Dialogue: It's easy to err in an asymmetrical war

The war against terrorism is like no previous conflict. Thus, there should be no rush to judgment when mistakes are made, says STEPHEN HOADLEY*.

The campaign against terrorism is a new kind of conflict - asymmetrical war.

The collapse of the Soviet Union, the defeat of Iraq and Serbia, and the absence of challengers have rendered conventional war unlikely in the near term. Attention was shifting to unconventional threats to peace and security even before September 11.

Guarding against asymmetrical war has been United States policy for nearly a decade. American defence planners have long identified threats to the population by terrorists using weapons of mass destruction. These included the release of chemical and biological agents into areas where Americans congregate, or their spraying on crops or water sources by aeroplanes.

The anthrax-laden US mail is a variation on this theme. Although confined to a few people and dealt with quickly by specialist authorities, the attacks are proving disruptive.

The nightmare scenario is still a suitcase nuclear bomb, smuggled into a city or perhaps brought by a freighter to a major port. This is a remote possibility, but in today's climate of fear a credible threat could bring whole cities to a standstill. This is what the terrorists hope to achieve.

Nevertheless, the opening phase of the war against terrorism bears a strong resemblance to conventional war. American strikes at air-defence missiles and radar, the incapacitating of combat aircraft and airports, and the disabling of communications facilities and command centres are standard moves in the first phase of any modern war.

These were followed by bombing attacks on ammunition dumps, supply centres and troop concentrations. Ground-force invasion by special forces or main forces is expected if the air war is not enough.

In conventional war, the enemy government is supposed to withdraw its forces from the disputed territory, as Iraq did from Kuwait and Serb forces did from Bosnia and Kosovo, and sue for peace.

But here the asymmetry of this war begins to show. Osama bin Laden's terrorist network is not a government but a militia of foreigners. The Taleban Government is not occupying foreign territory but its own land, with nowhere else to go.

Thus both are resorting to the tactics of the underdog. They are denying any complicity in terrorist attacks on the US. They are upholding the principle of sovereignty. And, above all, they are trying to redefine the war.

Every war has two sides, each with its view of who is right and who is wrong. In a conventional war the outcome is decided on the field of battle. But if the weaker side never engages, but rather disperses into the countryside to fight a guerrilla war of ambush and harassment, the stronger side is denied victory. Then the contest of images supersedes the war of weapons.

This was the lesson of the Vietnam War - it was won in the Mekong Delta but lost on Washington's Mall.

Images are important. The television image of the murder of 5000 innocent people has legitimised the war in America and brought about the broadest international coalition ever assembled.

The US Government must hold the moral and legal high ground to maintain the anti-terror coalition it now leads. It must also convince the American people that the rising costs of the war are worthwhile.

The longer the war remains indecisive, and the more Afghan civilians are hurt or starve because of bombing, the weaker will become the legitimacy of the effort and the consensus of the international coalition.

Paradoxically, the actions of America's enemies are not the major barrier to winning the war against terrorism. Bin Laden's and the Taleban's calls for jihad have not been answered, except among a small fraction of Arab populations and by no governments.

On the contrary, the campaign has enlisted Russia, the Central Asian republics, China, most of the Arab and Muslim states, and even Iran and the Palestinian Authority - an unprecedented grouping. There are almost no enemies in sight outside Afghanistan.

Instead, the problem is the steadfastness of America's erstwhile collaborators. And the irony is that that quintessential American invention, the electronic mass media, is now working against American policy.

TV shots of cratered Afghan suburbs, bomb-blast victims in hospital and allegations of whole villages blown away will tarnish the image of the campaign. Criticism by United Nations aid and human rights officials that air-drops of food are useless, and bombing should stop, won't help, either.

Western and Arab opponents posing as legal-minded sceptics demanding proof that bin Laden and the Taleban are guilty of terrorism will sow seeds of doubt about the direction of the campaign.

Media revelations of the misdeeds of warlords of the Northern Alliance raise questions of where to find the good Afghan leaders we want to insert in place of the Taleban.

Fortunately, bin Laden and the Taleban have an image problem, too. Their calls for jihad are curiously arch. By ranting archaically about jihad and virtually admitting guilt of terrorism and calling for more, they undermine the sympathy that might otherwise come their way.

Rather than censoring their utterances, Western governments should encourage stations to broadcast them in full, confident they would condemn themselves.

Thus the conflict is a mix of conventional war, asymmetrical war and political-image war. To this must be added an international manhunt, in which intelligence-sharing and police work are the main weapons, and a safety campaign to keep terrorists out of airplanes, buildings and public places.

We should suspend judgment when the American and other governments make mistakes. They are embarked on a struggle on our behalf whose specific elements are familiar but whose variety and complexity are overwhelming.

Let's hope our leaders are quick learners.

* Stephen Hoadley is an associate professor of political studies at the University of Auckland.

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