Customer Reviews

What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat

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Without passion, Louise Richardson presents a factual and in-depth study of what makes terrorists and terrorism exist. Unlike a great many pundits who think they know what terrorism is, this author speaks with authority.

First of all, she contends that you cannot have a war on terror. To her, it is a war on a tactic, a fear that is a war on an emotion. She insists that you cannot wage a war on either. As long as anyone can commit a terrorist act, it debunks any contention that such a war is being won.

The author declares that terrorists seek three essential elements to their acts: revenge, renown, and reaction. In the destruction of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Flight 93 in Shanksville, PA, they achieved all three. Richardson explains that all terrorists and their organizations seek revenge for a humiliation or defeats real, imagined, and unknown to us. By declaring a "War on Terrorism and al-Qaeda we provided them with renown. By pursuing a war in Afghanistan and Iraq and by giving them Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo we gave them a reaction beyond their wildest dreams. "by using the extreme language of conviction that bin Laden uses, by declaring war, even a crusade, against him in response to his war against us, we are mirroring his actions. We are playing into his hands...elevating his stature...permitting him to set the terms of our interactions."

For terrorism to succeed, terrorists require personal dissatisfaction, an enabling society and legitimizing ideology. Their personal dissatisfaction comes from our support of Israel beating them time and again with US built weapons, killing of their civilians, and occupation of their lands. According to Richardson, being the only superpower and having the most influence in the world, also incurs their enmity. The author claims that terrorism are always acts of weaker or inferior forces upon a larger, stronger one. An enabling society is one that provides sanctuary to them, and sees them as heroes. In fact, they cannot succeed without this key ingredient. Their belief that they are doing the right thing or God's will, is the ideology.

The author does provide a blueprint for defeating or disabling terrorism in a way we have overlooked so far. Talks with terrorists directly or through intermediaries provides us with something we have lacked so far--information about the opposition. We must deny terrorists the support of an enabling society by gaining that society's trust and belief in our cause. She claims that in a democracy it is especially important to maintain our own liberties. Declaring American citizens as enemy combatants, spying by Americans on Americans, creating a Patriot Act, calling unsupportive Americans traitors, plays right into the terrorists' hands, and gives them a victory. She makes it clear that such restrictions do not provide addtional security, and that such temporary security measures tend to become permanent.

Richardson never comes across as a terrorist sympathizer or a neo con zealot. Her arguments are based on in-depth research, interviews and a voluminous collection of data. She has evaluated our actions against her extensive knowledge of the topic. Our actions provided sufficient reason for critiquing our response to terrorism. The reader can only come to the conclusion that the Bush administration has tried to douse the fire of terrorism with kerosene.

After reading this it may make you wish that someone had consulted her on 9/12 or earlier. She would have provided in-depth answers that would have been more profound than, "They hate us because they hate our freedoms." There's one more thing Richardson makes clear: we must learn that democracy cannot be imposed from without, and elections do not constitute democracy--a lesson this administration has obviously failed to learn.

This is without question one of a handful of books that must be read by anyone who is serious about neutralizing terrorism as a tactic, avoiding the incitement of more terrorism, and acting professionally and morally around the globe. Sadly, that does not include the neo-conservatives who substitute dogma for reality, and war profiteering for peacemaking.

Unlike Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism by Professor Robert Pape, which I highly recommend as a complement to this book, the author here has written a definitive history, a rational appreciation, and ends with six specific recommendations, each of which has been gleefully and ignorantly violated by the current Administration, which now declares Bin Laden to be "irrelevant" and continues to cover up the fact that Rumsfeld authorized the Pakistanis to fly 3000 Al Qaeda out of Tora Bora, and Rumsfeld refused to order a Ranger battalion in to capture Bin Laden during the four days that CIA has "eyes on" and tracked him to the border (see my reviews of Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander and First In: An Insider's Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan).

While the author gets very high marks for putting together the most current, most in-depth, and most professional review of the subject, there is little here that is new to those of us who have been focused on revolution, instability, and the TACTIC of terrorism for the past 30 years. Terrorism is a law enforcement issue, in the context of a comprehensive stabilization and reconstruction program that--as the author recommends--isolates the terrorists from complicit communities. See also Rage of the Random Actor: Disarming Catastrophic Acts And Restoring Lives by Dan Korem for the home-grown "postal" or "Columbine" counter-part to the more altruistically-motivate terrorists.

Our own summary of terrorism, which is threat number nine out of ten identified by the High-Level Threat Panel of the United Nations, reads as follows:

"The 'war on terror' must fail because it is a self-defeating slogan. To make war on a tactic -- a raid, a breakout, an asymmetric attack on civilians, the use of chemical weapons -- makes no sense. These tactics have worked well throughout history and will continue to. `Terrorist" tactics were used by Americans against the British in the 1770's, by the Israelis against the British, by Algerians against the French. Progress is only possible if the problem is clearly defined ... as global militant Islam. It may be political correctness that prevents that definition, or it may be that there is a genuine misunderstanding of the problem. Once confronted, the origins of global militant Islam are largely well-defined and, with sufficient cooperation by a range of nations, is a relatively simple problem to treat."

