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Guest Commentary February 2, 2002
NATO'S Role in the War on Terrorism
The Honorable Richard Lugar
There are moments in history when world events suddenly allow us to see the challenges facing our societies with a degree of clarity previously unimaginable. The events of September 11 have created one of those rare moments. We can see clearly the challenges we face and now confront and what needs to be done.
September 11 forced Americans to recognize that the United States is exposed to an existential threat from terrorism and the possible use of weapons of mass destruction by terrorists. Meeting that threat is the premier security challenge of our time. There is a clear and present danger that terrorists will gain the capability to carry out catastrophic attacks on Europe and the United States using nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons.
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In 1996, I made an unsuccessful bid for the Presidency. Three of my campaign television ads on that occasion, widely criticized for being farfetched and grossly alarming, depicted a mushroom cloud and warned of the existential threat posed by the growing dangers of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of terrorist groups. I argued that the next President should be selected on the basis of being able to meet that challenge.
Recently, those ads have been replayed on national television and are viewed from a different perspective. The images of those planes crashing into the World Trade Center on September 11 will remain with us all for some time to come. We might not have been able to prevent the attacks of September 11, but we can draw the right lessons from those events now, and one of those lessons is just how vulnerable our societies are to such attacks.
September 11 has destroyed many myths. One of those was the belief that the West was no longer threatened after the collapse of communism and our victory in the cold war, and perhaps nowhere was that myth stronger than in the United States where many Americans believed that America's strength made us invulnerable. We know now we are all vulnerable -- Americans and Europeans.
The terrorists seek massive impact through indiscriminate killing of people and destruction of institutions, historical symbols, and the basic fabric of our societies. The next attack, however, could just as easily be in London, Paris, or Berlin as in Washington, and it could, or is even likely to, involve weapons or materials of mass destruction.
The sober reality is that the danger of Americans and Europeans being killed today at work or at home is perhaps greater than at any time in recent history. Indeed, the threat we face today may be just as existential as the one we faced during the cold war since it is increasingly likely to involve the use of weapons of mass destruction against our societies. ...
Our task can be succinctly stated: Together we must keep the world's most dangerous technologies out of the hands of the world's most dangerous people. The events of September 11 and the subsequent public discovery of al-Qaida's methods, capabilities, and intentions have finally brought the vulnerability of our countries to the forefront.
The terrorists have demonstrated suicidal tendencies and are beyond deterrence. We must anticipate they will use weapons of mass destruction in NATO countries if allowed that opportunity.
Without oversimplifying the motivations of terrorists in the past, it appears that most acts of terror attempted to bring about change in a regime or change in governance or status in a community or state.
Usually, the terrorists made demands that could be negotiated or accommodated. The targets were selected to create and increase pressure for change.
In contrast, the al-Qaida terrorist attacks on the United States were planned to kill thousands of people indiscriminately. There were no demands for change or negotiation. Osama bin Laden was filmed conversing about results of the attack which exceeded his earlier predictions of destruction. Massive destruction of institutions, wealth, national morale, and innocent people was clearly his objective.
Over 3,000 people from a host of countries perished. Recent economic estimates indicate $60 billion of loss to the United States economy from all facets of the September 11 attacks and the potential loss of over 1.6 million jobs. Horrible as these results have been, military experts have written about the exponential expansion of those losses had the al-Qaida terrorists used weapons of mass destruction.
The minimum standard for victory in this kind of war is the prevention of any of the individual terrorists or terrorist cells from obtaining weapons or materials of mass destruction. ...
If we fail to defend our societies from a major terrorist attack involving weapons of mass destruction, we and the Alliance will have failed in the most fundamental sense of defending our nations and our way of life -- and ultimately no one will care what NATO did or did not accomplish on enlargement at the Prague summit in November this year. That's why the Alliance must fundamentally rethink its role in the world in the wake of September 11.
Richard Lugar, a Republican, is a U.S. Senator from Indiana. The above column has been adapted from a speech Sen. Lugar delivered on the floor of the Senate, January 25, 2002. To contact him, Click Here.
The above column has been distributed by PoliticsOL.com.
