We can't win a war on terror

The series of terrorist attacks which hit London in July, followed by the attack in Sharm Al Shaikh, are a stark reminder that terrorism remains a potent force that is little understood.

Declaring war on international terrorism is a dangerous proposition for a number of reasons.

For one, it legitimises groups such as Al Qaida as international actors, which they are not. It also accords them a stake in the process of international decision making, which they don't deserve. And finally, it fuels false hopes that terrorism can somehow be eradicated, which it cannot.

Terrorism is not a new phenomenon. Human induced terror which obviously comes in different forms has been around for centuries. But, to say that nothing has changed, is mistaken.

Terrorism has grown in sophistication. Information technology and easy access to cutting-edge science is what makes 21st century terrorism such a nightmare.

The reference is often made to weapons of mass destruction (WMD) terrorism, though individuals disagree over the probability. The worrying variable, here, is the security of WMD sites across Central Asia and in Russia.

Many of the sites are poorly manned and lack the appropriate infrastructural security features. Examples of nuclear material going missing in places such as Georgia are highly worrying.

At the same time, Bin Laden has declared his commitment to acquiring WMD, calling it a "religious duty". That Al Qaida should seek WMD is not surprising.

What is surprising is some people's naïve belief that we can somehow control this problem by focusing on the demand side of the equation.

Crackdown

The focus should be on interdiction of smuggling lines, which means a comprehensive crackdown against organised crime. Second, security at WMD sites across Russia and the CIS states should be upgraded.

Europe can do much more in this context, as can the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The former can provide the funding, while the latter can provide the framework for discussion, planning and coordination.

Terrorism and organised crime are really two sides of the same coin. To fight organised crime though, we have to stress good governance and the rule of law.

These are largely missing across the former Soviet territory, where pockets of lawlessness (the Fergana Valley, for example) offer refuge for terrorists and organised crime.

We have to fight corruption relentlessly and insist on maximum transparency. States which are failing to implement these conditions are failing at their fundamental tasks. This makes their sovereignty subject to interpretation of their failures.

Prioritise

Likewise, absolute security from terrorism is an anomaly. We must prioritise better. We simply don't have the capacity or the resources to destroy terrorism altogether.

And we don't want to turn our states into police states where neighbours spy on neighbours. We left that model behind when the Iron Curtain fell.

The question which we should ask ourselves is: how much terrorism can we tolerate? None, is not a reasonable answer. That we profoundly disagree with terrorism and accuse it as barbaric acts is a whole different issue.

The fact is that conventional terrorism causes destruction of tolerable magnitude. In terms of casualties, a bomb exploding on the London subway is no different really from an accidental train collision.

The point is we can tolerate destruction as long as it doesn't overload our systems.

Modern society is more resilient, for example, to human deaths, than we are to banking and financial systems crashing; information exchange networks going off line; or to the destruction of transportation channels.

Our fundamental existence is threatened when the terrorists begin taking down our networks by overloading our systems, be it through mass destruction using WMD, or through cyber terrorism.

This is perhaps why the reactions of the stock markets, consumers and financial markets were negligible following the London attacks, and so grotesque following the attacks on New York.

What did it on 9/11 was the ability of the terrorists to collapse the home base of American's financial transactions and commerce.

In order to succeed in our task of controlling the magnitude and marginalising the effect of terrorism, we need to accept that we can't completely eradicate it.

Second, we should focus on preventing those forms of terrorism which can truly affect and collapse our interdependent systems.

Borut Grgic is the Director of the Institute for Strategic Studies.