Quote:
Originally Posted by SWTXBelle
Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit! You are the person we need to hear from - what do you think?  C'mon - how often do you get to use your thesis? (I'm ready, willing and able to weigh in on all matters Thomas Hardy, and use mine!)
|
*dead*
OK, well the basic premise of the idea is that terrorist action feeds counter-terrorist activity, and counter-terrorist activity feeds terrorist action. However, it takes a terrorist act to start the cycle.
That's the logic behind it. However, some believe that terrorist activity feeds a counter-terrorist OVER-reaction, which leads to bigger terrorist acts, which leads to bigger counter-terrorist overreactions, and so on.
My point, at the end of the day, is that there definitely is a cycle. And while overreactions happen everywhere, it doesn't happen every time. In fact, sometimes it's an under-reaction (if that's even a word), for example, in the case of Saudi Arabia after the Khobar Towers attack many counter-terrorism analysts believe we, and the Saudis, did not do enough to prevent the attack in the first place (considering we found a car FULL of explosives about 2 weeks beforehand, and had intelligence about the strength of the barrier and perimeter of the building that was ultimately blown up), and after the fact, we had a biotch of a time even following protocol as to interviewing suspects.
For the Khobar Towers example, however, foreign diplomacy and international relations in general did get in the way of the counter-terrorist reaction after the attack, which could be a reason why it was not at least equal, if not greater, than the relative scale of the original attack.
Now, the question essentially is, minus the diplomacy "getting in the way" of counter-terrorist activity, would the reaction be more likely equal and opposite or would it be greater?
I couldn't answer that question definitively, and since it was only a semester-long thesis I didn't have to. I was able to point to examples of what I thought my hunches led to.
Some nations are more likely to overreact, some are more likely to react equally, and some are likely to react to a lesser degree.
The United States and Israel fell into the category of overreaction.
Most European countries (in recent history, remember, not in colonial times) fell into the category of equal reaction.
Now, the category of reaction to a lesser degree is a mixed bag. In instances of state-sponsored terrorism, obviously they would not react, but would pretend to. In some cases it depends on who is the intended target of the terrorist attack. In the Khobar Towers example, Saudi Arabia did not have much more of an incentive to react than keeping us happy, since American Air Force personnel were the target of the attack. Obviously, we weren't happy with their reaction, but at least they reacted.
Then, as to it feeding more terrorism, that also depends. Was a resolution reached as a result of the terrorist and counter-terrorist activity? More likely than not, the dynamic is as it is. Terrorist activity feeds counter-terrorism which feeds terrorist activity which feeds counter-terrorism and so on.
The way I see it, the only thing that can stop that cycle from playing out over and over and over again is one of two things:
1. The satisfactory resolution of the conflict at hand (to both sides), or
2. The complete and total annihilation of the group that is carrying out the attacks, including all of their sleeper cells, all of their families, and all of their cultural group (also known as the impossible plan).
It also should be noted that economic situations feed into the cycle by creating a larger pool of people for terrorist groups to exploit in their aims. They have more people to draw on for members, they have more people to draw on for sympathizers, and they have more people to draw on as donors.
At the end of the day, do I think Israel overreacts to Hamas' aggression? Yes. Do I think Hamas is wrong for taking the terrorist route instead of the negotiations route for solving the problem? Yes. Do I think Hamas is completely wrong for attacking Israel? No. Do I think Israel is completely wrong for retaliating against Gaza? No.
As you can see, if you get into the nitty gritty of it, it becomes an even more complicated question.
ETA: $20 says I get at least one reply with "tl;dr"
Hybrid Mode
