The evolution of terror
The Charsadda attack signifies that terrorism isn’t just the New Normal in Pakistan
The writer is editorial consultant at The Express Tribune, news junkie, bibliophile, cat lover and occasional cyclist
As these words are written yet another attack on a large educational institution in Pakistan is under way. Terrorists have got inside the Bacha Khan University at Charsadda, about 40km from Peshawar. Explosions have been reported. So has sustained gunfire. The TV channels are giving blanket coverage but offering few insights and the casualty figures fluctuate between a low of 15 and a high of 70 depending on where you switch channel-wise.
As the tragedy unfolds so will the anguished analysis, the questioning as to how this could happen again after the Army Public School attack of 13 months ago. Who is to blame? Why do they do this to our children/women/teachers? There will be condemnation at the highest level, promises of enquiries, visits to express condolences and then, as ever, it will be back to business as usual. Until the next time — because this really is the New Normal.
It is not just the New Normal in Pakistan, it is not-so-newly normal in Jakarta, in Paris, in Ankara, Madrid, small-town America, sub-Saharan Africa and virtually anywhere else on the globe (South America excepted but it is only a matter of time) you will find that warfare has evolved. It is smaller, can come in penny-packets, have low casualty rates coupled with high impact, cheaper to wage, both more and less sophisticated at the same time and everywhere transcends the traditional boundaries of state.
Wars are rarely between nations in the 21st century. The massive bloody contests of the 20th century are very much of the past and unlikely, though not impossible, to ever happen in the same way again. Likewise nuclear war. Humankind got close to wiping itself out in the ’50s and ’60s of the last century but drew back. Vietnam was probably the last gasp of what may be termed conventional warfare, and even that lay on the cusp of conflict development.
Today war is much more diffuse and it is called terrorism. Terrorism is not the junior partner in terms of conflict; it is now the dominant partner. Something close to conventional warfare is in train in Syria, but even that is made up of a series of interlinked actions by groups that are described as terrorists by all of the combatants whether they are or not.
This is a type of warfare for which conventional armies are poorly trained and equipped. Armies tend to be large and cumbersome entities that are deployed relatively slowly and only after much political debate. The armies of terror are lithe, slim, flexible and can be deployed within minutes of a decision being taken, in some cases, hours or days at most. They may be made up of a few dozens or less as in the recent shooting in America that saw just two active killers (their support mechanisms still unclear) or half a dozen as in Jakarta. The effect of their actions is wholly disproportionate to the numbers that carry out these attacks — which do not need to be successful in terms of mass casualties and usually end with all the attackers dead or in custody.
Their success lies in the sense of fear they imbue within the host populations, a fear that is compounded by the knowledge that the armies of terror hide in plain sight. They live among the populations they seek to slaughter. They have sympathisers everywhere, fellow travellers and funders, providers of safe houses and purveyors of guns the better to do the deed.
None of the wars currently being fought are likely to be ended with a formal ceasefire followed by a peace treaty, and some of them have the capacity to endure for centuries if not millennia. War is going to be an enduring feature of the lives of everybody reading this column, and all of us potentially are casualties — wrong place, wrong time — with spike-points like Bacha Khan along the way. It may be that methods of counter-terror will themselves evolve and there are some forces that have become better at it, but the trick that nobody has yet perfected is the crafting of the countervailing narrative, and until it is the terrorist has us all by the throat.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 21st, 2016.
As the tragedy unfolds so will the anguished analysis, the questioning as to how this could happen again after the Army Public School attack of 13 months ago. Who is to blame? Why do they do this to our children/women/teachers? There will be condemnation at the highest level, promises of enquiries, visits to express condolences and then, as ever, it will be back to business as usual. Until the next time — because this really is the New Normal.
It is not just the New Normal in Pakistan, it is not-so-newly normal in Jakarta, in Paris, in Ankara, Madrid, small-town America, sub-Saharan Africa and virtually anywhere else on the globe (South America excepted but it is only a matter of time) you will find that warfare has evolved. It is smaller, can come in penny-packets, have low casualty rates coupled with high impact, cheaper to wage, both more and less sophisticated at the same time and everywhere transcends the traditional boundaries of state.
Wars are rarely between nations in the 21st century. The massive bloody contests of the 20th century are very much of the past and unlikely, though not impossible, to ever happen in the same way again. Likewise nuclear war. Humankind got close to wiping itself out in the ’50s and ’60s of the last century but drew back. Vietnam was probably the last gasp of what may be termed conventional warfare, and even that lay on the cusp of conflict development.
Today war is much more diffuse and it is called terrorism. Terrorism is not the junior partner in terms of conflict; it is now the dominant partner. Something close to conventional warfare is in train in Syria, but even that is made up of a series of interlinked actions by groups that are described as terrorists by all of the combatants whether they are or not.
This is a type of warfare for which conventional armies are poorly trained and equipped. Armies tend to be large and cumbersome entities that are deployed relatively slowly and only after much political debate. The armies of terror are lithe, slim, flexible and can be deployed within minutes of a decision being taken, in some cases, hours or days at most. They may be made up of a few dozens or less as in the recent shooting in America that saw just two active killers (their support mechanisms still unclear) or half a dozen as in Jakarta. The effect of their actions is wholly disproportionate to the numbers that carry out these attacks — which do not need to be successful in terms of mass casualties and usually end with all the attackers dead or in custody.
Their success lies in the sense of fear they imbue within the host populations, a fear that is compounded by the knowledge that the armies of terror hide in plain sight. They live among the populations they seek to slaughter. They have sympathisers everywhere, fellow travellers and funders, providers of safe houses and purveyors of guns the better to do the deed.
None of the wars currently being fought are likely to be ended with a formal ceasefire followed by a peace treaty, and some of them have the capacity to endure for centuries if not millennia. War is going to be an enduring feature of the lives of everybody reading this column, and all of us potentially are casualties — wrong place, wrong time — with spike-points like Bacha Khan along the way. It may be that methods of counter-terror will themselves evolve and there are some forces that have become better at it, but the trick that nobody has yet perfected is the crafting of the countervailing narrative, and until it is the terrorist has us all by the throat.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 21st, 2016.