TERRORISTS WINNING WAR, SAY EXPERTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403640042-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 27, 2012
• Sequence Number: 42
• Publication Date: June 23, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28 :CIA-RDP90-009658000403640042-2
winning.
"It is a new
kind of war,"
said I.. Bruce
Laingen, "and
our side is hav-
ing trouble get-
ting organized
for it." Now
vice-president
of the National
Defense Univer-
L. Bruce Laingen city, Laingen
was charge d'affaires in the U.S.
Embassy in Iran in 1979. 1''or 444
days, he remained America's top-
ranking hostage.
"This is the central strategic chal-
lenge Wthe United States," agreed
Yonah Alexander, director of the
State University of New York's Insti-
tute for the Study pf International
Ter~ism. ._ '
Terrorists
winning...
war, sa y
experts
DETROIT NF.PIS (l ~ I )
l3 June 1985
"The next war is not going to be fought on even what can be done about the problem.
the battlefield between the United States Emotionally, the experts said, the pressures
and t,~ Soviet Union -this is it," he said.~o-hit back hard at somebody -anybody -
are intense. Some also said it is important
'I'HOYJGH TERRORISTS come in psychologically to strike.
varieties ranging from Muslim religious fun- "The ides that you can't use force against
damentalists to the atheist Marxists of the. farJatica," Alexander said, "especially reli-
Italian Red Brigade, they share aruthless -gious fanatics, is wrong. Absolutely wrong.
willingness to use violence against innocent Communities and nation-states are there to
people. survive, even Iran. International life is based
Increasingly, they are aided by govern- on one single element -reciprocity."
menu who think they can use a terrorist Robert Kupperman, a counterterrorism
faction to further their own aims. authority with Georgetown University's
Center for Strategic Studies, is not so sure.
As a result, Alexander labeled this a new "
I cannot say we ought not to retaliate,"
B
y JeCk Lessenberry Age of Terrorism -and predicted that the ~ said "b t h "
u
is agreement that termrigm is war -
and that, s