Legitimate use of military force against state-sponsored - Air University

Does this scenario seem farfetched? Hardly. One need only recall the demonstrations in
Europe against the deployment of the cruise missile. And consider the following: “Unknown
individuals disseminated radioactive materials normally used in medicine aboard an Austrian
train in April 1974, causing much concern if not substantial property damage and casualties
among railroad passengers.’’ 93
Terrorism disrupts international relations. It plays states and societies against one
another. “The delivery truck,” notes a 1985 Senate report, “may turn out to be the most
destructive weapon of this era, not the SS-18 or the 55-20 ballistic missile.” 94
“New Aspects”
As discussed, international terrorism is not new. But developments of the past decade
have given it a new and more threatening character. One new aspect is networking, that is, the
rendering of assistance between terrorist organizations. 95 Another new and more dangerous
aspect is state sponsorship and support. 96
Access to the armories, training facilities, intelligence service, funds, safe havens, and
other sources of expertise of sympathetic states vastly improves the firepower, effectiveness, and
sophistication of terrorist groups. 97 States sponsor and support terrorism because it is cheap and
the risk, low. “Modern conventional war,” writes Brian Jenkins, “is becoming increasingly
impractical. It is too destructive. It is too expensive.” 98 Terrorism is a force multiplier.
For the weaker states the high leverage/low cost factors provide them with an
impact they could never hope to achieve in a conventional arena. For the Soviet
Union, the high leverage/low risk function is attractive because it is able to
achieve certain strategic objectives—disunity within the NATO alliance, for
example—without increasing the risk of conventional or nuclear engagement. The
United States has been hard put to devise a policy that would alter the risk-benefit
calculus for these sponsors of international terrorism. 99
In 1969 Andrew Scott articulated the concept of informal penetration in his study The
Revolution in Statecraft. 100 He saw, in addition to formal techniques of foreign policy, a growing
complexity of informal operations carried on by persons other than diplomats and soldiers
(nonactors). These nonactors received state support through large organizations, massive
budgets, extensive training programs, and all paraphernalia of institutionalization. He was
uncertain whether this trend was good or bad, acknowledging that “the full implications of
informal penetration for international stability will probably not be clear for some time to
come.” 101 Scott thought this trend created both problems and potentialities and withheld
judgment. Today the implications are clearer. Sponsors and supporters of international terrorists
have no compunction about their methods while democratic states are constrained in the manner
in which they can effectively meet the challenge. 102