Airborne drones are becoming commonplace, especially in the civilian world. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, are aircrafts controlled by a pilot from a remote location on the ground. Drones are increasingly being used, and not just for military purposes. They’re used for agriculture, disaster response, energy production, environmental monitoring, construction, and sports activities. Their use has expanded exponentially in recent years, spurred by technological advancements and easy access to affordable high-tech parts. Drones can fly from several minutes to several days, depending on the technology and the mission, and the cost of having a drone ranges from a few hundred dollars for hobbyists to millions of dollars for military purposes. But as happens with most major technological changes in a society, the increased role of drones is raising privacy and public safety concerns.

Although drones are unmanned vehicles and depend mostly on human intelligence, adaptive control systems and artificial intelligence technologies can allow drones to fly without human intervention. Drones are increasingly becoming autonomous, following a pre-programmed mission, and can even make their own decisions while gathering and sending data back to a ground unit.

Drones are becoming popular for military purposes. They are cheaper than a military aircraft, and flying them remotely means there is no danger for the flight crew. Small drones can get into places where humans cannot, and large drones can fly into war zones to gather surveillance or to take part in military strikes. On the plus side, this will reduce the number of active military personnel in war zones, and reduce casualties. Even the possibility of replacing human drone operators with computer algorithms is in discussion, leaving a machine to make the final decision about whether to end a civilian life or to destroy vital infrastructure (this decision is also called the ‘signature strike’). [1]. Such a possibility raises serious questions about the ethics of war, privacy, and public safety.

Law enforcement officers are already using drones to detect people illegally crossing their nation’s borders. It is already in use by cities in the US for monitoring criminals, for crime fighting, car chases, executing search-and-rescue missions, firefighting and basic surveillance. People are interested in using camera-equipped drones to patrol their homes during police raids, to collect their own evidence.

Another proposed use is in the protection and inspection of infrastructures, and monitoring power lines, dams, levees, and gas pipelines to reduce the cost and manpower for these dangerous, dull, and costly jobs. If they are intelligently deployed in civilian life, drones can be useful in keeping people out of harm’s way.

Drones can assist in search and rescue missions after tornadoes, earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters, especially in places not reachable by, or dangerous to, humans. They can locate survivors and report their location to the ground base [2]. Drones can fly through the dark, pick up heat signatures of bodies using infrared cameras, see through smoke using thermal cameras, record footage using night-vision, and pick up hard-to-hear sounds in dangerous locations. Since they are small, they can easily be transported and deployed in disaster areas, and be up in the air in minutes compared to the longer time requirements required for planes and other rescue vehicles.

An example of this is drones that are already in use monitoring abused wildlife in Kenya and rescuing injured skiers in France [3]. Drones are also extremely useful in monitoring wildfires with minimal cost and little risk of loss of life. NASA is already using drones for monitoring hurricanes, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is monitoring wildlife in the Arctic, and the US Geological Survey (USGS) is mapping remote terrain and performing environmental research.

Drones are becoming an important part of agricultural production. They can help farmers to check if their fields need watering or fertilizing. In Japan, drones are used for precision agriculture, where drones fly over a field and use multispectral cameras to take pictures of the crop and analyze if it is over-watered or under-watered. This allows farmers to precisely determine the right amount water and pesticide to use, and this helps them decrease costs and increase the crop’s yield.

An interesting application of drones is in clean energy production. Some companies are already exploring the use of drones as autonomous wind turbines that would be flown like mechanical kites [4]. The goal is using drones equipped with wind turbines to fly to higher altitudes, where more consistent and powerful wind is available to be harnessed. These drones are lighter and cheaper than wind turbines, and can adjust themselves to the wind streams to maximize their energy harvesting.

Drones are also used by the construction industry. They provide a cost effective way to check the progress of a construction project, help managers inspect hard to reach locations, take architectural photographs, create 3D scans of a building using infrared cameras, survey more precisely, undertake comprehensive safety inspections, and even replace some of a project’s manual labor. Drones recently demonstrated their ability to assemble, brick by brick, a 1:100 scale model of a skyscraper. Researchers are investigating more potential applications of drone technology in construction sector [5].

The most common use of drones will likely be by hobbyists, who have access to cheap, light, camera-equipped machines that can be controlled by smartphones and tablets. Athletes and extreme sports hobbyists are using drones to capture their activities and tricks during snowboarding or skating outings. Climbers have drones follow them for safety and to record and report their progress to base camps. Drones are increasingly being used by amateur or professional photographers to capture footage. While hobbyists can buy drones ready to fly out of the box, many are going the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) route to create customized, specialized aircrafts. Drone hobbyist websites have more than millions of members, and are growing every day. People exchange their experiences, pictures, and schematics, thus enabling their fellow hobbyists to improve their own drones.

Autonomous drone technology is not limited to the skies. Seaborne drones are already deployed in the ocean to monitor coastlines and passageways for pirates [6]. They communicate with an airborne drone for intelligence and can be picked up by a ship or submarine after the mission is completed. They need to be equipped with capabilities to survive for a long time in cold and corrosive seawater, and to tackle the challenges of underwater communication.

The drone industry is growing fast, and is estimated to have created 70,000 jobs and made an economic impact of $13.6 billion in its first three years. With all the benefits this new technology is contributing to our lives, the domestic use of drones has grown; but so have concerns about their privacy, safety, and regulation. Many people are concerned about their potential for abuse. One of the suggestions for government use of drones is limiting their use to a few purposes determined by the law, and specifically for emergency and public safety. Hobbyists and recreational users do not need any special license to fly a drone, but they are encouraged to follow guidelines outlined for public safety. The guidelines mainly suggest operating drones at a sufficient distance from populated areas, and not over or near private properties or lower than 120 meters in altitude. One of the main concerns about the public use of drones is the ease of weaponizing them; they could conceivably be used to attack private targets.

