The European Union National Security After 9/11 - Essay Example

Introduction Terrorism can be defined as a deliberate and violent act, which targets civilians for political purposes. Terrorism has some crucial characteristics. First, there must have some political inspiration behind a terrorist act. Without having any political motive, it is simply an offense. Second, violence or the threat of violence is not directly involved in an act; the act can’t be called terrorism. Third, thought their violent attacks, terrorists do not want to defeat the enemy but just to send a message. Fourth, the act and the victim usually have symbolic significance. For example, during 9/11 attacks, Bin Laden referred to the Twin Towers of U.S. as icons of Americas military and economic power. The shock value of the terrorist attack to the Twin Towers was extremely enhanced by the symbolism of the target. Terrorists want to make their attack in such a way that the psychological impact exceeds the actual physical act. Terrorism is actually a weapon of the weak. Very often, terrorist movements are both outmanned and outgunned by their opponents and this why they want to employ such tactics in which would attract more attention than any objective assessment of their capabilities. Fifth, the victim of the violence and the audience that the terrorists usually target are not the same. Terrorists actually use the victims as a means of changing the behavior of a larger audience, usually a government. Very often they choose victims randomly, but sometimes they choose those people as victims who represent some larger group. Finally, one of the most important defining characteristics of terrorism is that terrorism involves deliberate targeting of civilians. This feature sets terrorism apart from other forms of political violence. (Richardson) Research question: How effective are the national security measures undertaken by the European Union after 9/11? Incidence of terrorism around the globe International terrorism is growing rapidly. Whether it is U.S, U.K, any middle-east country, or any other country, terrorism has become a major threat to the security of the people living in these countries. An increasing number of analysts expresses concern that terrorists groups like radical Islamist groups seek to exploit economic and political tensions in countries like U.S., U.K., Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Indonesia, Russia, Jordan, Pakistan, and other countries. Because of their affirmed goal of overthrowing secular or Western-allied regimes in certain countries with large Moslem populations, such groups are seen as a particular threat to these countries’ domestic and foreign policies, to the security of the people living in these countries. Realizing this threat these countries like U.S., U.K. along with other countries has been up on their heels to tackle terrorism. (Levitt) Numerous policies have been devised to suppress terrorism worldwide, but much success has not been achieved so far. Innocent people are still losing their lives by devastating terrorists’ attacks. It is being gradually realized that declaring a war against terrorists cannot be a solution to this problem. In this situation what is needed are effective policies, and to devise some effective policies one needs to understand proper meaning of terrorism, its characteristics, psychology of terrorists, the origin of such terrorists activities. (Bergin and Woolner) Impact of terrorism on the European Union and the strategies adopted to combat it Keeping in mind the above statement let us consider the effects of terrorism on the European Countries. The EU formed in 1951, comprises of 27 member countries and around 3 candidate countries out of which one is turkey. But prior to that it is important to understand and acknowledge the history behind this continent. Europe has been a very volatile continent in terms of its political issues and wars. Many significant histories of the world are somehow linked with this continent. Like the fall of Berlin wall in 1989 which brought a u-turn to the political arena of the entire Europe. Even though the continent gained its freedom and tried to embrace its liberalization, but it also lead to division of opinion among the people residing in the continent. These people wanted different thing for themselves and for the nations and thought it better to form small organizations to voice their opinion. But with the founders of these organizations dead and new entrants coming in, the mode of achieving their demands changed. Non-violence methods gave way to violent and aggressive methods, meetings gave way to demands, and safety of natives gave way to sacrificing them. The union was not strong and was not taken seriously until 2004 when 10 new members decided to join due to the attack of 9/11. Europe was not deprived of fear and anguish from terrorism prior to the attack on the world trade centre on 11th September, 2001. Groups like IRA, UVF AND UFF in the United Kingdom, Algerian, pieds noirs, Maghreb network, Corsican separatists and Breton separatists in France, Brigate Rosse and ultra right groups in