November 20, 2005
Pew Centre Report
In foreign media, much has been made of the Pew Research Centre's recent report entitled "America's Place in the World" (Nov. 17).
Many of the findings of this poll are revealing, including evidence of an attrition in the support of democracy-building projects, and similar erosion in the backing of US hegemony. In general, the report concludes that,
As the Iraq war has shaken the global outlook of American influentials, it has led to a revival of isolationist sentiment among the general public. Fully 42% of Americans say the United States should "mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own."
The Economist points out that optimism is waning on the part of both the elites and the hoi polloi. This is a rare conflation, the article avers, last observed during Vietnam. It adds that though Bush can dismiss the sentiments of the elites, it cannot "dismiss the public's growing desire not to have to deal with the sort of people who strap bombs to themselves and blow up wedding parties."
After giving an exposition on prior American perceptions of Iraq, an Al-Jazeera analysis asks, exasperatingly, "how deep into the Iraq quagmire do they have to dig themselves before they collectively decide that it's time to dig themselves out?"
It is interesting to note that while US media seems to be depicting this poll as a significant blow to the current handling of the Iraq War, the overwhelming majority of foreign media still question even the extant American optimism (as is in the case of this Canadian reaction).
Posted 10:51 PM | Comments (0)
October 18, 2005
Evolving security issues
“Most forms of political violence have declined significantly since the end of the Cold War,” states a recent report published by the Human Security Center under the title Human Security Report: War and Peace in the 21st Century.
The situation has improved significantly since 1990 and the end of the Cold War. The report finds a reduction of 80% in genocides, 40% in the number of conflicts, 30% in the number of refugees. The number of deaths in each conflict is declining significantly but the proportion of civilians in relation to combatants is much higher today than it was 20 years ago. (See graphics here).
Human security is a relatively new concept. “Unlike traditional concepts of security, which focus on defending borders from external military threats, human security is concerned with the security of individuals,” explains the Center. It is linked to the Canadian Consortium on Human Security which is funded by the Human Security Program of the Foreign Affairs Canada (FAC).
The French daily Le Monde asked Gareth Evans, chief executive of the International Crisis Group, to comment on the report.
The International Crisis Group is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organization working to prevent and resolve deadly conflict. It is chaired by the former European Commissioner for External Relations Lord Patten of Barnes.
An ex Australian Foreign Minister, Evans sees three major threats for today’s world:
- The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction;
- Terrorism;
- “The loss of influence of the notion of international order due to the American administration discourse according to which the world does not need the U.N.”
It is obviously linked to the fact that the Human Security Center Report summarizes its finding by saying that, among other elements, “the best explanation for this decline is the huge upsurge of conflict prevention, resolution and peacebuilding activities that were spearheaded by the United Nations in the aftermath of the Cold War.”
Interestingly enough the title of Le Monde’s interview only says “Two dangers: Nuclear proliferation, and terrorism.”
Posted 12:43 PM | Comments (0)
October 02, 2005
Muslim views of the US: Anger or merely disapproval?
A web-only article at the New Republic challenges the widely-perceived notion that the Muslim world is fiercely hostile towards, rather than just displeased with, the United States. It traces that perception back to the hardest data available, the Pew Global Attitudes Survey, observing:
Evidently few reporters took the time to read the fine print in the [March 2004 survey, "A Year After Iraq War: Mistrust of America in Europe Ever Higher; Muslim Anger Persists."] If they did, they would have found that the poll provided absolutely no evidence to support the charge that "Muslim anger persists." In fact, the word "anger" did not appear in a single poll question. Muslims did give high "unfavorable" ratings to the United States, but there is considerable difference between viewing something unfavorably and being angry at it. (Think of broccoli or Britney Spears.) Pew evidently recognized how problematic this was; in the 2005 version of the Global Attitudes Survey, released in June, references to such sensationalist (and unsubstantiated) terms as "anger" were nowhere to be found. But the damage was already done.
The report further notes that Muslim publics are more accepting of US global leadership than European ones, and that in all Muslim countries but Turkey approval of the US occupation of Iraq had upticked slightly since the previous year. It concludes by noting that there have been few sizeable anti-American protests in 2005, and, tellingly, McDonalds' is reporting sizeable profits throughout the region. But perhaps just as disapproval may not mean anger, so love of the Big Mac may not equal love of Uncle Sam.
Posted 03:59 PM | Comments (0)
September 29, 2005
More on the Transatlantic trends 2005
After a first look on the "Transatlantic trends 2005" made by the German Marshall Fund on opinions on USA in Europe and on international matters, one could find here more information. Both European and US citizens were questioned. For a quick view, see the charts.
Some key findings :
- Europeans are more likely than Americans to support democracy promotion (74% to 51%). Both Europeans and Americans strongly prefer “soft power” options to promote democracy, with only 39% of Americans and 32% of Europeans who support sending military forces.