In science fiction movies, intelligent systems and drones can become self-aware and cause serious problems. It is unlikely that drones will become self-aware anytime soon, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any safety issues about drones. As seen with most secure computer systems, drone can be hacked by a malicious person or group. These groups can take control of the vehicle, access its video feeds, alter data and information sent to ground control units, and spoof GPS systems to manipulate the drone to land or attack a different target.

When technological breakthroughs are achieved in critical areas, as in drones, a series of solid scientific research needs to be conducted before populating the civilian market with the technological products. Governments and civil societies have an important role in regulating the usage of drone. Some of these steps include requiring a warrant for deployment, limiting the data retention time for images and video feeds, establishing an accountability mechanism, and prohibiting the weaponization of domestic drones.

Acknowledgment: This article was produced by Mergeous [7], an online article and project development service for authors and publishers dedicated to the advancement of technologies in the merging realms of science and spiritual thought.

Halil I. Demir is an internet entrepreneur and freelance writer.

References

[1] T. Zakaria and M. Hosenball. “U.S. Drone Guidelines Could Reduce -Signature Strikes,” The Huffington Post, May 23, 2013.

[2] H. Kelly. “Drones: The future of disaster response,” CNN, May 23, 2013.

[3] A. Levy and M. Milian. “Future of Drones: Aerial Assassins or Helpful Hovercrafts?” Bloomberg, May 15, 2013.

[4] K. D. Atherton, “Google Bets $10.7 Million On Drone Intelligence,” Popular Science Magazine, May 16, 2013.

[5] R. Von Ins, “Rise of the Drones,” Georgia Institute of Technology, January 23, 2013.

[6] J. Emspak, “Schools of Sleeper Drones Could Swim Future Seas,” Discovery News, January 25, 2013.

[7] Mergeous, Online article and project development service, mergeous.com

•conquered and occupied two large Muslim countries (Afghanistan and Iraq)

•compelled a huge Muslim army to root out a terrorist sanctuary (Pakistan)

•deployed thousands of special forces to numerous Muslim countries (Yemen, Somalia, Sudan etc.)

•imprisoned hundreds of Muslims without recourse

•waged a massive war of ideas involving Muslim clerics to denounce violence and new institutions to bring Western norms to Muslim countries

•killed Osama bin Laden, the inspirational leader of Al Qaeda who carried out the 9/11 attacks.

Have these actions – which some have called, “World War IV” – made America safe?

In a narrow sense, America is safer and justice has been served. There has not been another attack on the scale of 9/11. Our defenses regarding immigration controls, airport security, and the disruption of potentially devastating domestic plots have all improved. This is the positive side of the ledger.

In a broader sense, however, America is not safe enough. Anti-American suicide terrorism rose rapidly around the world in the decade since September 11, 2001. In 2003, then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld famously asked, “Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrasas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?” As even a casual glance at the facts shows, the answer is a disappointing no. The negative side of the balance sheet is daunting.

September 11, 2001 was so devastating largely because it was a suicide attack in which 19 hijackers killed themselves in the course of killing 3,000 innocent people. So the key to tracking the threat is to focus on suicide terrorism, especially those inspired against Americans.

Look at the numbers. In 2000 – the year before 9/11 – there were 20 suicide attacks around the world and one – against the US Cole in Yemen – was anti-American inspired. By contrast, in 2010, there were well over 200 suicide attacks and about 90 percent were anti-American inspired – against US troops or those working with America – a ten-fold increase over the past decade.

Each month, there are more suicide terrorists trying to kill Americans and its allies in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other Muslim countries than in all the years before 2001 combined. Yes, these attacks are mostly (although not exclusively) focused on military and diplomatic targets. However, so too were the anti-American suicide attacks before 2001. It is important to remember that the 1995 and 1996 bombings of US troops in Saudi Arabia, the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and (as mentioned) bombing of the US Cole in Yemen in 2000 were the crucial dots that showed the threat was rising prior to 9/11. Today, such dots are occurring by the dozens every month.

American military policies have not stopped the rising wave of extremism in the Muslim world. The reason has not been lack of effort, lack of will among the American people, lack of bipartisan support for aggressive military policies, lack of funding, or lack of genuine patriotism.

No. American military policies are not failing for the standard excuses. Something else is creating the mismatch between America’s effort and the results.

What went wrong

America has been waging a long war against terrorism, but without much serious public debate about what is truly motivating terrorists to kill us. In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attack, this was perfectly understandable. If toppling the Taliban was necessary to take out Al Qaeda’s sanctuary in Afghanistan, so be it.

But, in an instant, there was also a great need to know, or perhaps better to say, to “understand” the events of that terrible day. A simple narrative was readily available and a powerful conventional wisdom began to exert its grip. Since the 9/11 hijackers were all Muslims, it was easy to presume that Islamic fundamentalism was the central motivating force driving the 19 hijackers to kill themselves in order to kill us. Within weeks after the attack, surveys of American attitudes show that this presumption was fast congealing into a hard reality in the public mind. Americans immediately wondered, “Why do they hate us?” and almost as immediately came to the conclusion that it was because of who we are, not what we do.

The narrative of Islamic fundamentalism did more than explain why America was attacked. It also pointed toward a simple, grand solution – one whose ambition only made it seem all the more worthy in light of the trauma of that terrible day. If Islamic fundamentalism was driving the threat and if its roots grew from the culture of the Arab world, then America had a clear mission: to transform Arab societies – with Western political institutions and social norms as the ultimate antidote to the virus of Islamic extremism.

