“Unlimited, I repeat, unlimited solidarity.”117 Gerhard Schroeder, September 2001
Just as other forms of capability aggregation, sponsorship is expected to trigger counterbalancing measures on the side of their adversaries. First, it could cause counter alliances to emerge: Irani- an and U.S. cooperation against the Taliban regime, for instance, was largely unexpected prior to the 9/11 attacks and Iraq’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood intended to pressure Syria into realignment in the Iran-Iraq War, but pushed it even closer towards Iran.118 In a broader sense, sponsors risk to be excluded from the community of shared values and face regional or interna- tional isolation as well as economic and political pressure and sanctions.119
Regarding increased armament by their adversaries as a second unintended consequence of alignment, the negative effects of sponsorship might vary: In most countries, counterterrorism measures are implemented by members of security services, police officers, and judges. Thus, in- creased spending on policing and intelligence should rather be the case than conventional or even offensive weapons.West Germany, for instance, increased its total spending for domestic security between 1969 and 1975 from approx. DEM3 to DEM6 billion in reaction to the Red Army Fac- tion’s bombings and other attacks on government officials and public institutions.120 Military ex-
penditure, by contrast, remained relatively stable, increasing from DM8.7 billion in 1969 to DM11.4 billion six years later.121
116 Fuad Jabber, "The Arab Regimes and the Palestinian Revolution, 1967-71," Journal of Palestine Studies 2, no. 2
(1973): 82; David Hirst, "King Who Rules From the Heart," The Guardian 1993.
117 Gerhard Schroeder. "Statement by Chancellor Schroeder to the German Bundestag on the Terrorist Acts Carried
out in the United States." Plenarprotokoll 14/186 (2001). Published electronically September 12. http://bit.ly/1fyVP6o. Accessed January 31, 2014.
118Martin Stäheli, Die syrische Aussenpolitik unter Präsident Hafez Assad. Balanceakte im globalen Umbruch (Stuttgart: Steiner,
2001). 193f; Fadil Rasoul, Irak - Iran: Ursachen und Dimensionen eines Konflikts (Wien: Böhlau, 1987). 103.
119 Byman, Deadly Connections: 278-284; Joseph H. Campos, The state and terrorism: national security and the mobilization of
power (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007). 13; George W. Bush. "Presidential Address to the Nation." (2001). Published
electronically October 7. http://bbc.in/1fmp6yK. Accessed January 31, 2014.
120 Wolfgang Hoffmann, "Terror treibt die Kosten. Warum Anarchisten die besten Lobbyisten von Polizei und Justiz
sind," DIE ZEIT, May 2 1975.
121 U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, World military expenditures and arms transfers, 1968-1977 (Washington,
Sponsorship as a functional equivalent to interstate alliances
66
However, this effect is completely reversed if the targeted state perceives terrorist attacks as a threat that can at least be reduced by military force.122 Counterterrorism/-insurgency policies that
include air or even drone strikes against training camps and the long-term deployment of troops in potential areas of retreat lead to growing military spending that not only increases the overall military power of the targeted country but also its offensive capabilities. Turkey, for instance, shifted its strategy towards the PKK dramatically in 1993, redeploying mass contingents of troops and sophisticated weaponry from the Greek-Turkish border area to the southeast, the immediate neighborhood of Syria, the PKK’s most crucial external supporter at that time.123 As such an un-
derstanding of fighting a war on terror paves the way for a predominantly military strategy it is likely to increase if a link between the terrorist challenge and an international backer has been successfully established.
“There will be no sanctuary for terrorists. We will defend our people, our interests and our values.”124
William H. Clinton, August 1998
In some cases, counterbalancing can also take the form of interstate escalation, boosting the sponsor’s commitment costs substantially.
