Terrorism and the Liberal International Order

In the wake of surprising election results in the United States and Europe, there has been significant attention granted to the frustrations of many voters about the economy. Missing from the analysis is an understanding of how terrorism has affected the American psyche, and the concerns that many have about their own physical security and that of their loved ones.

This is not to diminish economic concerns: in the United States, Donald Trump capitalized on the sense that many Americans were being left behind by the system as manufacturing jobs moved to other countries or disappeared entirely. Over the last year, voters frustrated by economic dislocation in the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands and Austria have also turned out in support of populist causes and candidates.

In the United States, however, broader fears about America’s standing in the world and the physical security of Americans also played a key role in Trump’s success. From the beginning of his campaign, he focused on the supposed security threat of a failing immigration system. In the wake of attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California in 2015, Trump called for his controversial ban on Muslims “entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.” After this weekend’s attack in London, Trump reiterated his push for the courts to allow his blocked travel ban to be reinstated.

Trump is tapping into the very real fears that many Americans have about the rise of ISIS and the seeming inability of the United States to eliminate the threat posed by radical jihadists more than fifteen years after 9/11. Recent events such as repeated terrorist attacks in the United Kingdom, as well as Germany, Belgium, and France and frequent high profile attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan serve as repeated reminders of the failing of “the West” to defeat this threat at home or abroad despite significant investments of lives and money.

This terrorist threat has provoked debate about the potential limitations on the fundamental freedoms our citizens enjoy and the appropriate responses to their brutal tactics.

ISIS, al Qaeda or other terrorist groups are not powerful enough to destroy the core pillars of the international system, but their success in seizing and controlling territory abroad as well as infiltrating Western societies is contributing to public unease and skepticism about the merits of an open, interconnected international order. This terrorist threat has provoked debate about the potential limitations on the fundamental freedoms our citizens enjoy and the appropriate responses to their brutal tactics. It has also created space for populist politicians to promote the restriction of immigration and a reassertion of national borders.

While the proposals candidate Trump made on the campaign trail are unlikely to solve these challenges (and very well may exacerbate them) his assessment of the failures of American foreign policy resonated with voters. As the Pew Research Center found, nearly three quarters of Trump supporters viewed terrorism as a “very big problem,” second only to immigration. Trump voters also overwhelmingly believed that the threat of terrorism had gotten worse during the presidency of Barack Obama. These concerns will have to be addressed if Americans are to be convinced to continue to support the type of leadership require to maintain the liberal international order.

Until the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Americans were largely oblivious to the responsibilities and cost of maintaining the liberal order.

This order was created by postwar leaders who had seen the damage wrought by total war. Through openness and cooperation, the hope was to establish a system that could ensure that these horrors would never be repeated. Even through the decades of the Cold War, the bargain basically held. Until the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Americans were largely oblivious to the responsibilities and cost of maintaining the liberal order.

While 9/11 served as a wakeup call, it set in motion a series of events that have contributed to the current crisis. Since 2001, Americans have seen their country engage in costly interventions in Afghanistan and then Iraq as well as minor interventions in Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and elsewhere, all with limited accomplishments and no clear successes.

In fact, the terrorist threat against the U.S. homeland is now at the highest levels since 9/11, with the insidious new challenge of American citizens becoming radicalized and committing attacks. Instead of ridding terrorism from the face of the earth as promised, post-9/11 U.S. counterterrorism strategy has arguably expanded the problem.

That is not to criticize the very difficult decisions that have been made by American leaders during that period, but the Americans who voted for Donald Trump in November 2016 did so because he spoke frankly about the failures of the national security elites of both parties and promised alluring quick fixes.

Whatever the likelihood that his solutions will be any more successful than those of the last sixteen years, the liberal international order has a significant trust deficit with American and European publics who must now worry about taking their children to public events, walking into subway stations or airport terminals, or simply strolling along the street.

The increasing threat of terrorism has not just influenced American perceptions of the liberal international order. It has had an impact in European democracies as well, contributing to Brexit and the increased support for far right nationalist parties in France, Germany, and other countries. In the UK, those reporting anti-immigrant sentiment were most likely to vote for Brexit. Marine Le Pen — supported by 34% of French voters — accused immigrants of attempting to turn France into a “giant squat”. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders proposed banning all Muslim immigration and paying those who were already in the country to leave — his party made impressive gains in the March 2017 election, even if they ultimately suffered defeat. In Germany, Angela Merkel has had to walk a fine line between welcoming refugees and respecting the concerns of citizens. With Europe on the front lines of the ongoing migratory crisis from the Middle East, the continued effects are likely to last for years if not decades.

If the liberal international order is to be saved, we need to candidly assess the drivers of public uncertainty about its benefits and revise our national policies accordingly.

We certainly need a robust transatlantic debate about how to tackle the economic perils of globalization, as well as its benefits. But we also need to finally address the post-9/11 challenges to our security. We have yet to develop an adequate strategy to respond to extremist messaging and radicalization. We need to compare national approaches to integration of minorities into our societies and candidly discuss which have succeeded and which have failed and why.

Discussion of these topics often gets hijacked by a broader discussion about the dangers of Islam that can quickly become counterproductive. That said, the concerning fact is that instead of making progress in fostering the growth of moderate Islam since 9/11, extremism appears to be on the rise and even more alluring to many young Muslims, including many in the West.

We haven’t learned the ultimate lessons of Iraq.

We also need to honestly debate the shortcomings of our military strategy toward the threat posed by terrorism. As the intervention in Libya showed, we haven’t learned the ultimate lessons of Iraq — evident in the U.S. failure to win the peace in both countries. We have failed to develop an effective strategy to deal with domestic political upheaval in the Middle East, either to capitalize on it by partnering with and empowering moderate democrats or to contain the fallout when extremists gain power. At home, our law enforcement agencies are also struggling to address this evolving threat, as repeated terrorist attacks on both sides of the Atlantic by those who have been on government watchlists has shown. These law enforcement failures have increased citizen distrust in their government’s ability to protect them.

Instead of providing this leadership, presidents of both parties have played to the worst impulses of the electorate.

But most importantly, our leaders don’t seem to have learned the fundamental lesson from our multiple foreign engagements since 2001. Americans look to their leaders, especially their presidents, to explain the challenges the United States faces on the world stage. Instead of providing this leadership, presidents of both parties have played to the worst impulses of the electorate, telling them that they were correct to believe that America needed to refocus on problems at home and dismissing the terrorist threat as minimal. When we did intervene militarily, Americans were told it would be quick, painless, and easy or they weren’t told at all because of the deniability of the military and intelligence tools used in an attempt to avoid public discussion of the fact that we were still at war.

Westerners value their security and that of their families just as much, if not more, than economic security. The first duty of government is to provide security for its citizens. Our leaders are failing in that fundamental duty. Protecting the West against adaptive terrorist groups who have now infiltrated our societies is difficult, but is not impossible. Leaders should not overstate the risk, but they also should not refuse to admit that the current situation is concerning and untenable. As British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Sunday, “it is time to say enough is enough.”

If our leaders continue to fail to have honest conversations with their citizens and expect them to accept suicide bombings and car and knife attacks as the new normal of twenty-first century life, it will become even more difficult to sell the liberal international order to increasingly disillusioned Western publics.

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