The only problem: Islamic fundamentalism is not the main driver of suicide terrorism. What drives this phenomenon more than any other single factor is foreign military presence – which inspires wave after wave of individuals to join terrorist groups in order to carry out suicide attacks in the hope that these would end the foreign presence in their lands.

On September 11, 2001, the United States had deployed over 12,000 combat forces to countries on the Persian Gulf (5,000 in Saudi Arabia and 7,000 in other countries along the rim). We now know that these troops were the principle rallying cry of Osama bin Laden in his efforts to mobilize volunteers for suicide attacks against the United States and that the martyr videos of the 9/11 hijackers – their last video will testimonials – prominently justify their actions as in response to Western military control of the governments on the Arabian peninsula. Further, escalation of American combat forces in the region for the Iraq war directly fueled still further anti-American suicide terrorism.

Hence, the grand solution became the grand catalyst for more anti-American inspired suicide terrorism than ever before.

What we know

Vast new research on suicide terrorism has produced important new knowledge. Here is a summary of what we know:

•Occupation causes suicide terrorism

Over 95% of all suicide attacks are in response to foreign occupation

•The more occupation, the more suicide terrorism

As America has occupied two large Muslim countries, Afghanistan and Iraq with a total population of about 60 million, total suicide attacks worldwide have risen dramatically – from about 300 from 1980 to 2003 to 2000+ from 2004 to 2010. Further, 90% of all suicide attacks are now anti-American.

•Indirect occupation is the equivalent of direct occupation

The US compelled Pakistan to deploy 100,000 troops against the Taliban in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Pakistani suicide attacks escalated dramatically.

•Ending occupation can end suicide terrorism even without transforming Muslim countries

Since Israel withdrew its army from Lebanon in May 2000, there has not been a single Lebanese suicide attack. Since Israel withdrew from Gaza and large parts of the West Bank, Palestinian suicide attacks are down over 90%. Since America and its allies began withdrawing from Iraq, suicide attacks are also falling fast.

•Empowering local groups can reduce suicide terrorism

In Iraq, the surge’s apparent success was not the result of increased US military control of Anbar Province, but rather quite the reverse – the empowerment of Sunni tribal leaders for their own security, commonly called the Anbar Awakening.

•Taking power away from local groups can escalate suicide terrorism

In Afghanistan the ISAF’s expansion strategy, designed to exert more central government control over the Pashtun tribes in the Western and Southern provinces, caused a resurgence in the Taliban and an increase in the number of suicide attacks.

The tide is turning

The oxygen for America’s strategy is, fundamentally, how we understand the root cause of the terrorist threat we face. In recent years, the intellectual climate has begun to change. In January 2010, a Zogby poll found that 27% of Americans now believe that the “most important factor” motivating terrorists to attack the United States is that they “resent Western power and influence” compared to 33% who still think the main motive is “make Islam the world’s dominant religion.”

American military policies are also changing. The United States started to draw down military forces from Iraq in 2008, has already removed 100,000 troops, and is on schedule to end its commitment of heavy combat forces there next year. Since their peak in 2007, suicide attacks in the country have fallen by over 80 percent and the country is more stable today than at any point since America conquered the country in 2003.

In Afghanistan, President Obama announced in July his plan to remove about a third of US forces from the country over the next year and to continue drawing down thereafter. If so, there is good reason to expect that suicide attacks will soon begin to decline significantly there as well.

Fortunately the US does not need to station large ground forces in either Iraq or Afghanistan to keep them from being a significant safe haven for Al Qaeda or any other anti-American terrorists. This can be achieved by a strategy called “Off-Shore Balancing” that relies on over-the-horizon air and naval forces and rapidly deployable ground forces, combined with empowering local groups to oppose the terrorist groups. No matter what happens in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US will maintain a significant air and naval presence in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean for many years, and those forces are well-suited to striking terrorist leaders and camps in conjunction with local militias – just as they did so successfully against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in 2001.

Above all, to truly move beyond the war on terror, it is important for scholars, policy intellectuals, government leaders, and the public at large to continue to educate themselves about the factors that lead to suicide attacks like 9/11. The more we know, the fewer mistakes and the better our policies – and the more we can all live our lives in peace.

Robert A. Pape is Professor and Director of the University of Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism and author of Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It (2010).

The spread of Islam would obviously not have occurred without its Prophet, Muhammad, who was able to win support for his spiritual and political status within Arabia in the early seventh century. After having claimed to receive divine revelations, Muhammad slowly acquired a small following and eventually some seventy families had converted to Islam. However, not all of his contemporaries were convinced of the genuineness of his message. This was especially true of the pagan rulers of his Quraysh tribe in Mecca. Consequent persecutions caused the early Muslims to flee to Yathrib, which was located 250 miles north of Mecca. Yet, what appeared to be a backward move for the early believers actually benefited them and their religion as the tribes around Yathrib were enthralled by Muhammad’s spiritual vision and pledged allegiance to the ummah (community). A series of conflicts between the Quraysh and Muslims climaxed in 630 when the Quraysh broke an earlier peace treaty that had been established. This saw Muhammad march upon Mecca with 10,000 men and take the city without bloodshed. He then destroyed the idols around the Kabah and rededicated it to God. By the time of Muhammad’s death in 632, as Karen Armstrong explains, “almost all the tribes of Arabia had joined the ummah as Confederates or as converted Muslims.” As history will show, this was not the end of this remarkable series of events. For unification of Arabia would not cease at the death of the founder of Islam but would rather dramatically gain momentum through his successors, the Caliphs.