- Republican support for democracy promotion more closely mirrors Europeans’ with 76% favorable, compared to only 43% of Democrats. Whileboth parties support soft power options, nearly twice the percentage of Republicans (57%) than Democrats (29%) support military intervention.
- As the United States and Europe look forward toward engagement with China, there is agreement on both sides that respect for human rights needs to be considered, even if this means limiting economic relations.
- Americans and Europeans show no consensus concerning options for dealing with the possibility that Iran may develop nuclear weapons, although only a small minority in both supports military intervention, 5% of Europeans
and 15% of Americans.
- More Americans than Europeans think they will be personally affected by international terrorism (71% to 53%), while more Europeans see themselves as likely to be personally affected by global warming (73% to 64%).
- Despite major diplomatic efforts to mend transatlantic relations, there has been little change in European public opinion toward the United States. When asked whether relations between the United States and Europe have improved, gotten worse, or stayed the same, in light of President Bush’s recent efforts to improve relations with Europe, 52% of Europeans felt relations have stayed the same. Americans agreed, with 50% saying relations have stayed the same. Among those who saw change, more Germans and Slovaks felt relations have improved, while more British, Italians, Dutch, and Spaniards felt relations have gotten worse.
- When asked whether relations should become closer, remain the same, or become more independent in security and diplomatic affairs, the majority of Americans (54%) felt that relations should become closer, whereas a similar percentage of Europeans (55%) felt the EU should take a more independent approach from the United States. Both sides saw a small increase of 5 percentage points from 2004 in the number of respondents who want to take a more independent approach, from 20% to 25% in the United States and from 50% to 55% in Europe. Within Europe, the largest percentages of respondents who felt relations should become closer were in Poland (48%), Spain (43%), and Slovakia (35%), whereas the largest percentages who felt relations should take a more independent approach were in France (69%), Italy (66%), and the Netherlands (62%).
- As in 2004, Turkish respondents remain the most strongly critical of President Bush’s leadership, with 63% disapproving very much of President Bush’s international policies. At the same time, Turkish support for NATO continues to be positive and essentially unchanged from past years, with 52% of respondents agreeing that NATO
is “still essential to our country’s security.”
Posted 12:30 PM | Comments (0)
September 27, 2005
Foreigners care
Sri Lanka ravaged a few months ago by a tsunami sent $25,000. Cuba offered 1,100 medical doctors. Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates promised $100 million each.
Foreign Policy publishes a table of aid offered by foreign countries after Katrina.
FP’s comment:
America’s friends abroad, and even some of its foes, have responded to the horrific destruction to the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina by pledging money and sending supplies to assist the recovery effort.
All of these gestures do not share a unique meaning, but they certainly give us some indications about perceptions of the U.S. in the world.
They raise some questions too. What does it mean for Mexicans to send soldiers up north? Why did Hungary offer only $5,000, and why the pro-American Poland does not show up in this table. How could Bangladesh find $ 1 million? What happened with the Cuban doctors?
What do you think?
Update – This post in a blog by a staff writer for the Arkansas Leader mentions aid offered or delivered from 94 countries (Poland appears in the list).
Posted 10:22 AM | Comments (0)
September 21, 2005
New Poll Tracks Latin American Perceptions of the US
FLASCO, a Chilean social-science institute, has released new telephone survey data tracking public perceptions of the US in four Latin American capitals – Santiago, Montevideo, Buenos Aires and Brasilia. Although this is billed as a Latin American survey, the fact that research was limited to capitals and to those four countries weakens its conclusions – adding the provinces of these states, or other Latin American countries (Venezuela for anti-Bush, Columbia for pro) would likely significantly alter these results.
That said, it is useful to consider some of their conclusions.
Some of the findings confirm conventional wisdom – George Bush is extremely unpopular in Latin America, gathering his highest ratings in Santiago with a mere 19% of favorable responses. Unfavorable responses ranged from 40% (in Santiago), to 64% in Buenos Aires. Much and varied blame is laid at his feet, with 69% of respondents complaining about his neglect for their country, while 82% argue that the US interferes excessively in other countries affairs.
Although there are complaints about neglect, there also seems to be a perception that US involvement may be neither neccessary nor desirable - 60% of respondents don’t believe that US aid is necessary to tackle their country’s problems. There is also a significant divergence about what those problems are – terrorism is not considered to be a threat by a majority of respondents anywhere, while narco-trafficking, corruption, unemployment and poverty score very high levels of concern.
The survey also shows significant negative attitudes towards the US as a country. 70% of respondents consider it “an imperialist country,” and an equal amount do not believe America contributes to world peace. Neither US military power or democracy gather any accolades but, on the bright side, most of those called spoke favorable of US culture and economic dynamism.
