but it is very easy to see places where these men lead armies to annihilate civilians. Carr tries to explain this away, but I wasn't completely convinced.

I really, really like Caleb Carr. He can be frustrating though. One the one hand I love his period work and his book the Alienist is one of my all time favorites. But then he'll write drivel like Killing Time. This book both made me happy and frustrated at the same time.

I was so excited when I saw this book on terrorism I immediately grabbed and devoured it in about 5 hours. I had been looking forward to it because for many years I was a professional military officer and had come to the conclusion that warfare should never target civilians, and even forms of warfare that involve certain collateral damage should not be employed. I am aghast that our society sees nothing wrong with strategic bombing, and moralizes the atom bomb away as necessary. I have argued this with my peers for years, so consequently I was looking forward to this. In many ways it did give me the conclusion that I have come to myself; warfare against civilians is stupid and counter-productive without even having to get into issues of morality and necessity.

The problem with this book is that it needs a good editor. The 270 pages could have been condensed down into 50 easily. Also many of the examples did not really convince of his point; that was frustrating because I was already convinced but there are many better examples out there than the ones he elects to use and the cause and effect of terrorist actions are not put forth clearly.

I breathed a big sigh of relief when I reached the closing pages and finally found a clear, concise encapsulation of his point. The book would have been better though if that paragraph had come first and then the book had served to explain why those points were true and used concise historical example to support them.

Despite being longer than necessary (very easy to read though)and a little muddied I still highly recommend this book and wish it was required reading for registered voters. It would at least inspire an intelligent debate about many of the issues facing society today and provide a historical context within which to frame them.

This is a good book which has many valid points about the ultimate uselessness of terrorisim, however some of the examples Mr. Carr uses are not valid or accurate.
As a former Force Recon Marine, our unit was given several examples during Counter-Terrorisim training for Kosovo and Sierra Leone, of
successful Guerilla groups. Most notably the Original and current IRA which used Guerilla/terror tactics to basically force the British to the negotiating table twice in a Century. Carr VASTLY understates the historical documentation of how badly the British were being defeated by the IRA during the Anglo/Irish war, and downplays the fact that 30 years of relentless IRA attacks is one of the main reasons the Irish Peace accords were reached in 1998.
The Jewish guerilla attacks in Palestine against the British by the Irgun and Stern Gang are also examples of successful Guerilla/terrorisim. One could also argue that to a lesser extent the Lebanese Hezbollah was successful in driving Israel out of Lebanon, however many would dispute that. Carr is right that the kind of terror personified by Al Qaida, Hamas, the FARC and other Narco Terrorisim or Religious fanatical terrorisim are doomed to failure just as Al Qaida is now in a much weaker state then they were before they attacked America on 9/11. The fact that the American response to 9/11 and for that matter to Pearl Harbour were so devestating to the attackers is proof that some of his points are quite valid, but he needs to get some of his other facts straight.

First: Good quality trade paperback; well-spaced and readable
typeface; useful index and bibliography; sturdy binding. Make
sure you order the Revised And Updated version from 2003.

Carr provides much useful information and perspective on the
murderous effect that war has always had on "noncombatants".
Writing clearly (if rather dryly) he describes how such massacres - intentional or otherwise -
have effected the evolution not only of warfare's goals but of mankind's concept
of how to define and therefore somehow limit what war actually is.

I found Caleb Carr's effort here extremely valuable. He provides
much perspective. It would be petty to gnaw and nit-pick over some of the specific examples
Carr utilizes in advancing his basic idea. Carr has enough dash to make sure he instigates
both left and right on his way to the finale--good for him.
You will find some of those ideologues fuming in earlier reviews.
Carr displays clear-eyed common sense in his analysis of war's
lack of distinction between soldier and civilian in its consequences and even its strategies.
His comparison of terrorism with slavery and piracy were alone worth the time spent reading.

This is a short read but a most worthwhile one. Make up your own mind - just look over the introduction. Carr's objectivity and knowledge of military history will provide you with a valuable and useful primer on the nature of terrorism and how
it relates to war's human nature. He does not offer any convenient explanations or easy solution. I look forward to hearing more from him on this topic.

Caleb Carr defines terrorism as "warfare deliberately raised against civilians with the purpose of destroying their will to support either leaders or policies that the agents of such violence find objectionable." Such a definition includes, according to Carr, not only Osama bin Laden and Muammar Quaddafi but just about every government and national leader in the history of the world, from the Roman Empire to Franklin Roosevelt and Ariel Sharon.

