Recognizing Outdated Power and Eliminating the Divide: Countering Terrorism through Smart Power

Introduction

           Countering terrorism through “smart power” is a concept deliberated on creative thinking to combat one’s enemy, especially terrorists. This essay will examine the reconceptualization of traditional approaches toward counterterrorism and discuss how ideologies from a Western liberal democracy can respond to an unconventional terrorist ideology. To begin with, the term “power” will be defined. Conventional “hard power” strategies and more lenient “soft power” strategies for confronting terrorism will be analyzed. A case study on the advantages of soft power strategies from personal experience will then be introduced. The combination of hard and soft power strategies, known as the “smart power” doctrine, will be discussed, but more importantly, how it can be applied as a counterterrorism strategy. Finally, the essay will reflect upon broader counterterrorism strategies and recommend new ideas to combat terrorism effectively.

Defining the Term “Power”

The concept of power is defined by Robert Dahl (1957) as “[…] ‘A’ has power over ‘B’ to the extent that he can get ‘B’ to do something that ‘B’ would not otherwise do […]” (p. 202). This is a thought-provoking concept since Dahl’s explanation of power relations directly relates to the relationship between state institutions and individuals living within that state. To illustrate, a state institution could represent ‘A,’ and an individual living under the influence of such a state could represent ‘B.’ The state can get the individual to do what it wants through different forms of power. Since the state functions in a hierarchical order and is more potent than the individual, an individual would not know the motives behind the state institution. Therefore, the individual has no choice but to comply with the law and order of the state.

Max Weber (1946) viewed power as the ability to attain one’s desires in the face of resistance or objection from others. In this context, power is exercising a social relationship and always encompasses the communications of at least two parties (Lindsey & Beach, 2003). Weber used the concept of domination to refer to circumstances in which an entire group of people could be directed to comply with specific commands (Bartels, 2009; Weber, 1968). For example, in the military, the high-ranking commissioned officers have dominance and authority, requiring, on some level, the acceptance of obedience. Non-commissioned members obey the commands of the high-ranking commissioned officers, thereby acknowledging their dominance. Dominance is always an expression of hierarchy in that one group is stronger or can control the actions of another.

To further the concept of power, Patrick O’Neil (2013) argues that politics is the quest for ruling and making decisions that will affect the community. It is, therefore, hard to separate politics from power since both involve the ability to influence others or impose one’s will on others (O’Neil, 2013). Politics is, therefore, the competition for public power, while power is the ability to influence and extend one’s will. Systems of power exist in a range of units: the government imposes its will on people; the commander of the army orders and directs their soldiers; the company’s owner manages their will on employees; a father undertakes his will on his family. Hence, political or social power can often be interpreted as a form of force or injustice. Still, nevertheless, the exercise of power is accepted as rampant in society as it continues.

Hard and Soft Power in the “War on Terror”

Joseph Nye (2011) defines political or social power as the ability to influence others to get them to behave in ways that you want them to behave, either through coercion and/or payment (elements of hard power) or through attraction and/or persuasion (elements of soft power). Hard power apparatuses include intelligence, law, policing, and military control, essential to safeguard a nation. On the other hand, soft power instruments include political, social, cultural, and economic control alongside broader policy initiatives dealing with the environment, development, critical infrastructure, migration, and humanitarian intervention in which a nation’s civil society plays a significant role.

Like communism, nazism, and fascism, terrorism – the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, to pursue political aims – is an ideology (Cohen et al. 2016). An ideology is best fought with a better counter-ideology than swords and guns alone. As the great American psychologist Abraham Maslow (1966) once wrote, “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail” (p.15). This concept, known as the law of the instrument, is relied on too much in counterterrorism, with the hammer being military might. Today, however, there is ambiguity in how we combat terrorism effectively when facing a multipronged and multifaceted ideological enemy, and it demands a new approach to the traditional counterterrorist orthodoxy. In the context of the US-led “war on terror”, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) could technically eliminate some terrorist groups, religious extremists, and hard-core individuals by military might. In the long run, however, NATO will never be able to destroy ambiguous Islamic ideologies, such as Wahhabism, Salafism, or Jihadism, because an ideology is better subsumed progressively rather than destroyed violently.

