Dialogue: Issues breeding terrorism demand durable answers

The terrorist attacks on America should inspire a revitalised international order dedicated to peace and fairness, writes TERENCE O'BRIEN*.

It is understandable, but not entirely correct, to define the unspeakable acts of terrorism in New York and Washington mainly as an attack upon humanity and Western values. At the bottom line, they were calculated aggression against the United States.

The experience is a blow to American self-esteem and sense of impregnability. Other countries, New Zealand included, possess deep interest in the recovery of American poise and optimism. But that is not to suggest a return to the ways of the world before September 11.

The immediate issue is swift justice for the proven perpetrators. But beyond that, what else?

Will circumstances prompt a realisation that to prevail in the longer-run over terrorism and its related afflictions - transnational crime, drugs, money laundering, weapons proliferation, dire poverty, people smuggling, pornography, cyber threats and, above all, the just and sustainable stewardship of the planet - a genuine collective return to first principles of global cooperation is required?

A revitalised, properly resourced international system, equipped to handle equitably the challenges of the 21st century, has now become vital.

That is a determinedly optimistic belief in the collective ability to draw the right conclusions. The alternative is an infatuation with victory over terrorism which, President Bush says will involve an unrelenting multi-dimensional war, and potentially, a case of meeting inhumanity with yet more inhumanity, in cases where military attacks are judged essential by the US against Governments acting as hosts. This, in addition to Afghanistan, could implicate Sudan, Yemen, Iran and others.

There is an obvious danger that this could degenerate into a clash of civilisations. As it is, it risks becoming an all-consuming preoccupation at the expense of other vital parts of the international relations agenda, progress at talks involving the World Trade Organisation, Apec, disarmament and climate change.

The world owes the US a considerable debt for the vitality and imagination that fashioned a progressive world order in the 20th century. But now it seems it has grown disenchanted with its own creation, whose rules and codes for international behaviour are judged to constrain US freedom of action in areas of international concern, such as the environment, arms control, justice, human rights, and space.

Yet, as Henry Kissinger has said, the US can neither withdraw from nor control the world. For that reason, a return to first principles of cooperative international behaviour in the wake of September 11, with a properly resourced and supported multilateral system, becomes a case of Hobson's choice for the US, and everyone else.

To fashion a durable response to terrorism requires that both the symptoms and the causes be understood. That is the conclusion the Americans themselves drew in the context of their perceptive leadership of the Northern Ireland peace process under Senator Mitchell.

But to address the causes behind September 11 requires courageous self-examination and a willingness, if necessary, to modify policy. In the immediate aftermath it is hardly surprising that little attention is devoted to explanations behind the event.

But the US Government, if it is to be true to American values, will need at some point to begin such courageous reflection and act accordingly. As, indeed, will those allies, and close friends like New Zealand, each in their own way.

There are two dimensions to an examination of causes. First, there is the global dimension and the way we manage this world, where there is now a growing sense that the interests of unaccountable great power are privileged absolutely. For example, the ceaseless search by the US, the most powerful military nation in history, for yet greater power, as shown by its proposed space weapons programme.

The same sense drives tumult in the streets of Seattle, Genoa, Gothenburg and a host of other cities wherever policymakers gather to negotiate greater economic liberalisation according to agendas inspired by powerful Governments (not just the US) and by free-wheeling enterprise.

New Zealand itself constantly encounters the impropriety of a liberalised trading system that deliberately excludes key sectors, where powerful states insist upon protecting and extending their privileges.

But more than this, the impacts of modern globalisation are not closing the international gaps between the successful and unsuccessful within and between countries. For many people, identity, individual security and cultural integrity all seem under threat from the impacts of modern globalisation.

The world does not yet fully comprehend what drives the disparate tumult in the streets. We would be wrong simply to dismiss it, too, as irrational anarchy.

A more equitable order that does not privilege one set of interests over all others is clearly a basic requirement.

The second dimension involves the regional order in the Middle East. It is illogical to expect that international society can prevail over terrorism while, at the same time, the order of things in the Middle East continues more or less unchanged.

It is unacceptable to Arab countries that an impenitent, heavily armed Israel continues to occupy Palestinian territory, that an extensive US military presence is maintained to support Israel, debilitate Iraq, contain Iran and to protect oil.

As part of an effective international campaign to prevail over international terrorism, the basis for that regional order will require re-examination.

The need for a comprehensive framework guaranteed internationally to underpin a new peaceful order is indispensable if we are to win against terrorism.

* Terence O'Brien is a teaching fellow in international relations at Victoria University.