There seems to be a consensus that the US does promote development abroad, though opinion is torn on whether free trade is a good idea – a majority of Chileans are pleased with their free trade agreement, a majority of Argentines and Brazilians are hostile to one, while Uruguayans are ambivalent.
Posted 10:05 PM | Comments (0)
July 31, 2005
It's Occupation, not Islamic Fundamentalism
Italian newspapers are reporting today that the suspect held on suspicion of planting one of the failed July 21 London bombs said he and fellow bombers were motivated by the war in Iraq to carry out the attacks.
Thus coming from the words of one of the alleged bombers himself, suspicions that these attacks were spawned from the UK's involvement in the Iraq occupation are justified.
One man knows more about suicide bombings than any other Americans. Robert Pape, Asosciate Professor at the University on Chicago and author of a book on suicide attacks "Dying to Win," has the world's largest database of suicide bombers and their demographics. His findings indicate that the the most prevalant American perception about suicide attackers and their motivations are way off.
His conclusions, as expressed in an interview by Scott McConnell of the American Conservative on July 18 (below), clear up many of these misperceptions. Here are some, summarized or paraphrased:
(from an interview with Robert Pape, used without permission of the author/interviewer)
- Suicide attacks are largely associated with Islamic fundamentalism, when in fact the leader in the world's suicide bombings are the Tamil Tigers in their conflict with the Buddhists in Sri Lanka. Palestinians learned of the suicide vest from the Tamil Tigers.
- The main objective, in more than 95 percent of all incidents, has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw its occupation or military forces from the region considered by the attackers to be their homeland. Not Islamic fundamentalism.
- Because suicide attacks are mainly a response to foreign occupation and not Islamic fundamentalism, the use of heavy military force can only be expected to increase the number of suicide attackers.
- The evidence shows that the presence of American troops clearly trumps the idea of a cultural hatred of the West or the idea of democracy when it comes to the reasons for suicide attackers to act.
- Iraq never had a suicide attack before American troops invaded.
- "If Islamic fundamentalism were the pivotal factor, then we should see some of the largest Islamic fundamentalist countries in the world, like Iran, which has 70 million people-three times the population of Iraq and three times the population of Saudi Arabia-with some of the most active groups in suicide terrorism against the United States. However, there has never been an al-Qaeda suicide terrorist from Iran, and we have no evidence that there are any suicide terrorists in Iraq from Iran." Sudan, too, has an extremely Islamic fundamentalist government but there has never been an al-Quaeda suicide attacker from Sudan.
- Two thirds of the suicide attacks from 1995 to 2004 are from countries where the United States has stationed heavy combat troops since 1990, and not from Islamic fundamentalist countries.
- History shows that once occupying forces withdraw from the homeland territory of attackers, they often stop, and often on a dime.
The Logic of Suicide Terrorism: It's the Occupation, Not the Fundamentalism
By Scott McConnell
American Conservative
July 18, 2005
Last month, Scott McConnell caught up with Associate Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago, whose book on suicide terrorism, Dying to Win, is beginning to receive wide notice. Pape has found that the most common American perceptions about who the terrorists are and what motivates them are off by a wide margin. In his office is the world's largest database of information about suicide terrorists, rows and rows of manila folders containing articles and biographical snippets in dozens of languages compiled by Pape and teams of graduate students, a trove of data that has been sorted and analyzed and which underscores the great need for reappraising the Bush administration's current strategy. Below are excerpts from a conversation with the man who knows more about suicide terrorists than any other American.
The American Conservative: Your new book, Dying to Win, has a subtitle: The Logic of Suicide Terrorism. Can you just tell us generally on what the book is based, what kind of research went into it, and what your findings were?
Robert Pape: Over the past two years, I have collected the first complete database of every suicide-terrorist attack around the world from 1980 to early 2004. This research is conducted not only in English but also in native-language sources-Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, and Tamil, and others-so that we can gather information not only from newspapers but also from products from the terrorist community. The terrorists are often quite proud of what they do in their local communities, and they produce albums and all kinds of other information that can be very helpful to understand suicide-terrorist attacks.
This wealth of information creates a new picture about what is motivating suicide terrorism. Islamic fundamentalism is not as closely associated with suicide terrorism as many people think. The world leader in suicide terrorism is a group that you may not be familiar with: the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.
This is a Marxist group, a completely secular group that draws from the Hindu families of the Tamil regions of the country. They invented the famous suicide vest for their suicide assassination of Rajiv Ghandi in May 1991. The Palestinians got the idea of the suicide vest from the Tamil Tigers.
TAC: So if Islamic fundamentalism is not necessarily a key variable behind these groups, what is?
RP: The central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide-terrorist campaign-over 95 percent of all the incidents-has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw.
TAC: That would seem to run contrary to a view that one heard during the American election campaign, put forth by people who favor Bush's policy. That is, we need to fight the terrorists over there, so we don't have to fight them here.
