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be
necessary. The military situation at the target site, the*0 cation of the weapon, its size or weight, and the sophistl cation of safeguards on the device may call for sU action. Destroying the weapon while it is in the object! area presents substantial difficulties and risks. As vVI conventional improvised explosive devices, disarming
A destruction raid is usually less preferable but may
ded*
stand the appropriate concerted employment of each service and failed to grasp adequately the procedures of sister services. The specialized and compartmented knowledge and action required for responding to a nuclear threat will make proper coordination far more unlikely. This nation has the assets to respond effectively, but putting the pieces together quickly enough will be extremely difficult.
In most circumstances, the short time element rules out anyone but the Navy and deployed Marines from going into action. Simple time, distance, and cross-decking constraints will preclude the availability of tractor trailers filled with exotic equipment and the technicians to operate it. Nevertheless, the on-scene commander should have a prepared course of action. He must have a clearly thought- out plan, which takes into account the characteristics of improvised devices and fissionable material. Even an attempt to eliminate a weapon site with an air strike is unlikely to lead to the degree of destruction or dispersal of special nuclear material required to prevent the builders from recovering the remains and moving to a more secure location. The most important support the commander will need from the chain of command is a clear set of priorities and a realization that their attempts to manage this type of crisis from afar will surely lead to failure. Because of the obvious cataclysmic nature of such a situation, such noninterference would require unprecedented self-restraint and trust.
If the intelligence preceding the discovery of an IND under construction is detailed and of a long-range nature, a commander should be able to implement a controlled response. Carrying out such plans is not the normal role of
the Navy or Marines. But if the intelligence is poor superficial, the Navy and Marine Corps are likely to involved. Time will be short. Though strategic intel i gence is essential to discovering an improvised nuclei threat, it is outside the scope of the Navy and this article Conversely, the success of the on-scene commander >n executing his action will depend to a great extent on tn responsiveness of tactical intelligence and the ability t0 link up with the sources that first detect the terrorist pi"ePa rations. ,
The sensitivity of present and proposed operation methods of dealing with INDs does not permit discussion of specific aspects, but some general statements can made. Preparation of a device can be stopped either ) recovery or destruction raids. A recovery raid is prefer3 ble, because it permits detailed analysis of the device* which in turn is likely to reveal the source of the nucle material and indicate the proficiency of the builders. Ob'3 ously, this option denies the hostile group any possible; of recovering the material and avoids the risk of radioac tive contamination caused when a nuclear weapon is fra? mented by explosives. When sufficient time is availab • this option may be the simplest.
nuclear device through disassembly should be avoi
• • •
Nobody asked me, but
of
If you threaten to kill me, I will kill you . . .
None of us out here wants to kill anyone, despite whatever words of bravado we might mutter in the wardroom and on the mess decks. From the beginning of our consciousness as individuals, our families, our churches, and our culture have burned into us an abhorrence for killing.
Maybe that is what stings us when we see one of our fellows hanging from a ceiling in some godforsaken land. Everything Colonel William Higgins stood for was noble and upright: He risked his life every day, and paid the ultimate price. A man like that should not be executed as a criminal.
But that feeling of abhorrence indicates the paralysis that we, as a nation and as a Judeo-Christian people, feel when we are victimized by terrorism.
We are stunned by the savagery of the act, stunned into a stupor. We cannot comprehend how people who really are not that much different from ourselves can bring their hearts and their minds to commit such acts.
But our thinking and our assumptions are flawed. To understand the savagery, we must escape our world for a minute. We must disembody ourselves from the cars and homes and televisions that frame our existence and our thoughts. To understand the savagery, we must take ourselves to the desert. It is a little easier to do out here off those desert coasts, but all who wish to understand the terrorist must try.
The morality and philosophy of the people we must understand—those who compose the different factions involved in Mideast terrorist activity, whether living in a refugee camp, a small village like Jibchit, or a once flourishing metropolis like Beirut—are bom of in desert. Their roots are in a sweltering* barren, hostile place where existence |S scratched out from the sand through competition with other peoples for scarce resources. These individuals operate under assumptions that have remained as unchanged through the millenia as the sands; basic instincts familial and tribal survival in the remorseless desert run deep in their veins. Indeed, the conflict at the very heart of the Mideast problems—the fight between the Israelis and the P®*" estinians for the lands between the Mediterranean and the Jordan—dates from the time when the tribes of Isr®e conquered the lands of the CanaaniteS’ This same conflict has repeated itself for four thousand years. The waters o* Western civilization never flowed to these deserts. These people were un-
58
Proceedings / December
198’
Specially when time constraints exist. The conventional Method of neutralizing bombs through disruptive explo- SlVe or non-explosive means is the most straightforward ecnnique. But it must be accomplished in a manner that e'ther allows the nuclear material to be recovered and removed, or that pulverizes and scatters the material enough ?° that it cannot be recovered. Clearly, many of these ISsues may become secondary to a commander faced with Setting as many men as possible back safely from the op- cation.
