POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY SPECIAL ISSUE ANALYZES 9-11 IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. FOREIGN AND MILITARY POLICY

New York, N.Y. (9-3-02) – A year after Sept. 11, Americans see themselves as more vulnerable than at any other time in modern history, recognizing that while the U.S. military can successfully hunt terrorists overseas, it cannot protect civilians from surprise attacks at home, according to Barnard College Professor Demetrios James Caraley, a national security policy expert who analyzes the changed political landscape in a special book published by the prestigious journal, Political Science Quarterly.

"The greatest consequence of September 11 has been to instill a sense of fear and vulnerability into a population that had grown accustomed to ignoring routine issues of safety and national security," writes Caraley, the Janet Robb Professor of Social Sciences at Barnard who is the author most recently of "The New American Interventionism" (1999) He adds: "At a time when the United States enjoys unrivalled military superiority throughout the world, the U.S. population now sees itself as more vulnerable to injury or death from an attack than at any other time in modern history. Although the American military can still protect iself very robustly, it cannot shield the American civilian population from surprise terrorist attacks."

On the eve of the first anniversary of the attacks, Political Science Quarterly, the journal of the Academy of Political Science, which is edited by Caraley, published a special book devoted to the implications of Sept. 11 for U.S. foreign and military policy. A distinguished group of 11 scholars from the academy and intelligence and defense communities conclude that the United States remains vulnerable to large-scale terrorism and must be willing to engage its military forces on the ground to destroy terrorist cells while at the same time move urgently to strengthen its intelligence abroad, security at home and find ways to coopt or eradicate fundamentalist movements in the Arab world.

Carley will moderate a discussion among the authors, "September 11, Terrorist Attacks and U.S. Foreign Policy" on Sept. 11 from noon - 2:15 P.M. at the School of International and Public Affairs, 420 West 118th Street at Amsterdam Avenue. Barnard and Columbia students are invited. The book will be available for purchase at the roundtable discussion.

Caraley writes in a foreword that Americans, vulnerable in an open society, must accept the fact that terrorists will develop or steal biological, chemical and nuclear weapons or use blockbuster truck bombs at home or against its allies. "Because no shields exist to deploy against such weapons, about the only card the United States has to play is to harden the most lucrative targets and greatly strengthen intelligence efforts with the help of allies," Caraley writes.

Caraley warns that the American military role against terrorism cannot proceed on the assumption that casualties will be limited. "If the United States is seen as only willing to launch campaigns that it can win on the cheap as in Afghanistan, the terrorists will be emboldened to try larger attacks from sites that will be costly and difficult to track down," he warns.

Caraley also has misgivings about the conduct and direction of the war on terror and the Bush administration’s strategies, both against terrorism and in the Middle East. He notes that in toppling the weak Taliban regime, the United States failed to capture or kill Osama bin Laden or other high level al Qaeda leaders, leaving the terrorists to continue to plot more terror. He also questions the administration’s strategy against Iraq. "By capturing of the front pages and the talk shows with the subject of going to war against Iraq, Bush simultaneously thinned out the energy and brain power that could be devoted to the war against the terrorists but also covered up that the war in Afghanistan had not in fact be won, that al Qaeda and Taliban forces continued to ambush and attack small groups of American special forces, that American forces protect the president after a vice-president was assassinated in Kabul. Furthermore, Saddam Hussein lives and will continue to be found in Baghdad whereas bin Ladin and his al Qaeda could be dispersed all over the world.

In addition to Professor Caraley, who is also a faculty member at Columbia University, and Professor Alexander A. Cooley, also of Barnard College, contributors to the Quarterly’s post-Sept. 11 books include Professors Richard K. Betts and Robert Jervis of Columbia; Professor Walter LaFeber of Cornell; Professors Victor D. Cha and Daniel Brumberg of Georgetown; Professor Michael Doran of Princeton; Professor Ruth Wedgwood of Yale; Richard I. Russell of the National Defense University and Daniel Byman of the RAND Center for Middle East Public Policy. The Quarterly is the most widely read scholarly journal on government, politics, and policy for both specialists and general readers.

More information about the book is available on the Academy’s website: http://www.psqonline.org

Other key points include:

• The United States must take all constitutional measures to reduce the probability of further attacks while Americans must realize that despite what the government does, more people likely will become victims.
  
• The pressing issue for the West is to find new means to either coopt or eradicate fundamentalist movements, especially in countries of immense geostrategic importance such as Egypt, Pakistan, and most important of all, Saudi Arabia.
  
• While fundamentalist movements are reactions against the West and particularly, U.S. policy, they are separately nourished by some states and state policies among America’s Arab allies, who try to divert social and economic dissatisfaction among their people toward a religious war of Islam against the West.
  
• While there is no systematic link between terrorism and poverty, the link between economic deprivation and the growth of fundamentalist movements is strong in Arab counties, where these groups provide services and functions that the state can no longer afford
  
• The United States cannot act unilaterally to combat terrorism and must cooperate and share intelligence with international counterparts.
  
• The attacks, by renewing centralization of power in the federal government, have reversed the trend since the Reagan administration to move resources and responsibilities away from the federal government and toward the states.
  
• New legislation to conduct surveillance and detain immigrants, if not carefully done, poses a danger to our democratic rights and liberties.

The Academy of Political Science, based in New York, is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization founded in 1880 to contribute to the scholarly examination of political institutions, processes and public policies; to enrich political discourse and channel the best social science research in an understandable way to political leaders for use in public policy making and the process of governing; and to educate members of the general public so that they become informed voters in the democratic process. Published continuously since 1886, Political Science Quarterly, the Academy’s journal, is dedicated to objective analysis based on evidence.