Is Terrorism a Serious Threat to International and National Security - Essay Example

Running Head: Is Terrorism a Serious Threat to International and National Security? Student’s Name Course Title Lecturer Name Introduction Terrorism has been a frightening occurrence and a concern for various citizens and governments across the globe. It has imposed threat to the national security of many countries and also in the international security at a considerable measure. The frequent and unpredictable terrorist attacks to various parts of the world have instill fear and need of maximizing on each country’s internal security to protect citizens. This has initiated a great debate on the danger that terrorist post to national security (Lutz & Lutz, 2005, p.7). Although there are a number who feel that the danger terrorism pose to different nations or even internationally has been exaggerated, the reality remains that terrorists did pose a very factual danger to the security of various countries in the past. This has pushed various governments to make changes in their security and governing structures to minimize the danger. Despite this, there is still a chance that terrorism threat can turn into a great danger in the future. Although terrorism is not a major security threat in various countries, inability to handle the minimal threats that currently exist can result to great threats in the future (Lutz & Lutz, p.61). Terrorism as Serious Threat to International and National Security Terrorism has in the past resulted to the change of the government in various countries in the world. Various groups in the past have managed to employ violence and terror, together with other political techniques to undermine governments operations. Although there is still no standard way to define terrorism, it is believed to be the use of illegal violence or threats to weaken a loathed political authority (Berry, 1987, p. 7). According to Enders and Sandler (2006, p. 5), terrorism contains six parts. These parts include having political goals, depending on threat of violence or violence, targeting audience past the immediate victims, engaging organizations and not just the action of particular individuals, engaging non-state actor as a target or perpetrator or both, and finally, being a weapon of the puny, structured to change power distribution (Kydd and Walter, 2006, p. 50). Based on this definition, there are a number of previous political groups that can be said to have engaged in terrorist acts to destabilize different governments. Among these groups include Nazis in Germany and Fascists in Italy that managed to employ terrorism combined with other tactics to assume power in the respective countries. Terrorism was also successfully used in anti-colonial campaign particularly in Palestine, Algeria and Cyprus to acquire independence (Lutz & Lutz, 2009, p. 6; Beckett, 2001, p. 88-89). In addition, Sri Lanka’s Tamil Trigers, which also employed terrorism tactics, was almost successful in its determination to challenge the country’s territorial integrity after a century of struggle. Iraq government has also been struggling for a while to establish a functional government after constant terrorist disturbance from different groups that include Shia groups, Sunni militants and international jihadists. Others include Chechens in Russia that destabilized security in the region, and also in Africa where terrorism has been used to destabilize governments such as Congo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Somalia, among others, where leaders are still struggling to establish functional governments (Lutz & Lutz, n.d., p. 62). Terrorism effects have also been highly noted in the South Asia. According to (Kumar, 2012, p. 1), generally, south Asia evokes the picture of an area which is overwhelmed by violent religious groups of extremism that include Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, Al-qaeda, and Taliban. South Asia is also known as an area where Maoists groups are executing riots in huge portions of their territory. Almost all south Asian countries are faced with the terrorism issues of one kind or the other. Although Sri Lanka has fruitfully managed to eradicate the LTTE, there are still uncertainties of what may transpire in the future. Maoists managed to overthrow the monarchy though; the outcome with the drafting of the new constitutions with collaboration of other political forces is yet to be known. There have been terrors in Maldivines where the incidences of rising Islamic extremism are currently very common. Bhutan has also been fighting ULFA and it is only recently the government managed to overpower them together with other terror organizations. And despite this, the groups are said to be employing different measures to regroup against Bhutan. Other countries facing similar problems include Afghanistan and Pakistan with Taliban group, Bangladesh with Huji and JBM, and India, which has been trying to fight terrorism for a while (Kumar, 2012, p.3). Turkey has also been experiencing serious terrorist attacks for decades from Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK); a radical Islamist group, until 2001 when it was able to harness the situation (Nugent, 2004, p.1). Somalia is another country that has been for a long time under the control of terrorists. Although efforts have been made to reconstruct the Somali government, terrorism still remain a challenge to Somalia and its neighbour Kenya, after engaging full force to handle terrorism in the country. Kenya has as a result suffered a number of recent attacks which include Westgate Mall attack in 2013, Garissa University attack, and many other boarder attacks from Al-shabab, which is Al-Qaeda-affiliate in Somalia comprised of Islamist terrorist group (Agbiboa, 2014, p.27; Agbiboa, 2013). The group has managed to destabilize the Somalia government since 2006 until now. Al-Shabab has also been responsible for various attacks in different parts of Africa that include Uganda and Ethiopia, mostly targeting places where western citizen can highly been found. Most of their attacks have resulted to destructions of properties, injuries, and several deaths (Wise, 2012, p.28). Al-shabab power in enhancing jihadist and terror attack has highly been enforced by its affiliate Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda has for a long time been in control in Sudan and played a major role in the war between northern and southern Sudan. The involvement of Sudan previous government with Al-Qaeda resulted to employment of terrorism to destroy Southern Sudan dream of stability and formation of their government. It is here where Al-Qaeda managed to form ties with Al-shabaab enhancing its transformation to international terrorist group (Arya, 2009, p.68; McGregor, 2005). This has highly strengthened the Al-shabaab forces giving it courage to attack not just Somalia, but to fight against west and all its allies in Africa. This transformation has highly destabilized national peace in Kenya, which currently has its troop deployed in Somalia to fight the group. Beside of national security, terrorism has highly interfered with international peace of various nations. Although there are no currently known internal terrorist groups