With the combination of three important factors: unification, conquest, and religious zeal, the early Caliphs were able to consolidate Muslim rule in Arabia and prepare a launching pad for further conquests. This initial spread of Islam was so rapid that, as H. U. Rahman explains, “in less than one century after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 AD, Muslim rule covered more of the earth than had the Roman Empire at its peak.” This unification did not however happen overnight, and it must be emphasized that Islamic rulers always had much division to contend with. The first Caliph, Abu Bakr, had the difficult job of uniting all of the tribes that had forsaken their allegiance to the ummah after Muhammad’s death. Yet through political, theological, and at times military coercion, Abu Bakr was able to completely unify Arabia before his death in 634. Secondly, despite the assassinations of the next three caliphs – Umar, Uthman, and Ali – which characterizes the bloody period that ensued, the spread of Islam continued to gain momentum as successful military campaigns were carried out abroad. From 634–44, the Caliphate of Umar had conquered Jerusalem, controlled Iraq, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, and defeated the Persian Empire. Furthermore, in Uthman’s reign (644–50), Muslims conquered Cyprus, Tripoli in North Africa, and established Islamic rule in Iran, Afghanistan, and the Sind region. The above two methods of internal unification and successful conquest led to the establishment of the Islamic world during the seventh century, and the speed in which it accomplished this announced to the world that Islam was here – and here to stay.

The third explanation of the rapid spread of Islam throughout Arabia and beyond was – most importantly – the religious zeal of the leaders, soldiers, and general Arab population. Plainly put, without being fuelled with a sense that God was on their side, the Muslim conquests would have fallen far short of their eventual reality. Tamara Sonn explains that the basic tenets of Islamic faith captivated the people and structured Islamic life in Medina, and it was around these practices and core values that the early Muslim community was built. Francesco Gabrieli supports Sonn and places a heavy emphasis on religion as the principal factor underlying and motivating the Arab conquests. Indeed, it is hard to imagine any group achieving geographical expansion without a clear goal and purpose; for the Mongols of the thirteenth century it was a brutal ideological reason, whilst for the Muslims it was the feeling that they were being divinely guided.

Nevertheless the spread of a religious or ideological ideal can only be truly successful if those whom it is trying to gain submission from are disillusioned or unhappy with their own contemporary world. This was the case for the many thousands of people under Byzantine rule. We find that a great number gladly adhered to the conquering Islamic rulers and Quranic law as they found protection and benefits that had not been attained under Byzantine rule. Many minorities had become increasingly dissatisfied with the Byzantine regime due to their insecurities of being persecuted and instead came to favor the secure Islamic rulership who allowed autonomy for minority groups if their taxes were paid. The preference of many of the conquered peoples to favor Islamic rule enabled the Islamic Empire to remain politically stable, which is a prerequisite for any group wanting to expand its geographic borders.

Turning back the clock to the infant stages of Islam, we find that the Muslims were fraught with political struggles for power. With factions developing within the Islamic world following Ali’s assassination (the fourth Caliph) in 661, the unity and prosperity of the new Islamic Empire became threatened. However, it was the way that the Muslims were efficiently able to get back on their feet and consolidate unity that saw these power struggles, which had the potential to dismantle Islamic hopes for expansion, averted. The Islamic world needed a leader who could unite as many of these factions together as possible, and this stability came with the establishment of the Ummayad Dynasty through Muawiyyah I. He ruled from 661–80 and was the first Caliph to move his capital away from Medina, transferring it to Damascus. However unpopular this move was, R. Stephen Humphreys explains that Muawiyyah I saved the Muslim Empire from disintegration as he was, “the only man with the political and military resources available to restore unity within the realm of Islam.” Although the Umayyad period is typically characterized by political and military success, the Umayyad rulers did not forget its founding religion. According to Karen Armstrong, Muawiyyah I was simply “a religious man and a devout Muslim.” Furthermore, a statement of Islam’s superiority to past religions was symbolically made through the establishment of the Dome of the Rock, which was completed at Jerusalem in 691 under Caliph Abd al-Malik. This spiritual construction shows that Islamic rulers could not go forward unless they acknowledged the close relationship between conquest and the Muslim religion, and this was done most emphatically with the construction of this monument.

Despite geographical consolidations made by the early Umayyad Caliphs, discontent remained within the Islamic world with several extremist groups emerging regularly in Islamic culture. This was perhaps a catalyst for Umayyad leaders having a more political conception of Islam than did previous rulers. Although the discontentment of factions within the Islamic world, such as the Shias, could not be eradicated, internal stability generally emerged at the commencement of the Umayyad Dynasty. Paul Lunde explains that the pacification of the central lands under early Umayyad rulers enabled them to focus primarily on conquest so that the spread of Islam could continue. Furthermore, according to Armstrong, conquest was able to be successfully waged during al-Walid I’s reign between 705–715 where the Umayyad dynasty reached its peak and the Muslim armies continued the conquest of North Africa, and established a kingdom in Spain. However, even though the Umayyad Dynasty had expanded its Islamic borders throughout the Arab world, its power soon declined, as internal friction had finally reached unmanageability. Then, the Umayyads – somewhat inevitably – succumbed to the overwhelming power of the Abbasids in 750.

Even though the overthrow of the Umayyad family by the Abbasids was horrific and angered many, this brutal act did not slow the continual geographical or economical gains of Islam. In fact, at the height of Abbasid power in 800 (who had moved the Islamic capital to Baghdad in 762) only Constantinople and Xian, the capital of the great T’ang China, rivaled Baghdad’s wealth. Although military might was the predominant vehicle of Islamic power, the strength of Muslims at the zenith of Abbasid power in the ninth century was represented through a great cultural renaissance which took place in literary criticism, philosophy, poetry, and science. This marked the beginnings of “Muslim genius” as individuals such as Abu Bakr Al Razi (864–925) studied medicine and uncovered unique contraceptive methods; and Abu Nasr Al Farabi (870–950) incorporated logic and politics into philosophy. As Armstrong explains, such was the grandeur of this era that the Muslim scholars made more scientific discoveries during this time than in the whole previously recorded history put together. Hence, these examples symbolize the prestige of the superpower Abbasid Empire of the old world, which asserted itself not only through military conquests but through cultural and scientific discovery.