RP: Since suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation and not Islamic fundamentalism, the use of heavy military force to transform Muslim societies over there, if you would, is only likely to increase the number of suicide terrorists coming at us.
Since 1990, the United States has stationed tens of thousands of ground troops on the Arabian Peninsula, and that is the main mobilization appeal of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. People who make the argument that it is a good thing to have them attacking us over there are missing that suicide terrorism is not a supply-limited phenomenon where there are just a few hundred around the world willing to do it because they are religious fanatics. It is a demand-driven phenomenon. That is, it is driven by the presence of foreign forces on the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. The operation in Iraq has stimulated suicide terrorism and has given suicide terrorism a new lease on life.
TAC: If we were to back up a little bit before the invasion of Iraq to what happened before 9/11, what was the nature of the agitprop that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda were putting out to attract people?
RP: Osama bin Laden's speeches and sermons run 40 and 50 pages long. They begin by calling tremendous attention to the presence of tens of thousands of American combat forces on the Arabian Peninsula.
In 1996, he went on to say that there was a grand plan by the United
States-that the Americans were going to use combat forces to conquer Iraq, break it into three pieces, give a piece of it to Israel so that Israel could enlarge its country, and then do the same thing to Saudi Arabia. As you can see, we are fulfilling his prediction, which is of tremendous help in his mobilization appeals.
TAC: The fact that we had troops stationed on the Arabian Peninsula was not a very live issue in American debate at all. How many Saudis and other people in the Gulf were conscious of it?
RP: We would like to think that if we could keep a low profile with our troops that it would be okay to station them in foreign countries. The truth is, we did keep a fairly low profile. We did try to keep them away from Saudi society in general, but the key issue with American troops is their actual combat power. Tens of thousands of American combat troops, married with air power, is a tremendously powerful tool.
Now, of course, today we have 150,000 troops on the Arabian Peninsula, and we are more in control of the Arabian Peninsula than ever before.
TAC: If you were to break down causal factors, how much weight would you put on a cultural rejection of the West and how much weight on the presence of American troops on Muslim territory?
RP: The evidence shows that the presence of American troops is clearly the pivotal factor driving suicide terrorism.
If Islamic fundamentalism were the pivotal factor, then we should see some of the largest Islamic fundamentalist countries in the world, like Iran, which has 70 million people-three times the population of Iraq and three times the population of Saudi Arabia-with some of the most active groups in suicide terrorism against the United States. However, there has never been an al-Qaeda suicide terrorist from Iran, and we have no evidence that there are any suicide terrorists in Iraq from Iran.
Sudan is a country of 21 million people. Its government is extremely Islamic fundamentalist. The ideology of Sudan was so congenial to Osama bin Laden that he spent three years in Sudan in the 1990s. Yet there has never been an al-Qaeda suicide terrorist from Sudan.
I have the first complete set of data on every al-Qaeda suicide terrorist from 1995 to early 2004, and they are not from some of the largest Islamic fundamentalist countries in the world. Two thirds are from the countries where the United States has stationed heavy combat troops since 1990.
Another point in this regard is Iraq itself. Before our invasion, Iraq never had a suicide-terrorist attack in its history. Never. Since our invasion, suicide terrorism has been escalating rapidly with 20 attacks in 2003, 48 in 2004, and over 50 in just the first five months of 2005. Every year that the United States has stationed 150,000 combat troops in Iraq, suicide terrorism has doubled.
TAC: So your assessment is that there are more suicide terrorists or
potential suicide terrorists today than there were in March 2003?
RP: I have collected demographic data from around the world on the 462
suicide terrorists since 1980 who completed the mission, actually killed themselves. This information tells us that most are walk-in volunteers. Very few are criminals. Few are actually longtime members of a terrorist group. For most suicide terrorists, their first experience with violence is their very own suicide-terrorist attack.
There is no evidence there were any suicide-terrorist organizations lying in wait in Iraq before our invasion. What is happening is that the suicide terrorists have been produced by the invasion.
TAC: Do we know who is committing suicide terrorism in Iraq? Are they
primarily Iraqis or walk-ins from other countries in the region?
RP: Our best information at the moment is that the Iraqi suicide terrorists are coming from two groups-Iraqi Sunnis and Saudis-the two populations most vulnerable to transformation by the presence of large American combat troops on the Arabian Peninsula. This is perfectly consistent with the strategic logic of suicide terrorism.
TAC: Does al-Qaeda have the capacity to launch attacks on the United States, or are they too tied down in Iraq? Or have they made a strategic decision not to attack the United States, and if so, why?
RP: Al-Qaeda appears to have made a deliberate decision not to attack the United States in the short term. We know this not only from the pattern of their attacks but because we have an actual al-Qaeda planning document found by Norwegian intelligence. The document says that al-Qaeda should not try to attack the continent of the United States in the short term but instead should focus its energies on hitting America's allies in order to try to split the coalition.
