TERRORISM PRIMER STOPS SHORT OF MARK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605740090-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 3, 2012
• Sequence Number: 90
• Publication Date: March 4, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605740090-4
PRGE
ON
Terrorism primer stops
short of mark.
BOOK REVIEW/Hany Gk; Summers Jr.
Like counterinsurgency inthe
1960s, terrorism has be-
come the. growth industry
of the 1980s. In 1971 Harvard: researcher J. Bowyer Bell
noted (in words that apply to terror-
ism today)-that "guerrilla-revolution
had become a fashionable challenge
to be met in elegant and complex
ways but which needed the talents,
the scope, the capabilities, and the
experience of various available ca-
reerists."
Most of these "careerists," drawn
from academia and from the various
"think tanks, had an educated. in-
capacity to see "guerrilla
revolution" as a form of war. Thus,
the strategies devised to counter
such wars - strategies that came to
ultimate grief on the battlefield -
were formulated almost exclusively
from the perspectives of social. and
political science. We are in danger of
repeating that same disastrous mis-
take. Although widely ac-
knowledged as a form of war, terror-
ism is rarely analyzed from the
perspective of military science.
One of the reasons is that today, as
during the Vietnam era, the Penta-
gon remains dominated by systems
analysis, budgeting, and cost ac-
counting. Instead of doing their own
thinking on operational strategies,
plans, and policies, the military
farms it out to "Beltway Bandits"
heavily staffed with academic ana-
lysts, who, not surprisingly, concen-
trate on what they know best. Terror-
ism as State-Sponsored Covert
Warfare is a case in point, for it was
originally commissioned by the De-
partment of the Army's Office of the
Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations
and Plans.
It is not that the authors are un-
qualified. Georgetown Professor
Ray S. Cline was the CIA's deputy
director for intelligence and has
written extensively on intelligence,
matters. His co-author, State Univer-
sity of New York Professor Yonah
,Alexander, has written, edited, and
co-edited some 25 books, most on
terrorism and terrorism-related top-
ics. And it is not that their work is
without value. After sketching the
historical background of state-
sponsored terrorism, they rigor-
ously define the nature of the prob-
lem. They then address the question
of what to do about it.
Recommended countermeasures
include improved intelligence, in-
creased cooperation with allies, eco-
nomic and security assistance to
those threatened by terrorist activi-
ties, political and diplomatic pres-
sures and economic sanctions
against terrorist sponsors, informa-
tion campaigns and foreign
broadcasts to bring public opinion to
bear, and, as a last resort, employ-
ment of military force.
Such military force would range
from clandestine counterterrorist
infiltrations, to covert support of for-
eign counterterror military oper-
ations, to overt U.S. military pre-
emptive operations, to overt U.S.
military operations against identi-
fied terrorist bases and forces.
The authors round out their study
with a bibliography and a collection
of documents, illustrations, and
charts, including the translation of
an Iranian top secret directive creat-
ing an independent brigade to carry
out terrorism abroad.
As a handbook, Terrorism as
State-Sponsored Covert Warfare is a
useful work. But because it is an aca-
demic work, it misses the import of
the fact that, as a form of warfare,
terrorism has a tactical and a strate-
WASHINGTON TIMES
4 March 1986
gic dimension. A terrorist bombing,
hijacking, or-assassination is much
the same, no matter who is behind it,
and common tactical defenses can
be devised. But, at the strategic
level, policies must be individually
tailored for each specific terrorist
group. The political objectives of the
Palestine Liberation Organization,
for example, are fundamentally dif-
ferent from the goals of the Puerto
Rican terrorists of the Boricua Pop-
ular Army, and policies must take
these differences into account.
The authors conclude that "state-
sponsored terrorism is such a funda-
mental challenge to the security and
strategic interests of the United
States that a major effort must be
launched to adopt clear definitions
and doctrine to establish an active
counterterrorism policy and a deter-
rent strategy that imposes a high
cost to terrorists."
This book is a beginning in that
effort, but lacking a coherent and
comprehensive follow-on military
analysis, it is only a beginning.
Col. Harry G. Summers Jr. is a
senior military correspondent for
U.S. News and World Report. His re-
cently published Vietnam War Al-
manac (Facts on File) was voted one
of the outstanding reference sources
of 1985 by the American Library As-
sociation.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605740090-4