. The discovery of partially constructed weapons or sites ln countries with normal relations with the United States Cay present a less critical scenario. In such cases more echnological expertise becomes available, and the Navy °r Marine Corps will probably be involved only in a sup- P°1 role, if at all. Unfortunately, the more unanticipated and the more immediate the problem is, the more likely ce Navy or Marines are to get involved.
&leak as this picture may seem, it will be incomparably w°rse if a terrorist group ever succeeds in detonating an lmProvised nuclear device. Such action will demonstrate to all that INDs are within the reach of anyone. The world Mil seem vastly more hostile than ever. Concern about . s threat, which surfaces only occasionally in intema- l0nal literature on terrorism, shows that a theoretical dan- §er, no matter how severe, is submerged in the daily flood jTreal-time clear and present dangers. This may not be all b;i(T because the first evidence of terrorist nuclear capabil- “y could quickly establish impetus for the repeated use of ^clear weapons by other groups. The resulting climate of ear could cause a major slowdown in international and regional trade, travel, and cultural exchange. Following the Abu Nidal organization’s Rome and Vienna suicide attacks in 1988, the entire Mediterranean region and much of Europe experienced diminished tourism and economic disruption. The corresponding scare in the wake of a nuclear attack will likely be much worse.
The fact that the United States is hated by some peoples with such breathtaking (and to most Americans, inexplicable and unwarranted) vigor, should satisfy anyone that the motivation for such attacks is there. In the past, if anyone had the means, apparently no one had the desire. Now the situation is reversed. Some antagonists have proclaimed a desire and are relentlessly acquiring the means.
Although the United States may have had no part in the origins of an international dispute, it must get involved whenever the actors in that dispute appear to be contemplating covert nuclear actions. We need to develop a worldwide detection and deterrence capability, in concert with allies, to ensure that first improvised nuclear device never goes off.
Captain Barth is the intelligence officer for 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines, 2nd Marine Division, at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. He returned recently from six months in the Mediterranean Sea, where he was part of the ground combat element of Landing Force, 6th Fleet. Among other assignments, Captain Barth has served as Terrorism Counteraction Officer in II Marine Expeditionary Force, Special Operations Training Group. He graduated in 1981 with bachelor’s degrees in business administration and German from Purdue University.
By Lieutenant (junior grade) Jeffrey W. Cottle, U. S. Naval Reserve
bott,
Th
nc competition for resources has been M'n by the most powerful. Death has .ays been the final criteria of value !? the desert. It matters not how . 8°od,” or how “civilized” you are;
11 matters only that you remain alive.
To deal effectively with the terrorist, 'Vc must inhabit the desert. We must
°m line has always been survival.
°uched by the embrace of Hellenistic aiN Roman thought; concepts of serialization through freedom are foreign 0 them. Theirs is a creed of harsh pictures and obedience. The desert emands, it does not nurture like the *hs of Athens and Rome, p The paradoxical notions of Judeo- hristianity that form the basis of our ’h'nd-set as Western peoples have been jMected—indeed, combated—by the esert peoples for more than two thou- ,Sand years. The desert has no tolerance 0r our kind of morality. There, the
take on for ourselves his law—the Law of the Desert (not the Law of the Jungle; jungles are too fertile for this notion). The Law of the Desert repulses us Westerners, but it must become ours if we are to deal with the terrorist on his grounds. The Law of the Desert, simply stated, is that “If you threaten to kill me or those I protect, I will kill you.”
Let us not regard the terrorist with the hubristic ethnocentricism that has so often been our undoing in previous conflicts. We should never assume that our civilization and its values have more inherent merit than his. Indeed, in its own way, the desert civilization is just as rich and complex as our own.
Some argue that by assuming the Law of the Desert we would somehow reduce our civilization to the level of those who perpetrate these evils upon us. This illustrates perfectly the flaw in our initial mind-set: In our smugness we think our civilization is more virtuous than theirs. But terrorists do not respond to Westem/Christian notions of virtue, only to desert rules of survival. That is why the terrorist has been so successful in dealing with us: He adheres to a law we have never known, the Law of the Desert. The Israelis, because of their proximity to the desert and to the terrorist, understand the law and continue to respond effectively.
The terrorist threatens to kill us, so we must kill him. We must not feel better about our persecution because we are virtuous. We must live by his law.
It is a law, thank God, that we abhor, but it is the law we must follow if we are to meet and defeat the terrorist.
Lieutenant Cottle is the intelligence officer with VFA-82, a Navy F/A-18 squadron deployed on board the USS America (CV-66) off the coast of Iran.
59
'*r°*etdings / December 1989