The author could not have written a more compelling indictment of Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rice. They are impeachable, by this account, for blunders of global magnitude, great expense, and if not impeachable incompetence, then impeachable dereliction of duty in placing energy and financial interests above the public interest. Dick Cheney set the policy process aside (see my reviews of The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill and The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11) and this set the stage for Paul Bremmer to become the most grotesquely stupid and arrogant pro-consul in the history of mankind (see my reviews of "Blood Money: Wasted Billions, Lost Lives, and Corporate Greed in Iraq and Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq).

The notes and bibliography reflect scholarship of the highest order, and the book itself demonstrates both the author's personal experience with terrorism, and the author's intellect in studying terrorism over a lifetime. The index is better than average.

It is with a sense of sadness that I put this book down. General Al Gray, then Commandant of the Marine Corps, published "Global Intelligence Challenges of the 1990's" in the American Intelligence Journal (Winter 1989-1990), in which he clearly called for draconian increases in Third World intelligence, specifically focused on revolutionary and terrorist actors, making the most of open sources of information in all languages. The secret mandarins refused to listen. We have wasted 18 years during which we could have re-invented national intelligence and gotten it right, from 1988, when I first started demanding greater respect for open sources, the same year that Bin Laden kicked off a global campaign to spread radical military Islam, a campaign funded by the Saudi Arabian government that has bought and owns the Bush Family.

To end on a positive note, I cannot imagine our inert disengaged public awakening from its coma, in the absence of high crimes and misdemeanors such as we have witnessed under these six years of agonizingly ignorant and indeed treasonous governance. Sometimes the pain is necessary. This would appear to be such a time.

EDIT of 10 Dec 07: 100 million American voters who opted out of partisan politics are rearing their heads. Books like Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency have certainly helped.

An excellent book by someone who has studied terrorism since long before 9/11.

Starting with a deep understanding of how terrorist groups form and why people join them, she works her way to advice on crafting policy (For example, rather than determining whether a given policy is hard on terrorism or soft on terrorism, she recommends asking "Is it effective? And at what cost?") culminating with a list of six "rules for combatting terrorism".

A must read for anyone who wants to advocate for change!

The author seems to know her subject very well and to have reached well-considered judgments on it, although the book is repititous and sometimes awkwardly written.

I purchased this book for a class on the topic and I have to say it is a very interesting book to read - I find myself going beyond the reading assignments and I thoroughly enjoy doing so. The chapters are very simple to understand and theoretically it will help you think differently about the current situation.

I was disappointed in this book. If you pick up a copy of What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat thinking you will learn what terrorists want, that you'll understand them better or figure out what to do about them, you'll be disappointed too. The lukewarm review from Publisher's Weekly is the one to heed; the reviews by the amateur enthusiasts lack objectivity.

Ms. Richardson devotes the first 200 pages explaining the history and culture of terrorism. She obviously has studied many terrorist movements around the world, both historical and current. Her survey is interesting. She proves that tactics of terrorism or suicidal warfare weren't invented on 9/11, if you had doubts.

Inter alia, she illustrates the mistakes made by the Bush Administration in pursuit of al-Qaeda. Many of her points seem buttressed by the historical examples she cites. At this point in the conflict in Iraq, however, finding mistakes by the Bush administration ex post is like shooting fish in a barrel: It's so easy there's little sport in it. There are many other books on the market that recount authors' personal experiences with the war on terrorism and its many ills, written with greater credibility, from better vantage points than Boston, MA.

Where the book really falls down is when Ms. Richardson switches from historical perspective to policy directive. That switch from ex post to ex ante analysis is the tricky part for most of us. "Predicting is hard, especially about the future," said Yogi Berra.

What do terrorists want? All kinds of different things, apparently. The multiple long-term objectives she cites in her analysis (page 75-76) are so varied that not even Ms. Richardson attempts to draw any broad lessons. She instead focuses on "secondary motives" which have the three Rs--"revenge, renown, and reaction"--in common. That's interesting--coincidental that they all start with "R"--but less helpful as a policy tool. What grievous American action warranted the "revenge" strike upon the World Trade Towers?

Terrorism is a tactic, not an ideology. It's useful for small groups of zealots to use because it's inexpensive to implement and tough to combat. This insight was my biggest takeaway from the book. But grouping users of the tactic together might be no more meaningful than looking for common threads among militants who use the AK-47 assault rifle.

Understanding terrorism simply as a tactic, however, undermines the premise of writing Richardson's text. Examining users of terrorism collectively may be no more revealing than any other book on military tactics (e.g., "Use Of Camouflage Throughout The Ages").

She labels as "fallacious" the view that "democracies are particularly vulnerable to terrorism and that the freedoms granted citizens in democratic societies can be exploited by terrorists..." (page 206) Really? Rights to privacy, freedom of movement and freedom of association don't make life easier for terrorists?