However, despite the Abbasid period reaching new heights in regards to its geographical expansion, it too slowly declined in prestige from about 935 and would soon be unable to hold off a young and powerful group of Muslims in the centuries to follow: the Turks.

Before the success of one final Islamic Empire is discussed, it is important to reflect on several other specific reasons why Islam spread so rapidly throughout Arabia and to the whole world. Three of these deserve particular mention. First, the Caliphs and Muslim rulers were willing to use existing administrative structures to enforce laws, and it was not uncommon for non-Islamic officials to be used in high places within a conquered society. Second, there was seldom force or coercion used from Islamic forces once a military campaign was successful. As Francesco Gabrieli explains, the traditional theory of the conquests being characterized merely by Bedouin neophytes of Islam rushing from their desert birthplace to convert other nations with the sword has been completely dismissed by modern historiography. In fact, Arabs were quite content with their passive non-Muslim subjects known as dhimmis (those who were second-class citizens under Islamic law, yet protected under this status) and no real effort was made to convert them. This hands-off approach actually led to an increase in Islamic converts regularly throughout the Islamic Empire as individuals were pleased to make their own decision about religion, which is something that had not been afforded them under Byzantine rule.

Finally, further comparisons between Byzantine Christianity and Islam highlight how many became turned off by Christendom but enthusiastic and inquisitive about Islam. Christianity had become heavily clericized by the seventh century and appeared to be exclusive, whilst Islam appealed to individuals by offering unparalleled simplicity through its core principles. According to Abul-Fazl Ezzati, the five pillars of Islam, when compared to Christian orthodoxy, “replaced complexity of religious doctrines with simplicity, trinity with unity, empty theological discussions with concrete observation and fundamental analysis.” Moreover, the extent and rapidity of the success of Islamic military conquests had Muslims feeling that there was something divine aiding their cause. Zealous Muslims and their missionary activities always went hand in hand with the success of Islam and this sense of mission motivated Muslims to assist the expansion efforts in whatever way they could. Hence, Islam appealed to many contemporaries’ needs and with the lure of further expansion, many felt that Islam was the path for the future.

With this understanding in mind, we can finally return to the last great Islamic Empire of the ancient world through looking at the Ottoman Empire. Although Islam had by no means died out in terms of its expansion after Abbasid rule, it had clearly slowed by the fourteenth century. As Armstrong explains, from 935 onwards, “the caliphs no longer (wielded) temporal power but merely (retained) a symbolic authority. Real power now resided with the local rulers, who established dynasties in various parts of the empire.” Moreover, with the addition of the Mongol raids, which began in 1220, Islamic cities became desolate and the spread of Islam was curtailed for the first time in centuries as attention was turned to internal frontiers. However, a final thrust of Islamic expansion would occur through the Ottoman Empire, who slowly consolidated its own power in Anatolia, and by the late fourteenth century had begun to threaten Europe. One of the early Sultans, Murad I (1360–1389), had become the most powerful of the western Muslim rulers and this led to the name of the Ottomans symbolizing hope for a reunified Islamic empire. This hope was fueled by geographical gains made through military expansion by several Ottoman Sultans, such as Murad I (1421–1451), who asserted Ottoman power against Hungary and the West and by 1453 his successor, Mehmed II, who had conquered Constantinople, changed its name to Istanbul, and made it the Ottoman capital. Accordingly, the Ottomans had recommenced Muslim expansion and would look to achieve something past Islamic Empires could not – to successfully challenge Western Europe.

Ottoman expansion continued with Suleiman the Magnificent (1520–66) whose Empire, after conquering Hungary in 1526, had become the greatest power in Eastern Europe. It is important to note here that Suleiman saw the consolidation of Islamic values as the key to his military successes. As Jason Goodwin explains, Suleiman, “oversaw the most detailed codification of sultanic and Quranic law that had ever been known in an Islamic state.” Hence, although the Ottoman Empire did not represent all Muslims, it is clear that great Sultans such as Suleiman did not forget the founder of their religion as they saw themselves as a genuine continuation of early Islamic history. Justin McCarthy puts it clearly for us – “the base of the Ottoman Empire was Islam. Religion was intimately bound up with the ideology and legitimacy of the government … Their Empire was always styled a Muslim empire, one in the line of Islamic empires that had included the Umayyads, the Abbasids, and the Seljuks.” We see once again here, this time under the rule of the Ottomans, that legitimacy and support of a great Islamic Empire went hand in hand with a reflection on the spiritual past of the Muslim tradition.

Nevertheless, during the latter stages of Ottoman rule, the sultans began looking too far outwardly and neglecting inner spirituality, which deadened the degree of support that Muslims would give it. This empire fatally climaxed when the Ottomans looked to secure further lands in Europe. Their efforts fell horribly short, and they lost a vital battle to the coalition of the Holy League in 1683 at Vienna. When they were forced to humiliatingly sign the Treaty of Carlowicz in 1699, they had to yield Ottoman Hungary to Austria, which was the first major Ottoman reversal. Although the Empire did not crumble overnight, this point marks the end of Ottoman expansion – and indeed Islamic expansion – and the beginning of its slow decline.