Italy, red army faction in Germany and ETA and Islamic networks in Spain. (Levi and Wall) There forth the attack of 9/11 did not bring any drastic change in the European Union but only the existing plans were strengthened, more checkpoints were put up, more guards were allocated. One fact which also took place is that EU also tried strengthening its military capacity. The main reason behind this was that European Union wanted to safeguard not against the terrorist attack but also wanted to avoid coming in the bad books of the United States. This was mainly for the reason that Europe was continent of mixed races and castes, like Catholics, Jews and Muslims. Turkey a Muslim dominated and a candidate country of the European Union seized this opportunity to push its agenda of becoming a member of the union. It sided with the west by providing military assistance to US for the invasion of Afghanistan, this action went too far in the eyes of many Turks abut not enough in the eyes of the Union whom it wished to join, this lead to more chaos. US became more stringent with its laws and introduced the US patriot act, which combined the safety rules with criminal punishment. EU too joined in by changing its policy from peace to war-readiness but the flaw was that it just did not know when the war would be over and whether a normalcy would return to its surveillance and its citizens. A survey conducted by The Rand Europe showed that security had increased in seven countries after the US attack. It also showed that the judicial system had become more stringent but not a significant difference could be seen in the rest of the countries. But the attack on US did lead to a positive production of stringent laws across the globe to reduce the menace of terrorism. Furthermore after the aftermath of 9/11 a range of existing and proposed EU- wide legislatives’ initiatives were enhanced. These included more strong vigil and laws on cyber-crimes; more check posts, more acts and more policies, reducing cross-border activities, better judicial practices, and facilitation of joint investigation team across the borders. Even though Europe was nowhere near to the US patriot act, but France is now trying to develop a model on the same level. The reason for the inefficiency to introduce new acts in Europe was mainly due to the fact that this continent was always divided in opinions based on power play, castes and race & lack of centralized power. Europe has always been an ally to the US in its entire venture, only to be recognized by the rest of the world as another super power as a result of which it had never been able to utilize its resources to its extreme and has been compelled to survive on the least. For many years US and UK has run a joint surveillance team, the Echelon network, that intercepts large numbers of transmissions and uses computer to identify and extract messages of interest from the bulk and unwanted ones’, thereby capturing information about potential threats (terrorists) to the national infrastructure, safety and interests. After 9/11, the terrorist information awareness (TIA) was formed between UK and US, but due to lack of fund it was blocked by the US senate in 2003. It is also strange to know that UK does not have its strategy officially published unlike its west counterpart, which could be due to the fact that it is still not clear about its strategy or has no faith in its perceived strategy. Still a number of methods which of lately has come into notice are scope, identity/ entitlement cards (which would be bio-specific like includes. A retina scan or fingerprint scan),asylum seekers would require a smart card, data sharing scheme ( driver license and national security numbers to be merged to increase traceability and speedy processing), smart passports( having magnetic sensitivity) and eurodac (a Nationwide finger print scan assembling to size up the citizens and to distinguish visitors). Methodology: The methods followed in this paper begin from a study of the history of terrorism along with certain instances. For instance we may start by tracing the origins of modern guerrilla warfare. Michael Collins has been known as the father of modern terrorism and invented some techniques, which are alike to urban guerilla tactics of today. The idea of guerilla tactics was due to the fact that the big super powers (Britain and America) with large troops and greater availability of war resources believed in conventional war and to face them terrorists’ methods would be more appropriate in order to cover up the slack in numbers. Besides setting up the intelligence agency, “The Squad” or the “12 Apostles” under Collins was a secret assassination group, which efficiently and effectively erased the British Intelligence system, named as the ‘G’ division in Ireland by carefully turning their service ineffective. Collins gathered all information about his victims and timed their death appropriately. He succeeded in collecting lump sum funds via bonds and newspaper advertisements in order to prepare young Irish men against the English people who tried to stop their efforts in vain. Collins being in