What the document then goes on to do is analyze whether they should hit Britain, Poland, or Spain. It concludes that they should hit Spain just before the March 2004 elections because, and I am quoting almost verbatim: Spain could not withstand two, maximum three, blows before withdrawing from the coalition, and then others would fall like dominoes.
That is exactly what happened. Six months after the document was produced, al-Qaeda attacked Spain in Madrid. That caused Spain to withdraw from the coalition. Others have followed. So al-Qaeda certainly has demonstrated the capacity to attack and in fact they have done over 15 suicide-terrorist attacks since 2002, more than all the years before 9/11 combined. Al-Qaeda is not weaker now. Al-Qaeda is stronger.
TAC: What would constitute a victory in the War on Terror or at least an improvement in the American situation?
RP: For us, victory means not sacrificing any of our vital interests while also not having Americans vulnerable to suicide-terrorist attacks. In the case of the Persian Gulf, that means we should pursue a strategy that secures our interest in oil but does not encourage the rise of a new generation of suicide terrorists.
In the 1970s and the 1980s, the United States secured its interest in oil without stationing a single combat soldier on the Arabian Peninsula. Instead, we formed an alliance with Iraq and Saudi Arabia, which we can now do again. We relied on numerous aircraft carriers off the coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and naval air power now is more effective not less. We also built numerous military bases so that we could move large numbers of ground forces to the region quickly if a crisis emerged.
That strategy, called "offshore balancing," worked splendidly against Saddam Hussein in 1990 and is again our best strategy to secure our interest in oil while preventing the rise of more suicide terrorists.
TAC: Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders also talked about the
"Crusaders-Zionist alliance," and I wonder if that, even if we weren't in Iraq, would not foster suicide terrorism. Even if the policy had helped bring about a Palestinian state, I don't think that would appease the more hardcore opponents of Israel.
RP: I not only study the patterns of where suicide terrorism has occurred but also where it hasn't occurred. Not every foreign occupation has produced suicide terrorism. Why do some and not others? Here is where religion matters, but not quite in the way most people think. In virtually every instance where an occupation has produced a suicide-terrorist campaign, there has been a religious difference between the occupier and the occupied community. That is true not only in places such as Lebanon and in Iraq today but also in Sri Lanka, where it is the Sinhala Buddhists who are having a dispute with the Hindu Tamils.
When there is a religious difference between the occupier and the occupied, that enables terrorist leaders to demonize the occupier in especially vicious ways. Now, that still requires the occupier to be there. Absent the presence of foreign troops, Osama bin Laden could make his arguments but there wouldn't be much reality behind them. The reason that it is so difficult for us to dispute those arguments is because we really do have tens of thousands of combat soldiers sitting on the Arabian Peninsula.
TAC: Has the next generation of anti-American suicide terrorists already been created? Is it too late to wind this down, even assuming your analysis is correct and we could de-occupy Iraq?
RP: Many people worry that once a large number of suicide terrorists have acted that it is impossible to wind it down. The history of the last 20 years, however, shows the opposite. Once the occupying forces withdraw from the homeland territory of the terrorists, they often stop-and often on a dime.
In Lebanon, for instance, there were 41 suicide-terrorist attacks from 1982 to 1986, and after the U.S. withdrew its forces, France withdrew its forces, and then Israel withdrew to just that six-mile buffer zone of Lebanon, they virtually ceased. They didn't completely stop, but there was no campaign of suicide terrorism. Once Israel withdrew from the vast bulk of Lebanese territory, the suicide terrorists did not follow Israel to Tel Aviv.
This is also the pattern of the second Intifada with the Palestinians. As Israel is at least promising to withdraw from Palestinian-controlled territory (in addition to some other factors), there has been a decline of that ferocious suicide-terrorist campaign. This is just more evidence that withdrawal of military forces really does diminish the ability of the terrorist leaders to recruit more suicide terrorists.
That doesn't mean that the existing suicide terrorists will not want to keep going. I am not saying that Osama bin Laden would turn over a new leaf and suddenly vote for George Bush. There will be a tiny number of people who are still committed to the cause, but the real issue is not whether Osama bin Laden exists. It is whether anybody listens to him. That is what needs to come to an end for Americans to be safe from suicide terrorism.
TAC: There have been many kinds of non-Islamic suicide terrorists, but have there been Christian suicide terrorists?
RP: Not from Christian groups per se, but in Lebanon in the 1980s, of those suicide attackers, only eight were Islamic fundamentalists. Twenty-seven were Communists and Socialists. Three were Christians.
TAC: Has the IRA used suicide terrorism?
