Stuart Gottlieb on How Counterterrorism Has Changed Paris

As the Islamic State continues its attacks in Iraq, Syria and now France, Columbia News asked professors from a number of disciplines to evaluate the threats posed by the group. Stuart Gottlieb (Ph.D’96), a professor at the School of International Public Affairs, discusses a terrorism attach that occurred in Paris.

November 18, 2015
Stuart Gottlieb

Stuart Gottlieb (Ph.D’96) has been a professor at the School of International Public Affairs since 2003. He teaches courses on American Foreign Policy, international security and counterterrorism. A member of Columbia’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, he formerly served as a foreign policy adviser and speechwriter for U.S. senators Charles E. Schumer of New York and Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut.

A second edition of his book, Debating Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Conflicting Perspectives on Causes, Contexts, and Responses was published in 2013. Here, he discusses the Paris attacks with Columbia News.

Q. How do these latest events change the fight against jihadists?

A. The Paris attacks are an important pivot point in the fight against ISIS and the global jihad more broadly. Until now, the stated American strategy to counter the Islamic State has been to first contain the group in its Mideast safe havens, and then eventually degrade and destroy the organization. Paris shows why this is a dangerously shortsighted approach: while the core of ISIS may be technically contained into some recognizable territory, the group itself – and its ideology – is multinational. It now has formal affiliates in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Libya and other parts of Africa. And it has been training fighters from all over the world. Limited bombing campaigns alone in Iraq and Syria cannot begin to unravel what has become a major global security threat.

Q. How big a threat are you talking about?

A. Last year I wrote an article in which I said that ISIS is a direct threat to the American homeland and to Western nations in general. That’s because radical Islamist groups like ISIS think and act in terms of both local and global ambitions. In fact, what happened in Paris is very similar to the Mumbai attack in 2008, where members of a Pakistan-based Islamist organization carried out a four-day siege on hotels, hospitals and a train station, killing 164 people and wounding more than 300. Since Mumbai, the big fear among security officials has been that jihadi groups would increasingly target open, Western-style cities whose identities are based on their unfettered freedom. It now looks like the Mumbai-model is alive and well in the minds of ISIS leaders, meaning we have likely entered a new chapter in Western terror vulnerability. And let’s not forget that the ultimate objective of ISIS is not shooting up a few cafes and concert halls, but committing acts of mass destruction.

Q. How should we respond to the current threats?

A. First we need to recognize that ISIS cannot simply be “contained.” In the last 10 days alone, we have seen an international jet brought down over Egypt, bombings in the Beirut suburbs and then the Paris attacks. The idea that we are “containing” ISIS is fiction. ISIS operates, as do all capable jihadi groups, as a globalized virus based on a radical ideology. Yes, we must deny ISIS access to territory from which to operate – and that must be a priority. But unless and until we target the roots of the ideology we will just be, at best, treading water.

That’s why the instinct of many Western governments, including ours, to call ISIS attacks “senseless killing” is so misplaced. There is nothing “senseless” about it. The carnage makes perfect sense in the militant Islamist interpretation of world history, and the global revolutionary war they see themselves waging. And now the chaos in Syria and other parts of the broader Mideast is turning the area into a spawning ground for global jihadists, who are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their use of encrypted social media to communicate, plot and carry out attacks. Combating this will require an enormously stepped up effort by Western governments, possibly through NATO, to help restore order in the Mideast while simultaneously redoubling counterterrorism efforts at home.

Q. How might this affect civil liberties?

A. ISIS and other sophisticated terror networks are increasingly operating in a secret digital world. Cracking down on such communications will also affect, if not violate, the privacy rights of hundreds of millions of people who have nothing to do with terrorism. In the post-Snowden world this will be immensely controversial. Paris shows that governments will likely need greater surveillance authorities, but Snowden shows that these new authorities cannot simply run roughshod over civil liberties.

Q. How does the refugee crisis fit into this?

A. ISIS is of course taking full advantage of the refugee chaos. One of the Paris attackers was apparently a Syrian refugee who entered the EU through Greece, and it’s a certainty that at least some terrorist operatives will slip into the West under the guise of refugee resettlement. On the other hand, this is one of the most acute humanitarian crises of the last century and the West simply cannot betray its values and turn its back on these events. There are very few good options.