She recommends knowing "how and where terrorists operate, how they organize themselves, how they communicate with each other, how they finance and plan their operations." You have to wade through to page 208 before encountering this bromide. I thought, in fact, that details like these were the promise of the book, not merely a recommendation that someone else do this work.

She allows that "penetrating terrorist groups is no easy task. Developing a good intelligence network takes time, connections, language skills, cultural knowledge and deep engagement in the region the groups come from." (page 211). I'm not sure the American polis would have been mollified if any President had told them after the fall of the twin towers that the US would immediately send people to language school in order to penetrate al-Qaeda.

She recommends playing "Let's Make A Deal." She writes, "We take as a given that their demands are so extreme as to be non-negotiable, but it would be worth finding out if that is, in fact, the case." (page 212). Maybe al-Qaeda isn't serious after all about banishing Americans from certain parts of the earth or establishing Islamic government in Iraq (citation from al-Zarqawi on page 218). Maybe we just need to know them better.

She ignores an important difference between most of the terrorist examples she cites and the American situation after 9/11: The terrorists aren't working from our territory. The British fought the IRA on territory the British controlled. Likewise the state governments fighting Basque separatists, the Russian anarchists, the ANC, Red Army Faction, Tamil Tigers, Shining Path, PKK and Aum Shinrikyo. But Americans couldn't gain access to the territory used by the terrorists without inserting themselves by military force. That using such force had additional consequences is undeniable. But what was the alternative? Initiating more "study abroad" fellowships and sending in the Peace Corps?

In spite of the title, Ms. Richardson is a pessimist (defeatist?). One chapter is entitled, "Why the War On Terror Can Never Be Won." At the end of the book, she concludes "We are going to have to learn to live with it [terrorism] and to accept it as a price of living in a complex world" (page 237).

Well, that would have been a reassuring message for a President of any party to deliver on September 12, 2001. Ms. Richardson missed her calling as a speech writer.

If your purpose in reading this book is to reinforce your smugness about mistakes made by the Bush administration, you'll be pleased to have your perspicacity confirmed. But if you really read the book to answer the questions in its title--what terrorists want, how to understand them better or what to do about them--this book won't help.

This is an outstanding, extremely thoughtful discussion of terrorism, past, present and future AND of effective ways to combat it. It should be required reading for anyone in government working on the problem, especially those at the top (i.e. Bush Administration) and important reading for the rest of us.

As the author says, the critical question is not WHO is tough or soft on terrorism, but what is EFFECTIVE against terrorism, and she thoroughly answers that question. Great job, Louise Richardson!

This is a very good book that places terrorism in perspective. Louise Richardson writes very clear about this subject and has a very good knowledge about this topic. I loved reading it. Recommended stuff for anyone who takes his knowledge about this seriously.

This book untangled all of my chaotic little pieces of knowledge about terrorists, and put them back together in a coherent framework.

Her explanation of the formal definition of terrorism makes the definition a powerful tool. And the final chapter of the book in which she offers her prescriptions for dealing with terrorists makes complete sense.

I hope that every world leader reads this book.

Using as her canvas, the history of terrorism, including the 100 years of terrorism in her own country of Ireland, this author paints a profoundly realistic picture of what terrorism is and of what it is not; of how to face and fight it smartly and courageously and how to do so incompetently, cowardly and without regard for the lessons of history.

Here in one book is more history on terrorism, and more sage advice on how to deal with it than is likely to be found in the next five books on the subject. Her advice can be (and is) summarized (in the last chapter of the book) succinctly as: (1) Have a clear defensible strategy and goal; (2) live by your own principles; (3) know your enemy; (4) separate the enemy from his community; (5) enlist others to assist in countering it; and (6) have patience and keep your perspective.

The subtext of the book is of course that there are no simple answers to fighting terrorism; no quick fixes will work. It goes almost without saying (so she does not say so explicitly) that the U.S. has done anything but fight a smart and brave war against the al Qaeda terrorists. To wit: We do not yet know what terrorism is. (So here she defines it for us). We violate our own principles in fighting it. (Relaxing the rules of our own Constitution, practicing torture, etc.) We don't care to know what the terrorist "real" concerns are ("They hate us because of our freedoms, etc."). We lump all Muslims into the same terrorists basket. We "go it alone." And finally, we are as impatient as a kid with ants in his pants. (All the politicians are busy demagoguing the issue for their own selfish political gains and reasons.)

But she is nevertheless hopeful that with new leadership, unafraid to take the lessons of history into account, and that is willing to see that seeking the "root causes" of terrorism is at least as important in surmounting it as garnering sophisticated military resources, the U.S. too may be able to better manage the growing terrorist threats it will undoubtedly continue to face in the future.

What do terrorists want? They want honor and respect and the right to help makeup the rules that govern their and their families lives, the same as any heroes of a cause do.

Five Stars