Even if one accepts Carr's all-encompassing definition of terrorism, his book remains remarkably vague in other areas. He never even defines the difference between civilians and the military. (What about police forces? Defense industry personnel? Non-combat support crews? Elected leaders? Cabinet members?) He fails to draw the line between terrorism and "collateral damage," which he mentions only a few times in passing. (Would the difference be in the perpetrator's motives? in the ability to prevent harm to civilians? in perceptions of the victims? in the severity of casualties?) Likewise, he excludes "domestic terrorism" from his discussion, without saying how it is distinguishable from international terrorism. (In which category would one put Aryan Nation, the IRA, the KKK, the contras in Nicaragua, FARC in Colombia? Are Islamic terrorists from Uzbekistan "domestic" before the dissolution of the USSR and "international" afterwards? If so, why does this difference matter?)

Carr argues further that warfare against civilians always backfires, that it "has never succeeded"--and this is probably the most controversial and ridiculed argument in the book. In support of this assertion, he must posit some dubious causalities, often taking this form: nations commit terrorism, then they experience violence or war or collapse, therefore terrorism always leads to decline and fall. For example, Carr argues that the Roman sack of Carthage led, hundreds of years later, to "their own eventual downfall," or Sherman's March to the Sea inevitably created the resentment that resulted in home-grown terrorist groups like the KKK. Perhaps a full study could support such dubious theories, but Carr's brief analysis fails to connect the dots. He ignores or dismisses historical episodes that easily undermine his thesis: one might argue that the contras successfully ousted the Sandinista government and suffered little in the way of "backlash." Likewise, he defines the bombing of Hiroshima as a terrorist act yet doesn't in any way show how this atrocity hurt the United States--in either the short term or the long term.

More incredibly, Carr canonizes Oliver Cromwell as an early practitioner of "progressive warfare" (limited military action that avoids civilian casualties), but to do so he must avoid mentioning the New Model Army's several sieges that ended in massacres of civilian populations--a practice culminating at Basing House. One could certainly argue that, relatively speaking, Cromwell was quite humane for his time, but by altogether ignoring commonly known evidence, Carr needlessly supplies his opponents with plenty of ammunition.

Another basic problem is that "The Lessons of Terror" covers more than two millennia in an essay hardly longer than a novella. Carr abandons detailed substantiation, careful qualification, and causal reasoning in favor of glib overstatement, facile generalization, selective evidence, and--above all--an aura of incontestable authority. Rarely has a historical essay been so peppered with the words "always" and "never," often in italics. Carr seldom bothers to supply supporting evidence or citations for his arguments; instead he tends to rely on his own authority as a "military historian," equally conversant in all periods of human history. On the whole, then, the problem with "The Lessons of Terror" is not its thesis or its suppositions or conclusions, a few of which I agree with (his comments on the CIA are especially on the mark), but that this short book is so sloppily and condescendingly argued.

When Carr wrote this book he obviously had a predetermined conclusion that he wanted to convey. Though I personally agree that deliberate targeting of civilians is counterproductive to any political / military endeavor, Carr presents a lengthy list of historical evidence that is taken out of context and without an understanding of how militaries fight wars.

In his book he describes Roman brutality in its dealings with invaded countries and asserts that this brutality was the eventual cause of unrest that led to the fall of the Roman Empire. I'm not sure if he could have generalized this more than he did. He failed to look at the overall success of an Empire that lasted nearly 5 centuries. Also, history has shown that part of Rome's success was due to how it integrated conquered countries into its society and allowed those people to eventually become citizens of Rome.

Carr goes on to show the terrorist tactics used by both sides of the U.S. civil war, and he focuses on Sherman's march to the sea and then to Washington. I will agree that both sides had incidents in which civilians were targeted, but it is over simplistic to say that Sherman's tactics were purely terroristic and were eventually counterproductive. Carr and many other people point at the burning of Atlanta as a major example of targeting civilians, but they fail to remember that Atlanta was the largest supply distribution point for Confederate Army and that Sherman gave the civilian population ample warning to leave the city. Any true student of military history will agree that Sherman's destruction of the Confederacy logistics support structure was critical to expediting an end to the war, which consequently falls in line with Carr's belief in decisive warfare as the preferred tactic.

Carr's final chapter draws scrutiny of U.S. strategic bombing, in the form of cruise missiles, as sites them as a terrorist weapons. His argument is based on his assertion that because military leaders are aware that civilian casualties will occur this makes it a deliberate attack on civilians and not collateral damage. His absolutist attitude does not take into consideration that the military target may be worth the cost in civilian lives. Prior to 9/11, President Clinton had the opportunity to kill Osama Bin Laden with a cruise missile, but in accordance with Carr's way of thinking about terrorist acts, he aborted the mission at the last minute because civilian family members were present in the camp. In retrospect that decision to not target a few civilians has cost tens of thousands of civilian lives in the both the U.S. and Middle-East.

