Stop Terrorists And Terrorism example essay topic

To Stop Terrorists and Terrorism: What will it take? Before anyone can give suggestions on stopping terrorism, the term "terrorism" must be defined. The so-call acts of terrorism that took place on September 11, were viewed as hatred terrorist acts in the eyes of America, however, other countries viewed this as an act of "justice". To answer the question "Will we ever be able to fully stop terrorists and their activities", is unknown. On September 11 we entered into what is already being called the age of asymmetrical conflict, an age when networks of terrorists and criminals can threaten the security of the United States, the greatest hegemonic power of the early twenty-first century, without using traditional military instruments. And so the United States finds itself confronted with an almost impossible situation.

No longer relevant are the old Cold War maxims of national security policy that emphasized deterrence through the threat of retaliation. Direct military retaliation is impossible when one cannot locate those who initiate an attack. We might be able to isolate and cut off the financial resources of such terrorists, but as we are now seeing in Afghanistan, they have few assets that could be the target of military reprisals. Suddenly our defense, the protection of our homeland against attack from abroad, seems hopelessly inadequate. The plan to build a national missile defense shield to protect the United States from intercontinental ballistic missiles, for example, will be totally irrelevant to this new terrorist threat. The capture or assassination of Osama Bin Laden, to some extent, will have an affect on whether terrorism will "die down" but not stopped forever.

In response to being in the shoes of Bush's right hand man on Defense Security, I would recommend the following alternatives. First I would have to state above all, we must understand that we cannot hide from the terrorist threat by drawing inward and sealing ourselves off from the outside world. The tragedy of September 11 demonstrated that no defense is impenetrable; we may, in fact, soon learn to our horror that every effort to plug one hole in our defenses can be offset by an almost unlimited set of vulnerabilities that terrorists can readily exploit. The effort to protect the civilized world from these new threats will ultimately require a patient, systematic response built on a commitment to justice, peace, and international cooperation rather than on the unilateralism we seemed to be seeking before September 11. Only collective global action can remove the long-term conditions that give rise to terrorism and allow it to operate and flourish.