To counter it long-term, you also need to apply soft power. As Nye (2008) emphasized, “In the information age, success is not merely the result of whose army wins, but also whose story wins” (p.5). Hence, America and other Western nations should not exclusively engage ground troops and airstrikes in the Middle Eastern region. Instead, U.S.-led nations should turn the tables politically and diplomatically – via soft power measures – and strive to give the majority of moderate Muslims a bigger responsibility and leadership power to deal with the proportionally small percentage of the population that embraces violent extremism. In this way, the West can attempt to avoid the current struggle being characterized exclusively across the Greater Middle East region as a narrative of Christians against Muslims. This debased narrative only feeds into the extremists’ ideology. By training and “arming” moderate Muslims to combat regional terrorism effectively and strategically with soft power Islamic tools, the West can counter the damaging narrative of Crusade versus Jihad while still having its comforting “hammer” at the ready. Ultimately, the Western diplomatic community has to craft a winning counter-narrative comprised NOT just of Western liberal values and morals. Still, it must find connective diplomatic bridges with moderate Islamic parties (bridges that legitimately give Islamists a leadership role and executive management of the narrative). This will allow both sides to portray a partnership that gives dignity, soft power responsibility, and global legitimacy to the Islamist side of the team. This has so far been relatively absent from Western counterterrorism strategies.

A Case Study: Soft Power in Action

The idea of applying soft power in counterterrorism interests me because it relates to my personal experience. As such, I demonstrate soft power’s effectiveness through the case study. When living in my country of origin, Sri Lanka, during times of ethnic conflict at the beginning of the 1990s, I was manipulated and forced by the Tamil Tigers, a terrorist organization in the eyes of the world, to enlist in their militia. Kidnapped from high school and forced to fight as a child soldier with the Tamil Tigers, I rose quickly through the ranks to become an intelligence officer, working closely with the Tamil Tigers’ leadership. Having broken the Tamil Tigers’ arbitrary code of conduct by falling in love, I was blackmailed to work for the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) – the Indian government’s foreign intelligence agency. Fear and despair drove me to eventually defect to the Sri Lankan security forces in the summer of 1995. In working with the intelligence services of the Sri Lankan government, I was implicated in the demise of the Tamil Tigers in May 2009. I was a great asset and tremendous source of information for the government of Sri Lanka, having been a former naval intelligence officer who knew the modus operandi of the Tamil Tigers. In fact, I was willingly providing intelligence to India’s foreign intelligence agency, RAW, while still holding a position in the Tamil Tiger’s notorious intelligence wing.         

I did all this because, throughout my childhood, I became indoctrinated with the South Indian popular culture; I had internalized the melodious music of maestro Dr. Ilaiyaraaja and A.R. Rahman; thereby, I felt a brotherhood with Indians. Describing how crucially important music has been in my life is difficult. From the Hindu bhajans (devotional songs) praising God to the sweet, romantic South Indian cinema music of Ilaiyaraaja and A.R Rahman, I feel that music has taught me and inspired me to hold a higher purpose. It has almost been like a drug to me, helping me to escape the sometimes unthinkable realities of my life and to hope and believe that other things were possible.

After I was forcibly recruited into the Tamil Tigers, I was not allowed to listen to cinema songs – the Tamil Tigers did not allow cadres to fall in love, listen to music, or watch TV. Their doctrine is that “you are born to die, and you might as well die nobly as a martyr to your country, allowing no frivolity to distract you.” The subjects of the music I listened to were mostly romantic love, camaraderie, peace, and other things the Tamil Tigers forbade. Nonetheless, I would sneak away and listen to this music whenever I could; I got caught twice. I did not care; nothing could keep me away from this melodious music that evoked profound emotion in me and to which its message of brotherhood and love spoke to me. When A.R Rahman’s first hit album, ‘Roja’, came out, I could not resist secretly going to my home to listen to it. Rahman’s music is a beautiful combination of Western and Eastern fusion. When we would leave the camps, we would hear this music in the air and in the newspapers, reading from the sections on cinema and entertainment. I was tired of listening to Tamil Tigers’ news about war and death; I would try to distract myself by reading the papers and listening to music, even though the militants had banned and blocked all sorts of cinema, songs, and other popular cultural and entertainment resources. It could even be said that the South Indian popular culture, especially the music, finally saved my life in a way more potent than Tamil Tiger’s deliberate ideological brainwashing.