Finally, Carr asserts that limited, preemptive ground warfare is the best method to avoid long wars of attrition and civilian casualties. I wonder what his opinion is now after three years in Iraq. I don't think many people really saw that coming.

In The Lessons of Terror, Caleb Carr artificially separates international terrorism from domestic terrorism. Terrorism does not know borders and has disciples almost everywhere. Carr, however, is right to depict terrorists not as ordinary criminals but as warriors who deliberately target civilians with the purpose of undermining their determination to support either leaders or policies that these warriors oppose.

Carr uses historical precedents that aim at showing that terrorism is a spectacularly failed tactic, what is not always true or proves to be correct only a few centuries after the facts. Some victimized civilian populations such as the survivors of Carthage after the Third Punic War, the Amerindians at the end of the 19th century or the civilians of the Axis Powers after WWII had no longer the capacity and/or willingness to retaliate. Other victimized civilian populations such as the direct witnesses of the atrocities of the Roman Empire or Crusaders were long dead before their nemeses were finally defeated. Furthermore, the victors could have shielded their own terrorists from justice because they were perceived as patriots and heroes, not as criminals. In these circumstances, perpetrators of these atrocities against civilians have been answerable for their crimes only after their own death.

Unlike Carr, Victor Hanson in Carnage and Culture clearly shows that the real atrocity for the Westerner is not the number of corps, but the manner in which soldiers and civilians died and the protocols under which they were killed. The West believes that only war waged through open and direct assault is fair, regardless of the frightful losses inflicted on the adversary. The West has never accepted the logic of far fewer killed through ambush, terrorism, or the execution of prisoners and noncombatants as the current situation in Iraq convincingly demonstrates. However, Carr has a point that the West has not always practiced what it has been preaching on this subject. The Nazis and their allies come prominently to mind in their systematic disregard of the rules of Western civilization that did not save them from ultimate defeat.

Although Carr praises the military campaign that the U.S. launched against Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11, he is very negative in his appraisal of domestic efforts to prevent a repetition of this tragedy. Carr also harshly criticizes the Bush Junior administration for asking Americans to go about their lives and business as usual. Carr apparently does not want to acknowledge that a capitalist, democratic society is by definition an open society that thrives on exchanges within its borders and with the rest of the world. Vigilance and awareness rather than paranoia are required. Otherwise, one plays the game of terrorists and turn one's life into a prison.

Interestingly, Carr wrote his book before the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Carr states that fighting terrorism requires at times force against terrorists and the states protecting them, at other times diplomacy conducted with the states that are willing to mend their ways. Ultimately, Carr correctly pushes for the adoption of an international convention that should outlaw terrorism after the model of previous conventions banning for example piracy, slavery and genocide. Carr, however, wrongly downplays the importance of the political dimension of terrorism. No one can vanquish terrorism as long as its breeding ground is not drained. Bombarding a swamp can kill a few mosquitoes, but not their capacity to be born again and haunt their future victims.

Although Carr scores some points in describing some shortcomings of the DOD, the CIA and the NSC, he does not seem to acknowledge the difficulty of their task. Whoever has ever been involved in intelligence gathering and assessment knows that sometimes it can be extremely difficult to get a complete picture of an existing or potential threat. Intelligence is both an art and a science that is just as good as its imperfect human practitioners. Furthermore, the choice of allies sometimes requires association with dirty friends in order to fight dirty enemies. A carrot and stick certification policy is in place to minimize the risk that these dirty friends metamorphose into dirty enemies. In addition, waging war has never been a clean business because of inevitable civilian casualties that are sometimes euphemistically referred as collateral damage. Finally, as Max Boot reminds his readers in Savage Wars of Peace Small Wars and the Rise of American Power, the U.S. military should continue to nurture its different branches with the same care so that it can fight any type of war, including terror against civilians, with equal efficiency.

A good deal of information has been given about terrorism in the last 4 years. Perhaps the most clarifying and precise is Carr's brief study of the effects on a populace when submerged in this type of warfare. What happens to a people when living in the Rape of Nanking? Why do we abhor Napolean when he strikes against the non-combatants of Spain, but revere Lincoln when he allows the same type warfare against Atlanta? Good questions and no easy answers. Carr gives us an outstanding work.