RP: The IRA did not. There were IRA members willing to commit suicide-the famous hunger strike was in 1981. What is missing in the IRA case is not the willingness to commit suicide, to kill themselves, but the lack of a suicide-terrorist attack where they try to kill others.
If you look at the pattern of violence in the IRA, almost all of the killing is front-loaded to the 1970s and then trails off rather dramatically as you get through the mid-1980s through the 1990s. There is a good reason for that, which is that the British government, starting in the mid-1980s, began to make numerous concessions to the IRA on the basis of its ordinary violence. In fact, there were secret negotiations in the 1980s, which then led to public negotiations, which then led to the Good Friday Accords. If you look at the pattern of the IRA, this is a case where they actually got virtually everything that they wanted through ordinary violence.
The purpose of a suicide-terrorist attack is not to die. It is the kill, to inflict the maximum number of casualties on the target society in order to compel that target society to put pressure on its government to change policy. If the government is already changing policy, then the whole point of suicide terrorism, at least the way it has been used for the last 25 years, doesn't come up.
TAC: Are you aware of any different strategic decision made by al-Qaeda to change from attacking American troops or ships stationed at or near the Gulf to attacking American civilians in the United States?
RP: I wish I could say yes because that would then make the people reading this a lot more comfortable.
The fact is not only in the case of al-Qaeda, but in suicide-terrorist
campaigns in general, we don't see much evidence that suicide-terrorist groups adhere to a norm of attacking military targets in some circumstances and civilians in others.
In fact, we often see that suicide-terrorist groups routinely attack both civilian and military targets, and often the military targets are off-duty policemen who are unsuspecting. They are not really prepared for battle.
The reasons for the target selection of suicide terrorists appear to be much more based on operational rather than normative criteria. They appear to be looking for the targets where they can maximize the number of casualties.
In the case of the West Bank, for instance, there is a pattern where Hamas and Islamic Jihad use ordinary guerrilla attacks, not suicide attacks, mainly to attack settlers. They use suicide attacks to penetrate into Israel proper. Over 75 percent of all the suicide attacks in the second Intifada were against Israel proper and only 25 percent on the West Bank itself.
TAC: What do you think the chances are of a weapon of mass destruction being used in an American city?
RP: I think it depends not exclusively, but heavily, on how long our combat forces remain in the Persian Gulf. The central motive for anti-American terrorism, suicide terrorism, and catastrophic terrorism is response to foreign occupation, the presence of our troops. The longer our forces stay on the ground in the Arabian Peninsula, the greater the risk of the next 9/11, whether that is a suicide attack, a nuclear attack, or a biological attack.
Posted 03:55 PM | Comments (0)
June 05, 2005
From Giacomo Chiozza on Anti-Americanism
Giacomo Chiozza is a post-doctoral fellow at Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, Harvard University. He will join the faculty in the Department of Political Science at UC-Berkeley in the Fall of 2005. In this letter, Chiozza answers three questions posed by Worldandus.
WorldAndUS: Why is it interesting to study perceptions of the US in the world (or anti-Americanism)?
GC -- Anti-Americanism appears to be a pervasive phenomenon of our times. But despite all the attention that it receives in the media, in the statements of political leaders, and among policy pundits, it still remains a poorly understood phenomenon. We should first acknowledge that anti-Americanism subsumes patterns of behavior and attitudinal stances that span the entire spectrum from the murderous hatred of the 9/11 hijackers to the fleeting and superficial opinions of ordinary people captured in opinion polls. And we should also acknowledge that when we say America, we evoke a large array of images, sentiments, aspirations, and ideals. This combination of competing and contradicting feelings makes the study of anti-Americanism particularly interesting.
A second set of reasons should also be considered. When we study international politics, we focus on the distribution of power and the patterns of interests. These two variables indeed help us understand a great deal of what happens in the international arena. But, as we try to understand the features and characteristics of the American world order, we very well observe that such an international order entails more than power and interests. It entails a normative and ideational dimension. The study of foreign attitudes towards the United States allows us to grasp such an ideational and normative dimension insofar as it tells us what is accepted and what is rejected, under what political conditions, by ordinary people.
-- WorldAndUs: Which effects might be expected from rising anti-Americanism?
GC -- We don't really know much about the political consequences of anti-Americanism. Conjectures abound about how popular opposition to the United States would affect the ability of the United States to pursue major policy initiatives and how such an opposition would create an international political context detrimental to American security. Several scholars have pointed out how the exceptional position of the United States in the current international system is buttressed by a special feature of America's, its soft power, to use Joseph Nye's catchy expression. If popular anti-Americanism is mounting, it might very well undermine American soft power, one of the pillars of the American world order. But, I think, we should avoid the temptation to draw immediate and linear connections between mass level negative attitudes towards the United States and the state choices in the international arena.
-- WorldAndUs: How is it possible to study the evolving nature of this phenomenon in a way so that it can be used as a policy tool?