control of all activities of the ports and ships in his country effectively smuggled the arms and ammunition into Ireland. His aggressive techniques however went against many people in his own nation itself. If we compare his activities with modern day’s terrorists’ tactics we may find close similarities in the methods followed by the activists. The idea is to follow a thorough primary research on the topic and understand the impact of terrorism on the European Union. Beginning from the father of modern terrorism we may trace the recently undertaken strategies and measures by the European Union to fight back the fear of terrorism. Finally we may try and infer whether this is sufficient to eradicate the fear from future attacks of terrorists. The paper is going to be based entirely on secondary research incorporating books, journal articles and web publications. Data and information are used generously to illustrate the statements and inferences. Time frame (tentative) Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Secondary research **** Draft **** Final report **** Conclusion The implications of these security measures has been successful to a great measure but still the terrorists mainly lead by Osama-bin-laden and the al-Qaida group has been able to strike repetitively. The implication of the various steps that has been taken to combat terrorism cannot be seen to a great extent due to language, communication and culture differences across the nations in the continent. European Union has to tackle the attacks from within the continent along with dealing with the groups from outside. All these cannot be achieved without having a straight clear and productive goal and strategies to back them. The accuracy of surveying the data and processing them has to be very strong as a nation contains about a billion of population. Another problem that can be faced is the merging of private and public data in this continent, that differentiation has to be reduced, identification of wanted and unwanted resources, decreasing illegitimate software, stringent Visa rules, proper surveillance of out sourced and in sourced job, more attention towards the entry point to the nation like through the sea, road and air are a few means by which The European Union Can Increase its National security. The Al Qaeda is the biggest threat to the European Union and the only way to combat them without fail is to know their steps before they know ours. None of the security measures are full proof in nature. With the right kind of information at the right time, all the measures can be cracked and every precaution may be nullified. Yet if one may dare to cross the conventions, we may use the tools of the terrorists to combat them. For instance the people in the military force who dare to lead a life of risk might as well be the part of a secret group on a secret mission and try to enroll themselves within a terrorist group in order to gain information regarding their ways. Their life will be risked further due to this but one would be taking a step further than usual and show more courage in taking this risk. All the member nations should come together to form a group of people drawn out from their respective military volunteers and the mission should be carried out with prime secrecy. However there is always risk of loopholes in the network formed and information might leak out easily. Another complementary measure could be to equip each and every citizen with weapons in order to use them for self defense. All the physically normal people should also be taught some martial arts in order to be able to use in self defense when there is no weapon with them or their weapon is seized. The ideas might sound far-fetched and may be hypothetical, but if one can actually ensure these seemingly impossible targets, then the risk of security may come down to a considerable extent. Bibliography 1. Bergin, Anthony. & Woolner, Derek. Australias Approach to Homeland Security: Problems and Prospects, Reform, 82: 2003, 17-25 2. Ehrenfeld, Rachel., "The Narco-Terrorism Phenomenon / Rachel Ehrenfeld", Confronting Terrorism Financing, Lanham, MD [etc.] : University Press of America, 2005, 13-20 3. Gurovitsch, Kerry. A., "Legal obstacles to combatting international state-sponsored terrorism", Houston journal of international law, 9 no. 1, 1998, pp. 159-180 4. Green Dana., Michael Collins: A Beloved Irish Patriot, 2004, retrieved on January 26, 2009 from: http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/20thcentury/articles/MichaelCollins.aspx 5. Jocelyne, Cesari, Securitization and Religious Divides in Europe after 9/11, 2004, retrieved on January 26, 2009 from: http://www.libertysecurity.org/article48.html 6. Levitt, Geoffrey. M., Democracies against terror: the Western response to state-supported terrorism, New York: Praeger, 1998 7. Levi, Michael and David.S. Wall, Technologies, Security and Privacy in the Post 9/11 European Information Security, Journal of Law and Society, Volume 31, 2, June 2004 8. Richardson, Louise. What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Terrorist Threat. London: John Murray. 2006 Read More