The risk of interstate escalation is even higher if the group’s confidence, enhanced by the state’s backing, causes it to act heedless and aggressively towards the adversary. In September 1970, rad- ical PLO factions backed by Syria stepped up their campaign against the Jordanian king, includ- ing an assassination attempt and the coordinated hijacking and destruction of international pas- senger planes in Jordan. In order to protect PLO forces from the wrath of King Hussein in ensu- ing clashes, Syria intervened militarily and suffered heavy losses to its ground forces. In addition, a regional war including Israel could be averted in the very last minute.125
Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon in 1982, the U.S. bombing of Libya in 1986, and the U.S. missile strikes against Sudan and Afghanistan in 1998 show that states targeted by terrorist at- tacks have more than once decided to escalate latent conflicts with states they suspect to actively assist the perpetrators.126 Sponsors run the risk of sacrificing vast resources, including the lives of
122 I would like to thank my colleague Philip Lorenz for bringing this thought up.
123 U.S. Department of State, "Patterns of Global Terrorism 2001". 52f; Lawson, Why Syria goes to war: 130.
124 William J. Clinton, "Address to the nation on military action against terrorist sites in Afghanistan and Sudan,
August 20, 1998," in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, William J. Clinton III (1998, Book II) (Washington DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1998), 1462.
125 Richard A. Mobley, "U.S. Joint Military Contributions to Countering Syria’s 1970 Invasion of Jordan," Joint Forces
Quarterly, no. 55 (2009): 163-166.
126 Regarding the risk of sanctions, it is worth noting that nearly all of these retaliatory strikes occurred in reference to
Realism and state sponsorship of terrorism
their citizens, even if the targeted population tends to see military strikes against them as dispro- portionate because the fatalities generally exceed the number of victims of the terrorist attack.127
Nevertheless, several studies on the rally-‘round-the-flag effect have stressed that foreign policy lati- tude of the state is generally higher in the context of an immediate security threat in general and recent terrorist attacks in particular.128 The events after 9/11 showed, how the disclosure of a de-
liberate backer could help governments to rally domestic as well as international support for a military campaign and for turning “anger to resolution.”129 In January 2002, more than 89 per-
cent of the U.S. population supported the attack on Afghanistan and amid a major PKK offen- sive in the second half of the 1990s, a majority of the Turkish population approved of military co- ercion to pressure Damascus into ending its support for the group.130 In a similar vein, only after
PKK operations launched from northern Iraq killed 13 Turkish soldiers within one week in early October 2007, the parliament granted the government the right for trans-border operations for the first time since 1974.131
As alliances, sponsorship puts certain constraints on the backer’s freedom of action and policy options both in the domestic and the international arena. In the context of path dependency, this is especially the case if the regime has linked support to its legitimacy and self-image. In Pakistan, for instance, governmental assistance for Muslim rebels operating in India’s disputed Kashmir province became not only an instrument to bolster domestic legitimacy, but also to mobilize reli- gious sentiment behind the political leadership. Despite high international pressure in the context of the war on terror, then-president Musharraf referred to these domestic constraints as crucial during his address to the nation on January 13, 2002, declaring, “No Pakistani can afford to sever links with Kashmir. We will continue to extend our moral, political and diplomatic support for Kashmiris.”132 Furthermore, this domestically generated ‘obligation to commit’ limited the gov-
ernment’s freedom of action regarding any substantial concessions granted to India, least of all a rapprochement or realignment.
Approaching Snyder’s final feature of alliance costs, governments might weaken their own do- mestic position through sponsorship. Such costs occur if the government violates international or
127 Byman, Deadly Connections: 287.
128 Yitzhak Nakash, Reaching for power: the Shiʻa in the modern Arab world (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
2006).
129 Bush, "Presidential Address to the Nation". See also Yitzhak Nakash, The Shiʻis of Iraq, 2 ed. (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 2003).
130 Frank Newport, "Taking the War Beyond Afghanistan: Americans Generally Support Military Action in Iran, Iraq,
and the Philippines," The Gallup Organization February 4(2002); Mahmut Bali Aykan, "The Turkish-Syrian Crisis of October 1998: A Turkish View," Middle East Policy 6, no. 4 (1999): 48.
131 Funda Keskin, "Turkey's Trans-Border Operations in Northern Iraq: Before and After the Invasion of Iraq," Research
Journal of International Studies 8, no. November (2008): 70; Jürgen Gottschlich. "What Turkey Wants From Iraq - and
the US." Der Spiegel (2007). Published electronically October 18. http://bit.ly/1nEiUs7. Accessed January 31, 2014.