GC -- When we think of the policy-implications of the scientific and academic research on anti-Americanism, we have to keep two aspects into consideration.
On the one hand, we have the aspiration to a "Decent Respect for the Opinions of Mankind," which is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.
On the other hand, we have the statements of policy makers in the realpolitik tradition, such as Dean Acheson, who argued about 40 years ago that American political leaders should disregard any infatuation with the image of America abroad and, instead, place the course of America's foreign policy on the firm ground of the pursuit of American national interest. In more recent times, the neoconservative intellectuals who have framed American foreign policy under the reign of George W. Bush have made a similar argument and claimed that America should be "unapologetic" and not concerned about the views of foreign publics.
In other words, the policy implications of the study of anti-Americanism are indeed a politically contested battleground. But, regardless of the view we adopt, the knowledge produced by systematic analyses of anti-Americanism would have much more relevance if it followed from well-crafted research design. All too often the treatises on anti-Americanism simply "sample on the dependent variable," that is, select only instances of opposition to America for their analysis. In so doing, they do not show how mass attitudes vary over space and time and over the infinite features of the United States.
Once we start to analyze the rich variation in how America is perceived and appreciated abroad, we can start having a more realistic understanding of the phenomenon. We can start understand what exactly riles opponents and detractors of America, and what about America appeals to so many people. No sound policy advice can follow from analyses that only focus on the "hate" part, and miss out that America is also much loved as well.
Posted 10:27 PM | Comments (0)
March 07, 2005
22-Nation Poll: China Seen More Favorably Than US, Russia
GlobeScan and the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) have conducted a poll of 22 countries for BBC World Service. The poll was completed during December 2004 in most countries. Among the findings from the poll:
China is viewed much more positively than two other major powers, the US and Russia, which are viewed quite negatively. Russia is viewed as having a negative influence in the world by citizens of fourteen countries and a positive influence in just five, with an average across all countries of 36 percent viewing it positively and 40 percent negatively. The US is also viewed negatively in fifteen countries and positively in just six, with an average of 38 percent viewing it positively and 47 percent negatively. Indeed, China is viewed nearly as positively as Britain by citizens polled worldwide—on average 50 percent view Britain as having a positive influence as compared to 48 percent for China.
Click here to access a summary of the findings
Posted 01:58 PM | Comments (0)
February 23, 2005
U.S. Brands Threatened by Rising Anti-Americanism?
A couple of days ago I ran across mention of an article, "US Businesses Overseas Threatened by Rising Anti-Americanism" (also posted here under a different title), saying people around the world are increasingly avoiding brands perceived as "American" as a way of expressing discontent with the United States -- voting with their euros, pesos, and yen, as it were. Citing a recent poll by Seattle-based market research firm Global Market Insite, the article notes that sales for Marlboro and McDonalds were down in some countries, for example, and some German restaurants had stopped accepting American Express credit cards in a kind of reverse-Freedom-Fries phenomenon (see also this Reuters article from 2003). The story was also reported on by MSNBC, Time magazine, the Financial Times, and other media fixtures.
A look at the poll data itself, however, reveals that its results may be a little more complex. While it's true that 20 percent of Europeans and Canadians said they would boycott American products to protest U.S. foreign policy, the numbers don't seem too dire, on balance, for U.S. brands (although I haven't found data from previous years for comparison's sake). A significant majority of respondents, for example, said they "trust American companies." Similarly, solid majorities are also fond of American films and TV programs, "how Americans do business," and even "American multinational companies" (in this last category Americans themselves score lower than many countries: Mexicans, Japanese, Brazilians, Polish, Russians, Malaysians, Chinese, and Indians are all bigger fans of multinationals).
(More inside.)
U.S. corporations also get high marks for tsunami disaster relief efforts. (Although it should be noted that many of these questions are pretty leading. Example: Coca-Cola has provided bottled drinking water, basic foodstuffs, among other things to tsunami victims. Has this improved your image of the Coca-Cola brand? Is it really a surprise that the response was positive in three-quarters of the countries surveyed?)
Perhaps most interesting of all is this chart, which plots corporate brands according to how "American" they are perceived to be, and how likely respondents who said they would boycott American products were to avoid certain brands. Marlboro cigarettes seems to be the worst-off, perceived as "extremely American" by about 65 percent, with 60 percent promising to avoid purchasing the brand. Kodak, Visa, Kleenex, and Gillette fare the best, scoring in the low teens in both categories.
For an analysis of the chart, see this Daniel Gross column on Slate:
In the end, however, some of the rankings defy rational inquiry. How is that Jack Daniels, with its u-r-American name, is considered less American than German-sounding Budweiser? And some of the other results make me think that the people polled are just dumb. Chrysler, which polls in the danger zone as very American and unlikable, is owned by a European company!