The powerful Islamic dynasties and empires finally came to an end with the demise of the Ottoman Empire. Yet the legacy that both it and previous rulerships had left behind was remarkable geographical expansion, which had emanated from a small tribe in Arabia. The spread of Islam was orchestrated through the close connection of most Muslims and their leaders to an Islamic way of life, which gave them a sense of purpose for their conquests and expansions. It is important to understand that this was not always done smoothly; the overthrows of Islamic Empires did not always happen peacefully and blood was often internally shed in order to propel a fresher and stronger willed Islamic group forward. Although much internal strife was a common characteristic of the Islamic Empires, the historical reality shows us that enough of the Muslim population was willing to forget past disagreements and get on with a common cause of conquering peoples and gaining territory. Yet the key to all of this success was surely the religious foundation of the Prophet and the early Caliphs. Through future Islamic rulers regularly reminding their adherents of their Prophet and of his message, the Muslims felt as if they were part of something greater than themselves. Despite religious zeal fluctuating from time to time, Islamic faith would always seem to be reinvigorated which led to grand Empires being established and Islamic history being created.

Paul Kearns has a major in history and English from Monash University, Melbourne.

Notes

1. Karen Armstrong, Islam: A Short History, New York, 2000, p. 12.

2. Ibid, 23.

3. H. U. Rahman, A Chronology of Islamic History: 570-1000 ce, London, 1989, p. vii.

4. Tamara Sonn, A Brief History of Islam, Oxford, 2004, p. 23.

5. Armstrong, 2000, pp. 27, 29.

6. Ibid, p. xiv.

7. Sonn, 2004, p. 22.

8. Francesco Gabrieli, Muhammad and the Conquests of Islam, London, 1968, p. 104.

9. Sonn, 2000, pp. 25, 34.

10. R. Stephen Humphreys. Mu‘awiya ibn Abi Sufyan: From Arabia to Empire, Oxford, 2006, p. 84.

11. Armstrong. 2000, p. 42.

12. Ibid, p. 44.

13. Gerald R. Hawting. The First Dynasty of Islam: The Umayyad Caliphate AD 661-750, London, 1986, p. 2.

14. Paul Lunde. Islam, London, 2002, p. 52.

15. Armstrong, 2000, p. 50.

16. Lunde, 2002, p. 56.

17. Akbar S. Ahmed. Discovering Islam: Making Sense of Muslim History and Society, London, 2002, pp. 44-5.

18. Armstrong, 2000, p. 56.

19. Ibid, p. 54.

20. Gabrieli, 1968, p. 105.

21. Ibid, p. 115.

22. Abul-Fazl Ezzati. An Introduction to the History of the Spread of Islam, London, 1978, p. 43.

23. Ibid, p. 3.

24. Armstrong, 2000, p. xix.

25. Sonn, 2000, p. 78.

26. Patrick Kinross. The Ottoman Centuries: The Rise and Fall of the Turkish Empire, New York, 1979, p. 187.

27. Jason Goodwin. Lords of the Horizon: A History of the Ottoman Empire, New York, 1998, p. 83.

28. Justin McCarthy, The Ottoman Turks: An Introductory History to 1923, London, 1997, p. 106.

29. Armstrong, 2000, p. xxvi.

I could claim that I did not want to go just because of my fear of flying, but I must confess that when I was first offered to join a trip to Turkey, I was filled with trepidation. The source of my misgivings was actually a stereotype I was harboring-I thought of the Turks as an unbeatable and ferocious military power. While growing up in Boston as a second-generation Lebanese, I heard stories about the “old country” all my life. As one story goes, it was the “Turks” who caused my maternal grandfather to leave his beloved Mount Lebanon and immigrate to America. That was in 1913, when it was common for Turkish soldiers to swoop down on villages in Syria, round up the young men, and consign them to distant shores to quash uprisings against the Ottoman Empire. None of them ever returned. So, at the age of twenty-two, having no heart to shoot anyone and dodging the violence he found so odious, my grandfather headed for America. On my father’s side of the family, I had an uncle called “Turk.” Family folklore had it that Uncle Turk earned his lifelong sobriquet because of the mayhem he committed on the football field at Colby College about sixty years ago. Another thing that made a lasting impression on me was a popular song that came out in the 1950s:

So take me back to Constantinople

No, you can’t go back to Constantinople

Been a long time gone, Constantinople

Why did Constantinople get the works?

That’s nobody’s business but the Turks

This song reinforced the image I had of the Turks-that their military prowess was something people wrote songs about.

My interest in Turkish politics was piqued more recently when concerns were raised about the strength and resolve of its secular government. I decided that on my trip I would try to learn more about the situation, in particular, the relationship between secularism, religion, and the headscarf.

The first time I studied Islamic history was at Harvard in a postgraduate course. I remembered the lesson on Constantinople, the brightest jewel in the crown of the Byzantine Empire. Its conquest had eluded the Muslim emirs for seven centuries, until it fell at the hands of the Ottoman Sultans, renowned for their military expertise.

Ironically, I was drawn to the military museum in Istanbul, and it was an amazing experience because the walls seemed to reverberate with the pride of past accomplishments. What fascinated me was the detailed story of the conquest of Constantinople and the life-size figures on display. There was the conqueror, Mehmet, sitting straight and tall on a white stallion, and beside him, standing with a cane was an old man with a long white beard-Mehmet’s spiritual advisor Aksemseddin. In 1453, the conquest had rocked the world. Mehmet was just twenty-one years old at the time. At Harvard, I had never learned anything about Mehmet having a spiritual advisor, although I had asked my professor many times, without ever receiving a satisfactory answer, what the role of religion was in the Ottoman Empire, especially for the Turks.

In the twenty-first century, the role of religion is the subject of much debate. In Turkey, a great deal of discussion has arisen over the law that forbids women from wearing a headscarf on government property (such as the military museum) or at government-run universities. The law is based on Turkey’s eighty-year history of maintaining the separation of church and state. For a foreigner like myself, it was strange to witness college girls who would stand outside the university gates to take the headscarf off before entering (or risk being thrown out of school), and then stand outside the gates to put it back on when they were leaving.