in western nations, western nations and their allies elsewhere have occasionally suffered from severe terrorist attacks from the international jihadists coordinated by the Al-Qaeda group. Al-Qaeda has been for quite sometimes in the move to enhance international jihadist against various nations in the world. It is an Islamic radicalized group with its members being spread all over the world (Chipman, 2003, p. 165; Farrall, 2011, p. 132). It highly initiates national or international terrorism across the globe with its main target being the developed nations and their allies. Al-Qaeda has been said to be responsible of 84 terrorist attacks all over the world since 1998 to around 2011 (Howell, 2003, p. 160). It is said to have executed an average of 8 attacks every year within this period causing death of many people and destruction of properties (Start, 2011, p.1). Some of its major attacks include the 9/11 attack in the U.S. soil (Cronin, 2004, p. 1). Although the group seems to have been highly weakened by the death of its leader Osama bin Laden in the hands of the U.S. President barrack Obama, the group activities seem to be going on in various parts of the world particularly in Asia. Although international terrorism does not demonstrate great power to destabilize any government, it provides a considerable threat when it works in alliance with small and developing local or national terror or rebellious groups. Al-Qaeda has been known to work with internal terrorists to enhance their international terrorist missions. Some of its other affiliates include Asbat al-Ansar in Lebanon, he Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, the Indonesia Jemaah Islamiyah, the Isamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the Algeria Armed Islamic Grop and Salafist Group for Call and Combat, the Al Jidah and Islamic Group in Egypt, the Foreign terrorist Organization in Iraq, the Islamic Army of Aden in Yemen, and Hizb-e-Islam among others (Katzman, K, 2005, 2005, p.8). The collaboration between local and international terrorist groups makes it hard for a government to control an internal rebel group as demonstrated in Somalia. It can therefore post great danger to the security of a country and to the international security at large (Hoehne, n.d., p.1). Another major aspect that makes terrorism a great national and international threat is the development of weapons of mass destruction. According to Mowatt-Larssen (2010, p.5), various terrorist groups have vigorously sought for one form or another of weapons of mass destruction. Among them include Al-Qaeda and its affiliates that include Lashkar al Tayyib, Jemaah Islamiya, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, as well as Aum Shinrikyo, which is Japanese cult group. These groups have prominently demonstrated some degree of programmatic efforts, experimentation, and intent to obtain chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Nevertheless, Al-Qaeda is today the only group known to be dogging a systematic, persistent, and long-term approach to creating weapons to be employed in masses casualty attacks (Mowatt-Larssen, 2010, p.5). Although the ease of using WMD in terrorist attack has been exaggerated, (O’Neil, 2003, p. 101) points out that, with expansion of technology, it is currently easy for any individual with internet access to develop a nuclear bomb. Nevertheless, the material required may not be locally available. However, with persistent nature of most of the terrorists, particularly Al-Qaeda group, this is not impossible. According to O’Neil (2003, p. 101; Gurr & Cole, 2002), there enough evidence to demonstrate that a number of terrorist groups have actively pursued materials for WMD, and it very probable that some have acquired them. Although the capabilities of weaponising WMD remain challenging, groups that invest enough amounts of resources, energy, and time have high chances of succeeding, and this should give the international security a reason to worry. Nevertheless, Chemical and biological WMD are more highly available and easily manageable compared to Nuclear weapons. This poses a great danger to the public since according to (Henderson, 1999, p.1279), among the three, biological WMD are the most feared or deadly. Beside the direct impact that terrorism create on the internal and international security, terrorism highly impact the economic development and distribution of resources in a country. It has highly resulted to intensive investment on development of national and international security policies in countries such as the USA, among others (Rollins & Wyler, 2010; Perl, 2007). It has also highly contributed to investment of more on policing, and management of national bounders’ security among other efforts. Terrorism has as well initiated more expenses that involve deployment and maintenance of the US and other western nations’ army in different countries particularly in Middle East where terrorist actions are highly experienced. This has also been experienced in Kenya and Ethiopia that tried to deploy their forces in Somalia (Lorenzo, Pantucci & Kohlmann, 2010, p. 217). Terrorist acts have also impacted the economy of various countries by interfering with tourism sector, international travel, business operations, and also in destruction of important business centres and loss of intelligent human power in various countries (Pettiford & Harding, 2003, p. 16). All this has highly contributed indirectly to the troubling of the international security. It has instilled fear among residence and international investors, impacting the pace of economic growth (Hoffman, 2006, p. 41; Chalk, 1996, p. 13). This constant interference with economic activity can easily result to decrease in resources that most countries need to enhance their internal security and to ensure national sovereignty. Conclusion Terrorism has for a long time been used as one of the techniques to fight a disliked government in most countries in the past. Its continuous use and intensification in its application has highly destabilized various governments in the past and even recently in Middle East and Africa. International terrorism has also created a reason for intensification in security measures for various powerful nations. Although terrorism has highly been controlled following the 9/11 attack, there is still chances that the groups are still reorganizing to destabilize internal and international security in various parts of the world. The current interest in WMD increases the fear that the future attacks may be deadly than ever before. It is therefore evidence that terrorism has been and still remains a great threat to international and national security and thus, countries need to employ necessary measures to ensure that their acts are suppressed, to ensure peace and order in national and international level. References Agbiboa, D. E, 2013, “Al-Shabab’s dangerous affair with Al-Qaeda,” Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies, vol. 38, no. 4, pp. 425-440. Agbiboa, D, 2014, “Terrorism without borders: Somalia’s Al-Shabaab and the global jihad network,” Journal of Terrorism Research, Vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 27-34. 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