Traditional Principles of Just War Guide States

¶ … traditional principles of just war guide states in fighting terrorism, or do new rules have to apply?

War has been waged much in the same manner, barring technological advances, for centuries. Wars are fought between sovereign nation states and the regimes that control them or against civil challenges to sovereign nation states from within, and yet the current so called war on terror is very obviously a different animal all together than any previous war. Yet, like so many other national and international challenges there is a reluctance to change.

The questionable link that the Bush administration established between its war on terror and its military intervention in Iraq, as well as its apparent willingness to suspend fundamental rights if the 'war' requires it (exemplified by its practices in Guantanamo Bay and its exhortations to extradite terror suspects across Europe), have contributed much to the striking fact that many citizens in Europe now regard the U.S. As the greatest threat to global security. (Monar, 2007, p. 267)

Reformulating and restructuring responses to threats to peace and prosperity is a slow and arduous process. The process of change requires thought but more importantly action that reflects the reality of the threat. The reluctance to change is reflected in the policies and practices of both the U.S. military and domestic security agencies and the policies that govern and control them. Everything from security and military policies to adjudication processes need to be addressed and altered to respond to real global threats to security that are brought about by terrorism from within and without. (We Need a Terror Court, 2010) (Richard H. Fallon, 2010)

Arquilla brings up a salient point when he challenges current policy by reiterating forgotten lessons of the past with regard to the multivariate of threats that terror organizations can bring.

While history provides some useful examples to stimulate strategic thought about such problems, coping with networks that can fight in so many different ways -- sparking myriad, hybrid forms of conflict -- is going to require some innovative thinking to go along with more traditional introspection about the relevant lessons of history. (Arquilla, 2007, p. 369)

The work highlights several historical, but largely forgotten examples of how administrations and policies have been altered to respond to the kinds of security threats that are produced by terrorist organizations. Arquilla stresses that some of the most effective responses to terrorist organizations have been psychological schemas rather than direct actions of conflict. This would seem logical in the current climate of terrorism as the information age dawns a new era of change. Making the enemy think it has been infiltrated or betrayed would likely destabilize it enough to create fissures and ultimately mistakes in the development of plots and plans. (Arquilla, 2007, pp. 383-384)

Though direct military response seems to be the most obvious tactic taken by the U.S. And some other nations with regard to terrorist threats, nations are obviously spreading themselves very thin across the world to provide a strong direct response to terrorist organizations, which often prove very elusive. Michta points out that to maintain the current tactic of addressing terrorist threats with direct action all over the world and responding to current increases in security the U.S. would have to double its already stretched military. (Michta, 2008) The EU, even in its relative infancy provides an example of a divergent tactic, at least in theory, The EU in contrast to the U.S. "War on Terror" is to develop a multivariate and multi-agency law enforcement tactic which if appropriately developed responds to the threat not as direct national and international action but by stressing that each and every local, national and international law enforcement agency is responsible in some way for regional control and security. (Monar, 2007)

This practical approach to terrorist threats, as in need of multiple intelligences, practical legal, policy and other alterations as well as an overall alteration in the manner in which war and terrorist threats are viewed seems to be a belated national response by the U.S.U.S. public as well as those in power have become increasingly aware that the association of traditional war to the current "war on terror" is not only a faulty set of concepts but one that has caused hundreds of thousands of senseless deaths as well as significant loss of face on the international scale. In other words the biggest threat we may see as a response to terrorism is our own faulty response to it. (Monar, 2007) (Arquilla, 2007)