Although I cannot speak with any authority on the political situation in Turkey, I had first-hand experience with the law. Driving into the museum parking lot, a young man in a military uniform stopped our car, lowered his head, and leaned into the window. Pointing to me in the back seat, he said in Turkish, “That headscarf has to come off!” My gracious Turkish hosts had fully prepared me for this moment. However, it struck me for the first time that Turkey was facing an enormous challenge: to reconcile secularism and religious freedom; something we take for granted in America.

Secularists might say that to speak of religious freedom in Turkey is to be totally nave, but as a student of Turkish history, I am not that nave. I understand the threat to secular society presented by the radical Islamists, but who are the “radical Islamists” in Turkey? Surely, not every religious person wants to overthrow the government? To find clarification on the matter, the news stories I had read were totally inadequate. So, after being introduced to some career-minded college girls who wore the headscarf, I decided to ask them informally for their political and religious views.

Of Turkish history, I knew that in the past few decades there has been a movement among the younger generations to embrace Islam and more young women now wear the headscarf. As sociologists know, with most social movements, whatever has been repressed eventually rises up in society. The religious revival in Turkey could be a response to the secularizing reforms, but there are global factors to consider as well.

I asked the college girls what kind of state they hoped for. Their answer was unequivocal and unanimous. They did not want to live in a society where they had no freedom or equal rights. They vehemently rejected the fundamentalism, that is, the kind of tribal mentality that creates a society bereft of the basic values of Islam, such as peace, justice, compassion, and equality for all human beings; and places greater value on violence, oppression, and punishment. They railed against associating Islam with rigid ideologies and tyrants. The college girls I surveyed indicated no desire for a state religion. They wanted to participate and contribute to a modern society where everyone was free to work and practice their religion.

I understand that some sections in Muslim societies are unable or unwilling to modernize their societies, but such things take time. I discovered that Turkey is really at the vanguard of modernity in the Muslim world, and that Turkish scholars have already conceived of a true representation of Islam. I was introduced to the writings of one of the contemporary Turkish religious thinkers, Fethullah Gulen, who has described the essence of religious practice in these words: “Loving and respecting humanity merely because they are human is an expression of love and respect for the Almighty Creator.” Whether secular or religious, I could think of no better ethos for Muslims to follow.

On my last day in Istanbul, I stood on a hill overlooking the Bosphorus. The chilly winds and watery vistas reminded me of San Francisco Bay. In my view too was the bridge that connects two continents, Europe and Asia. In this and in other indescribable ways, Turkey combined the best of both worlds, where humanistic values and modern Islamic thought can coexist. To me, it felt natural to stand astride the two worlds, to inhabit both, or perhaps neither.

Mary Lahaj has a master’s degree from the Hartford Seminary in Islamic Studies and Christian/Muslim Relations. She is currently the first Muslim woman chaplain at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in their residency program and also works as the Muslim Advisor for the Groton School. In 2005, she received the Promoting Peace Through Dialogue Award, awarded to her by the Boston Dialogue Foundation.

Notes

1. In fact in Turkey the state controls the practice of Islam through the Religious Affairs Directorate. For example, all imams are obliged to read the same sermon (khutba) at Friday prayer, the sermon being provided by the directorate. (Ed.)

I argue against these claims, based upon strong empirical evidence indicating that war does not occur among democratic states, the so-called zone of peace. As democratic regimes replace authoritarian regimes, future generations will study wars as an obsolete part of history.

This article has three parts: tracing the roots of the democratic peace argument and providing supporting evidence, examining the three mechanisms offered to explain the absence of war among democratic states, and critically evaluating the democratic peace argument.

Does democratic peace exist?

One should define democracy before answering the above question. Democracy is a combination of two Greek words: demos (people) and kratos (rule)”rule by the people. In a direct democracy, citizens are directly engaged in the law-making process though a majority system. In a representative democracy, as we have today, citizens use their legislative powers through their elected representatives. Both types also require a constitutional framework through which the majority can exercise its power and through which the individual and collective rights of people are guaranteed.

The roots of democratic peace argument can be traced back to the German philosopher Immanuel Kant’s (1724-1804) Perpetual Peace essay, published in 1795.(3) He argued that although state rulers decide to start a war, it is the people who suffer the consequences (e.g., the loss of money, property, and lives). Thus they are reluctant to engage in war. Since rulers of democratic states are accountable to the people, they are less inclined to initiate a war.

Kant also identified commerce as another reason for perpetual peace among democracies. Increasing trade leads states to realize that they have much to loose from conflict and thus reinforces their desire to avoid war. Finally, the existence of a pacific union prevents the outbreak of war between democracies. Such a union reinforces the idea that democracies have common goals and interests, and further mitigates the desire for armed conflict.

Michael Doyle, a former professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton and now assistant secretary general of the UN, revisited Kant’s perpetual peace argument.(4) He showed that, as Kant had predicted, there is no historical case of two democratic states fighting each other. Using the correlates of war data prepared by University of Michigan researchers, he listed all the democratic states and interstate wars occurring after 1815. He pointed out that although wars occurred between non-democratic states and between democratic and non-democratic states, there has been no war between democratic states since 1815.

Doyle listed three different factors to account for this: caution, respect, and interest. Democratic leaders are cautious when initiating military conflict, for otherwise their constituencies will punish them by removing them from power. Rulers of democratic states respect each other because they respect their populations. Democratic rulers may reason that military dictators will not respect the citizens of a democracy because military dictators do not respect their own people. Finally, the level of trade among democratic states is so high that they become dependent on each other. This interdependence decreases the utility of military force during disputes.