Global Market Insite's news page has links to discussion of the poll in other news outlets.
Other, non-business questions in the survey are also interesting: The United States gets fair overall ratings; the American people score pretty high; American values, fair; and U.S. foreign policy and President Bush, predictably abysmal.
See also this previous discussion of U.S. brands flying the flag cautiously abroad.
Posted 04:30 PM | Comments (0)
February 13, 2005
Gap in perceptions inside and outside America
It is wrong to think that anti-Americanism in the world is a new phenomenon. A new report from the Pew Global Attitudes Project cites from a Newsweek survey that even back in 1983 most people around the world worried that US global influence was expanding, and majorities in many countries said America's strong military presence actually increased the risk of war. Even in Pakistan, a US ally for decades, just 23% expressed a favorable opinion of the US in a State Department survey conducted in 1999 and 2000.
But anti-Americanism is deeper and broader now than at any time in modern history, it is claimed in the introduction to the report on the web. Anti-Americanism is most acute in the Muslim world, but it spans the globe — from Europe to Asia, from South America to Africa.
The terror attacks of September 11 had the potential to change the dynamic of anti-Americanism, according to the analysis in the report. Initially, there was a spontaneous outpouring of sympathy and support for the US, for example the famous headline in Le Monde: “We are all Americans.” Even in some parts of the Middle East, hostility toward the US appeared to soften a bit. But this reaction proved short-lived. Just a few months after the attacks, a Global Attitudes Project survey of opinion leaders around the world found that, especially outside Western Europe, there was a widespread sense that US policies were a major cause of the attacks. More than half (58%) of non-US opinion leaders thought so. Interestingly, only 18% from the US thought that US policies caused the attacks (see Table 1 Download file ). My interpretation of this survey is that there is a great divergence in perception of the consequences of US foreign policy inside and outside America.
Moreover, solid majorities in every region said that most people in their countries believed it was good for Americans to know what it feels like to be vulnerable. This question was not asked in the US, however.
In the summer and fall of 2002, the Pew Project’s first major survey of 38,000 people in 44 countries found that favorability ratings for the United States had eroded since 2000 in 19 of the 27 countries where trend benchmarks were available. The September attacks thus did not seem to have created a uniting world-wide effect.
Another interesting finding comes from the Pew Global Attitudes Survey from March 2004. This survey finds a huge gap in perceptions of American unilateralism. In the US, 70% think that the US considers other countries to a great deal or to a fair amount. In Great Britain only 36% think the same, in Germany 29%, and in France only 14% (see Table 2, Download file). This indicates, once again, the existence of a great gap in perceptions of the US inside and outside America.
Posted 02:18 PM | Comments (0)
February 06, 2005
Measuring Anti-Americanism in the World
In the process of tracking, understanding, and discussing anti-Americanism in this group blog, we can learn a lot from the comprehensive international survey conducted by BBC in the summer of 2003. The survey was carried out in 11 countries asking 11,000 people different questions about their views and opinions towards America to be used in the television program What The World Thinks of America. The countries included in the survey were the UK, France, Russia, Indonesia, South Korea, Jordan, Australia, Canada, Israel, Brazil and the US.
The results show that there is a huge difference in people’s attitudes towards America and towards George W. Bush (please click here to watch the graphs). This clearly indicates that the policies of the present US administration matters a great deal to the world, and might even contribute to the level of anti-Americanism. Therefore, I think we need to dig into the question of which policy issues turn people on - and off.
The survey shows that people from the 11 countries to a fair extent agree with US policies on the spread of HIV/AIDS, and to a lesser degree on the fight against terrorism. The world, on the other hand, disagrees with US policies on the issues of world poverty, global warming, nuclear proliferation, and especially on the Israeli/Palestinian question. The general skepticism regarding the latter might explain the very positive reaction, in at least the Danish media, to Bush’s state of the union announcement this Wednesday of a $350 million contribution to the Palestinian cause. The survey shows that all but the Americans are unsatisfied with the US policy towards Israel and Palestine, including Israel.
But how does the world perceive Americans? The respondents think that Americans can best be described as free, arrogant, united, and religious. But the picture here is not very clear. This point towards that identifying values and labels for a whole population is a complicated endeavor.
On the question of the big dangers in the world, an average of 46 percent think that America is more dangerous than Iran. Among the respondents 48 percent think that the superior military power of the US makes the world a more dangerous place, whereas only 12 percent of Americans think the same.
In sum, there seems to be a great divide in the world perception of the US, most often with the US on one side of the table and the rest of the world on the other. Not a very fortunate situation for the world’s greatest power. The world seems to be more frustrated with US policies than with Americans as such. This indicates that the roots of anti-Americanism aren’t to be found in American values, but rather in the actual conduct of US foreign policy regarding the global issues of poverty, environment, and conflict solving.
Posted 11:25 PM | Comments (0)