132 Byman, Deadly Connections: 175-177; International Crisis Group. "Kashmir: The View from Islamabad." Asia
Sponsorship as a functional equivalent to interstate alliances
68
even national law by supporting a group designated as terrorist organizations. Although im- peachment proceedings against U.S. President Reagan for breaching the 1982 Boland Amend- ment, outlawing the Contras in Nicaragua as well as their external backing, did not exceed several hearings and the appointment of a special persecutor, his popularity dropped significantly in the aftermath of the Iran-Contra affair.133 Furthermore, support can also cause domestic costs if assis-
tance to the group is not contrary to national law, but if there is substantial dissent about whether the alignment serves the national interest. At times, Iran’s high and vocal commitment to the vio- lent Palestinian struggle against Israel sparked substantial protests among the youth and public figures. Corresponding demands regarding Hizballah reoccurred in the course of the 2005 earth- quakes, as residents complained that the government “would be quicker in sending support if the earthquake had been in Gaza or southern Lebanon,” as well as in the course of the 2006 Israeli- Hizballah War.134
Putting these observations in perspective, numerous parallels to the costs and benefits of inter- state alliances examined in chapter 2.3.3 can be maintained. As it requires limited state resources and offers strong incentives for both sides to keep commitments generally opaque, sponsorship also strongly resembles the policy of external rebel support as a means to balance an external threat often preferred by domestically vulnerable states.135 Furthermore, this policy is in a much
stronger sense related to interstate conflict and increases both the risk of counterbalancing and the escalation of latent conflicts.
The calculations regarding the domestic arena present us with a likewise mixed pattern as both in the international realm as well as in the context of interstate alliances: On the one hand, sponsor- ship is a policy understood as “evil” in a nearly universal sense, given the negative connotation of the terrorist act (see 1.4.1). Hence, state sponsors not only breach international but also national law and risk domestic reputation losses. As there is no consensus on the question of who is a ter- rorist, on the other, governments can boost their legitimacy by supporting freedom fighters if key groups in society share their notion of who is not a terrorist. Nevertheless, a state’s deliberate ex- posure to counterbalancing is likely to threaten this consensus and to trigger societal rejection of the concessions that come along with sponsorship. Table 4 concludes these findings as follows.
133 Frank Newport et al. "Ronald Reagan From the People’s Perspective: A Gallup Poll Review." Gallup News Service
(2004). Published electronically June 7. http://bit.ly/1eqMT2J. Accessed January 31, 2014; "Articles of Impeachment introduced, but given no chance of passage," Associated Press, March 5 1987.
134 Michael Slackman. "Turmoil in the Middle East: Tehran; In the Streets, Aid to Hezbollah Stirs Iranian Fear and
Resentment." New York Times (2006): 6. Published electronically July 23. http://nyti.ms/1brHyJD. Accessed January 31, 2014; Karim Sadjadpour, "How Relevant is the Iranian Street?," The Washington Quarterly 30, no. 1 (2007): 79, 154.
135 Maoz and San-Akca, "Rivalry and State Support."; Cunningham et al., "Explaining External Support."; David,
Realism and state sponsorship of terrorism
Table 4: State sponsorship of terrorism: Expected costs and benefits
Benefits Costs
EXTERNAL SECURITY
ENVIRONMENT
− Enables states to weaken/reap
concessions from adversaries
while conserving power resources − Creates “proximity by proxy,”
thereby increasing offensive capa- bilities of the sponsor
− (Open) alignment can deter an adversary from conventionally at- tacking by issuing credible threats of ensuing terrorist campaigns
− Triggers external counterbalanc- ing (sanctions, reputational loss, military action, counteralliances) − Triggers internal counterbalanc- ing and increases offensive mili- tary capabilities of the target − (Open) alignment can increase
the targeted state’s resolve and popular support for retaliation
DOMESTIC SECURITY
ENVIRONMENT
− Increases the state’s domestic power resources to repress (para- military force)
− Increases the state’s domestic power resources to co-opt by in- voking transnational solidarity
− Increases domestic polarization if there is no legal or societal consensus about support
− Path-dependency limits options for realignment as betrayal of the transnational cause
EXTERNAL/DOMESTIC
SECURITY ENVIRON- MENT
− Allows for increased influ-
ence/control over a larger insur- gency movement
− High risk of entrapment into the intrastate conflict