New Terrorism, Risk Management, and the Post-9/11 World

Introduction: Defining New Terrorism

In the aftermath of the carnage created by terrorists on September 11, 2001—in which 2,977 people were killed at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and aboard hijacked commercial jetliners—the United States government initiated a "war on terror." That war has yet to be won, and may never be won, because terrorists have found new ways of launching attacks. Where there was once only Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda to contend with, there are now numerous jihadist offshoots such as ISIS and Boko Haram, among others. Some observers call this current era "new terrorism," and in general, when a previously unknown terror group makes its bloody mark on innocent people, those actions could also fall under that label. This paper examines the concept of new terrorism, the realities created by the terrorism witnessed in today's news, and the urgent problems terrorists create with respect to risk management.

The New Terrorism Debate: Neumann, Crenshaw, and Tucker

Author Peter R. Neumann has written a book, Old and New Terrorism, in which he points to the differences between "old" and "new" terrorism. Neumann explains that during the late 1990s, when people talked about "new terrorism," they were often alluding to "a catch-all for everything that seemed novel or unusual," which only led to "widespread confusion" (Neumann, 2009, p. 14). What Neumann means when he uses the phrase "new terrorism" is a form of terrorist organization that does not necessarily have a hierarchy but instead operates within networks. In other words, in new terrorism, "There is no single central leader or commander; the network as a whole has little or no hierarchy" (Neumann, 2009, p. 16).

Moreover, Neumann notes that there are often no "firm rules on how operations are initiated and authorized," because decisions to carry out attacks can be made by individual members of the network (Neumann, 2009, p. 16). In an article published on the Social Europe website, Neumann also mentions that the "pre-eminent historian of terrorism," Walter Laqueur, had predicted a dramatic change in the structure of terrorist organizations two years before the September 11 attacks (Neumann, 2009, p. 1). Laqueur made some outrageous predictions about new terrorism—that terrorists would seek to build "earthquake machines" and launch "artificial meteors with which to bombard the earth"—but in general Neumann believes that Laqueur was one of the first scholars to get a handle on the phenomenon (Neumann, 2009, p. 1).

Martha Crenshaw, with the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, writes that many of those who argue for a "new" terrorism believe that "old paradigms should be discarded entirely and replaced with a new understanding" (Crenshaw, 2007, p. 2). She is careful to explain that a great deal of confusion surrounds just what new terrorism means and how it compares with the old.

Crenshaw argues that new terrorism gained momentum with the sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway in 1995 and Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. The perpetrators of those attacks were not linked to any organized terror group, giving rise to the belief that a new paradigm had emerged (Crenshaw, 2007, p. 4). Fears about the use of unconventional weapons further strengthened this belief—for example, after the September 11 attacks, anthrax-laced letters were mailed across the United States, causing widespread fear and paranoia.

Ultimately, Crenshaw concludes that the "departure from the past" in contemporary terrorism is simply not as pronounced as new terrorism proponents claim (p. 5). The violence perpetrated by today's terrorists is not "a fundamentally or qualitatively 'new' phenomenon" (Crenshaw, 2007, p. 5). In fact, contemporary terrorism shares many characteristics with terrorism dating back to the nineteenth century, including the use of political violence by "groups of Russian revolutionaries, European and American anarchists, and Irish nationalists" (Crenshaw, 2007, p. 5).

Crenshaw also notes that Laqueur believes the "new" and the "old" coexist; Laqueur describes "new" terrorists as religious fanatics who suffer from "delusion and persecution mania" (Crenshaw, 2007, p. 9). Her deeper concern is that misunderstanding what is truly "new" in terrorism could lead to "mistakes of prediction and of policy," sending security professionals on unproductive pursuits (Crenshaw, 2007, p. 31).

A compelling example Crenshaw uses is the September 11 hijackings. Many observers had considered aircraft hijackings an "outmoded tactic," and because governments had installed screening technologies at airports, many security experts assumed al-Qaeda would not use that method again. They were profoundly wrong. Crenshaw's point is that society must expect old methods of terror to be combined with new ones, and that "a strictly 'new terrorism' viewpoint is bound to overestimate the effect of religious beliefs as a cause of terrorism and as a cause of lethality" (Crenshaw, 2007, p. 32). In the end, she insists it cannot be honestly asserted that there are two wholly distinct types of terrorism, because much of what terrorists do involves more similarities than differences in lethal tactics.

David Tucker, writing in a Naval Postgraduate School publication, describes new terrorism as functioning through "autonomous, dispersed entities" linked by communications from leadership but sharing a "common purpose" (Tucker, 2001, p. 1). Because new terrorism allows network-style cells within a larger organization to act without a "pyramid of authority," those cells are motivated by the "flexible, adaptive and resilient" nature of their decentralized authority to strike and kill (Tucker, 2001, p. 1). Tucker also explains that the "communication revolution" has provided opportunities for new terrorism jihadists to "get their message to a worldwide audience" and to act as ad hoc groups while recruiting new followers to their cause (Tucker, 2001, p. 2).

Terrorists and the Communication Revolution: The Case of ISIS

"ISIS has utilized a brilliant social media strategy to recruit fighters and increase their international recognition" (Pape, 2015).