This matters when we consider strategic soft power counterterrorism because to sustain their totalitarian ideology and propaganda, terrorist organizations like the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Taliban in Afghanistan, Hamas in Gaza, and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), are all maniacally violent toward civil society-driven soft power instruments, such as art, social media, popular culture, music, and entertainment. These soft power avenues are radically blocked from people under the dictatorship of these groups. This soft power war is the war that terrorists do not want and really cannot win. But the West fights this war from a Western-dominated perspective that is inefficient and somewhat culturally arrogant. Soft power does not always mean the inculcation of ‘Western’ culture into the counterterrorism fight. Local versions of cultural soft power can be profoundly impactful and powerful instruments that move people to fight despotism. Rock and roll music may have successfully been a soft power element that intrigued the Soviet people and undermined the idea of communism (McCarthy, 2011), but that does not mean one defeats radical Islamist ideology only with Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift. Suppose the Western-moderate Muslim partnership is genuinely built with shared power and leadership. In that case, the expansion and applicability of cultural soft power tools will be monumental, and those tools will often need to be non-Western.

Getting Smarter for Counterterrorism

In higher academia, the Realist School of Thought emphasizes hard power, especially the brutal power of the state. In contrast, Liberal Institutionalist scholars emphasize soft power as an essential resource of statecraft (Wilson, 2008). Baylis, Smith, and Owens (2014) explain that Realism has been the dominant theory of world politics since the beginning of academic international relations. Realism has a long history in the works of classical political theorists, including Thucydides, Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Rousseau (Baylis et al., 2014). Realism argues that states find themselves in the shadows of anarchy and that their security cannot be taken for granted. Although we have seen heightened criticism of Realist assumptions since the Cold War, Realism continues to attract academicians and policy-makers at the dawn of the new millennium. Realism that views the ‘international’ as an anarchic realm.

Baylis, Smith, and Owens (2014) argue that Liberalism is a theory of both governments within states and good governance between states and peoples worldwide. Unlike Realism’s anarchic realm, Liberalism seeks to project values of order, liberty, justice, and tolerance into international relations. The peak of Liberal thought in international relations was reached during the inter-war period in the works of idealists who agreed that warfare was an unnecessary and outdated way of settling disputes between nations. Liberals nonetheless disagree on fundamental issues, such as the causes of war and what kind of institutions are required to deliver Liberal values in a decentralized, multicultural international system (Baylis et al., 2014).

Richard Armitage and Joseph Nye (2007) refer to the combination of hard and soft measures as “smart power,” that is, “by complementing US military and economic might with greater investments in soft power, America can build the framework it needs to tackle tough global challenges” (p. 1). The National Counterterrorism Center (2016) defines “counterterrorism” as the practices, tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, militaries, police departments, and corporations adopt in response to terrorist threats and/or acts, both real and imputed. As counterterrorism increasingly becomes more complex and involves different dynamics, countries must rethink strategy and evolve ideas to approach the phenomena anew.

It is of paramount importance to reconceptualize our approaches of the past to end terrorism and prevent the propagation of such atrocities. We must identify the root causes of terrorism, including feelings of injustice and inequality, ethnic and religious hatred, denied dignity and freedom, and political exclusion and repression. Terrorism, mainly driven by political motives, is a form of political violence. Therefore, it can be resolved by answering political grievances. We must employ a combination of soft and hard power measures to address political grievances adequately. Former American President Theodore Roosevelt relates to this: “Speak softly, and carry a big stick.” In referencing foreign policy, Roosevelt (1913) explained that this involves: “the exercise of intelligent forethought and of decisive action sufficiently far in advance of any likely crisis” (p.522).