A prime example of terrorists exploiting the digital revolution to recruit followers and coordinate operations is the Islamic State (ISIS). The terrifying violence that this jihadist group has unleashed in Iraq and Syria places it at the top of the list of terror groups the Western world must contend with. At the same time, its online videos attract new fighters from around the world. In many instances, ISIS enters a town, separates men from women, marches the men off to be slaughtered by beheadings or at gunpoint, and keeps the women as sexual slaves.

ISIS demonstrates impressive sophistication with digital media; it records its horrific acts of cruelty and its "unfathomable brutality," according to Terrance McCoy writing in the Washington Post (McCoy, 2014, p. 1). Those videos circulate on computers worldwide, and ISIS has become the most feared group in the Middle East. Ironically, its acts of terror—"beheadings to summary executions to amputations to crucifixions"—help it recruit fighters from across the globe, McCoy explains.

Beyond posting brutal videos online, ISIS has perfected the use of social media platforms such as Twitter and employed "end-to-end encryption" (Ackerman, 2015, p. 1). As Ackerman describes, ISIS uses messaging services to send information in a way that prevents the platform itself from accessing the decryption keys "of those who receive it" (Ackerman, 2015, p. 1). Recipients reading these encrypted messages on a computer or smartphone sometimes receive exhortations to "kill, kill, kill, kill" (Ackerman, 2015, p. 1).

FBI Director James Comey, testifying before the U.S. Congress, stated that he wanted a debate about how U.S. technology could insert "back doors" or "front doors" into encryption software so that American intelligence services could thwart this recruitment method (Ackerman, 2015, p. 1). However, security experts have offered compelling reasons why such "back door" software would be counterproductive: it would "leave the door ajar for hackers, criminals, foreign intelligence services to gain access to enormous treasure troves of data" (Ackerman, 2015, p. 2).

Is ISIS an example of new terrorism? According to Tim Lister, writing for CNN, military commanders have been impressed by ISIS's tactical flexibility. ISIS has experienced regional commanders who have fought in Chechnya and Afghanistan and with Saddam Hussein's army. As Turkish analyst Metin Gurcan observed, ISIS has a "fluid and decentralized command and control structure," which places it squarely in the category of new terrorism. ISIS is also said to be "one of the most disciplined players on the battlefield" (Lister, 2015, p. 4). Notwithstanding hundreds of airstrikes on its military infrastructure, ISIS continued to function as a "rudimentary government" in cities it captured in Iraq (Lister, 2015, p. 5), making it a formidable adversary for the United States and its partners in the region.

One potential vulnerability in ISIS's war strategy is its compulsion to attack even when the situation is tactically futile. Michael Knights, an expert on the Middle East, notes that ISIS suffers from "chronic tactical restlessness—an almost pathological need to take the initiative and attack the enemy, even when success was highly unlikely" (Lister, 2015, p. 6).

Terrorism and Risk Management: Concepts and Challenges

What is risk management? Risk management is defined as the ongoing process to "identify, analyze, evaluate, and treat loss exposures and monitor risk control and financial resources to mitigate the adverse effects of loss." There are methods that can make events more predictable, and when an event is somewhat predictable, there is "less risk" because the negative event can perhaps be prevented or at least mitigated. The best approach to risk management is the "avoidance of activities which cause loss," or at least a reduction of the likelihood that losses will occur. However, when it comes to terrorism—whether new or old—avoiding attacks in order to lessen risk is rarely possible.

Author Etti Baranoff writes in the Journal of Insurance Regulation that risk management has always been an "underlying concern" for businesses, corporations, governments, and individuals (Baranoff, 2004, p. 71). But after September 11 and the "insurance cataclysm" caused by those terrorist attacks, the longstanding debate about the "ideal focus" of insurance regulation was sharply rekindled. Given the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the anthrax scare that followed, new fears came into focus—including chemical, radiological, and biological threats—and corporate executives began looking toward enterprise risk management (ERM) solutions (Baranoff, 2004, p. 75). In other words, businesses were forced to confront the question of how to mitigate risks that are unforeseen yet entirely plausible.

Americans developed a wide range of concerns after September 11. A survey conducted by National Underwriter ranked those concerns as follows: (a) long-term financial security; (b) remaining employed; and (c) physical safety and security (Baranoff, 2004, p. 77). The survey also revealed worries about outliving one's savings or dying prematurely, losing health insurance, and being harmed by terrorism. Prior to 9/11, catastrophic risk models used by insurance companies focused primarily on property and industry losses—not life and health. That changed after the attacks. In response, the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) was signed into law in 2002, moving the industry toward a more "holistic" approach to regulating how insurance—as an instrument of risk management—can benefit everyone (Baranoff, 2004, p. 77).

Conclusion

This paper has examined "new" terrorism and "old" terrorism, carefully presenting various scholarly opinions on their differences and similarities. It has also addressed risk management as it applies to terrorism—from the theoretical to the practical, including insurance law, public risk perception across different countries, and the clinical framework for understanding risk.

One conclusion is clear: when assessing the risk to citizens posed by terrorism, leaders and governments might productively approach risk management from a speculative angle. Although a terrorist attack may occur and losses will follow, a country that is adequately prepared can minimize those losses—and that minimization is itself a form of gain. With pure risk, by contrast, taking no preventative action forecloses any possibility of gain and leaves only losses. The imperative, therefore, is preparation, coordination, and an honest reckoning with both new and old forms of terrorism.