It must be noted that soft and hard power institutions are founded within and exercised by different and distinct institutions; therefore, the two concepts oppose one another (Aly et al., 2015). To illustrate, in the U.S., hard power apparatuses are founded within the Pentagon, while soft power institutions are founded within the State Department. Because complex and soft systems of power are not neutrally wielded, there exists the need for a central governing authority that exercises the “balance of power” when combating terrorism. It is against this backdrop that NATO should be responsible for addressing a unified method for combating terrorism effectively. There is an urgent need to come up with a new ideology.

Since hard power is inclined towards “Realism” and soft power towards “Liberalism,” the global community must strategize a “Realist-cum-Liberalist” doctrine to survive and succeed in this new global information age. Instead of thriving to survive individually within a state, nations must work to pursue collective goals between states. Perhaps the ultimate solution to combat terrorism involves “One World” by ensuring geostrategic-cum-borderless “global village” for the modern citizens of the world (Ariaratnam, 2015). For instance, the Global South is known as the world’s poorest countries, including Asia, South America, and Africa. It is home to roughly five billion people who are living in extreme poverty. Thus, relationships worldwide are not balanced (Shah, 2009). In fact, 80% of global resources are consumed by only one billion people – those who live in the wealthy and industrialized Global North countries, i.e., Western Europe, Canada, the United States, Australia, and Japan (World Bank Group, 2010). Income inequality and poverty involve powerlessness and invisibility, producing money shortages, basic nutrition, health care, education, freedom, and personal autonomy. Although there are exceptions between the North and South, as a rule, states in the Global North are democratic and technologically advanced, have a high standard of living, and experience very low population growth (Ravelli & Webber, 2015). Is it fair or justifiable that developing countries must try to survive on only 20% of the world’s resources? Terrorism that is rooted in inequality is best combated politically, diplomatically, economically, socially, culturally, educationally, and religiously rather than militarily alone. This involves uniting the whole global community as one system.

Joseph Nye (2008) wrote the following just before President Barak Obama was elected – and after eight years and the end of two terms, it is very much relevant today at the dawn of another president entering the White House: 

The next president must understand the importance of developing an integrated grand strategy that combines hard military power with soft attractive power. In the struggle against terrorism, we need to use hard power against the hard-core terrorists, but we cannot hope to win unless we gain the hearts and minds of the moderates. […] Right now, we have no integrated strategy for combining hard and soft power. Many official instruments of soft power—public diplomacy, broadcasting, exchange programs, development assistance, disaster relief, military to military contacts—are scattered around the government and there is no overarching strategy or budget that even tries to integrate them with hard power into an overarching national security strategy. We spend about 500 times more on the military than we do on broadcasting and exchanges. Is this the right proportion? How would we know? How would we make trade-offs? And how should the government relate to the non-official generators of soft power—everything from Hollywood to Harvard to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—that emanate from our civil society? (p.4)

The international community must utilize and balance its soft and hard power foundations when combating terrorism. Each nation possesses a unique and popular culture so rich and deep that it can be greatly effective against hard-core individuals, enemy organizations, and radicalization. This can also be applied to indoctrinating the target population. In his oldest military treatise in the world, The Art of War, published in the 5th century BC, the ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu wrote, “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting” (Giles, 2007, p. 62). Thus, eliminating the will to fight and destroying the spirit of the enemy’s potential to fight is paramount. In other words, we must win our opponent’s hearts and minds under the U.S. military’s counterinsurgency doctrine.

Conclusion

To combat terrorism smartly in today’s global information age, nations must backstop and infuse conventional hard power tactics with more flexible and strategic cultural soft power approaches. In other words, countries should apply FUSED military and non-military strategies, very much in the way that I was forced to live part of my young life in Sri Lanka. The West embraces both versions in battling counterterrorism, but those approaches tend to be distinct and isolated. Since the US-led West is confronting an unconventional and radically ideological enemy, Western nations must plan, prepare, and execute an innovative and creative strategy that is not based solely on its own concepts of culture or liberal progress. This is where the international community must come together to integrate the role of hard power and soft power instruments as a new innovative core of counterterrorist smart power. If this new partnership can be created, it will be paramount in winning the hearts and minds of the general populace in the Greater Middle East that is indeed moderate but is still justifiably fearful of being anything but silent about extremism.

Image credit: Wikipedia Public Domain

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