Supporters of the democratic peace argument have examined such long-term rivalries Argentina and Britain, Pakistan and India, Greece and Turkey to see whether being a democracy has had any impact on military hostilities between these pairs. Greece and Turkey provide an example of how dictatorships are more prone to war. They have fought three wars, but not when both of them were democratic. This also has been true with Ecuador and Peru, Argentina and Chile, and Brazil and Argentina, all of which have had bitter rivalries. The Falklands War between Argentina and Britain took place when Argentina was a dictatorship and resulted in the military rulers being replaced by a stable democratic regime.

Like inter-state conflicts, civil wars provide another set of empirical support for the democratic peace argument. Democratic states rarely experience civil wars. Why would any group launch a war to control a state when they could pursue their goals peacefully through electoral participation? Democratization is, then, a way to prevent civil wars. Dean Babst and William Eckhardt conducted a 42-year study of all independent countries from 1950 to 1991. Their study found that although 90 percent of dictatorships have experienced some form of civil war, no civil wars occurred in democratic states during that period.(5)

The end of the cold war

The end of the cold war popularized the idea of democratic peace. However, there were some differences about the new world order that was to replace the cold war. Robert Kaplan predicted a coming anarchy,(6) in which a state’s control over its population vanishes and different armed groups create an anarchic environment. Samuel Huntington saw a coming clash of civilizations,(7) in which states belonging to different civilizations would fight each other. John Mearsheimer defined the new world order as back to the future,(8) in which the superpowers’ departure from Europe would create a power vacuum that various European countries would seek to fill through conflict. The democratic peace argument offered an alternative model for the new world order.

American officials upheld the democratic peace argument. In 1992, Secretary of State James Baker said: The cold war has ended, and we now have a chance to forge a democratic peace, an enduring peace built on shared values”democracy and political and economic freedom. The strength of these values in Russia and the other new independent states will be the surest foundation for peace”and the strongest guarantee of our national security”for decades to come.(9) Similarly, President Clinton declared in his 1994 State of the Union Speech: Ultimately the best strategy to ensure our security and to build a durable peace is to support the advance of democracy elsewhere. Democracies don’t attack each other.(10) And at the height of the crisis in Haiti in 1994, he supported military intervention on the grounds that: Democracies here are more likely to keep the peace.(11)

The idea of democratic peace is not new to American foreign policy. Woodrow Wilson made a similar argument as early as 1917: A steadfast concert of peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith w/in [a concert]. Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a common end and prefer to the interest of mankind to any narrow interest of their own.(12)

Two explanations

There are two key issues here. First, democratic peace does not mean that democratic states are peace-lovers, for democratic states do initiate war with authoritarian states. In addition, pacifist public opinion cannot explain democratic peace, for such a situation would lead to democratic states having peaceful relations with all states, whether democratic or not. Therefore any explanation for democratic peace must account for the absence of war between democratic states and the persistence of war between democratic and non-democratic states.

Second, correlation does not mean causation. Correlations establish empirical and observable regularities between two variables (democratic states and war), but do not explain the underlying mechanisms causing the observed empirical regularity. For example, there has been no war between states having McDonald’s restaurants. This perfect correlation, however, does not mean that McDonald’s restaurants lead to peace (the so-called McDonald’s peace theory). Clarifying underlying mechanisms prevents explanations based on spurious correlations.

Researchers offer two mechanisms to explain peace among democratic states: normative and institutional.

Normative: Normative democratic peace researchers assume that decision-makers use conflict resolution tools developed in domestic politics when dealing with external problems and expect other decision-makers to follow a similar strategy. As a result democratic leaders, when dealing with a democratic state, try (and expect other democratic leaders) to establish consensus through nonviolent means to solve external problems. While dealing with non-democratic leaders, however, democratic leaders tend to resort to violence easily because they expect authoritarian leaders will use violent means.(13)

For example, when dealing with Hitler or Stalin, democratic leaders inferred that they would use negotiations to gain time for military preparations, for these leaders did not come from a culture where problems were solved through negotiations. Thus, democratic leaders do not expect to reach a negotiated agreement with authoritarian leaders.

Institutional: Institutional democratic peace researchers argue that democratic institutions cause peace among democratic states. In democracies, the presence of checks and balances and high levels of public involvement in the political process constrain state leaders and prevent hasty decisions. These constraints also slow down the decision-making process. As a result, third parties have time to intervene among democratic states and help them solve their problems peacefully.

Democratic leaders do not fear a surprise attack when they have a problem with other democratic states, because they are aware that those states have democratic institutional mechanisms. Since there is little, if any, constraint in an authoritarian state, authoritarian rulers can make quick decisions. Therefore democratic rulers fear a surprise attack by an authoritarian ruler. Furthermore, since authoritarian rulers know that democratic leaders are constrained, they tend to push democratic leaders for more concessions. Such a tactic might escalate a crisis into a war.

Lastly, democratic rulers are elected and are cautious about using violence, for they can be punished by their constituencies. Authoritarian rulers do not have to worry about elections.(14) For example, Saddam can start a war quite easily because he needs no one’s approval and is not affected by the outcome. So far, Saddam has launched and lost two wars, both of which inflicted enormous misery on Iraqi people”and yet he remains in power. In democratic countries, however, people punish rulers who start wars without their approval by not re-electing them.

Problems

The democratic peace argument is not immune from problems.(15) First, there is no one definition of democracy, for researchers use different data sets with different codifications to measure levels of democracy. Various definitions (e.g., free elections, at least one peaceful transfer of power, universal suffrage, free press, free expression, and human rights) make it harder to test democratic peace argument. It also can cause one researcher to codify a given country as democratic while another will classify it as authoritarian.

Second, there is no consensus on how to define war. This is important, for even though democratic states did not openly fight each other, they did conduct covert operations against other democratic regimes and brought less-democratic regimes to power. For example, the US and Britain overthrew the democratically elected Mossadegh government in Iran in 1953 and replaced him with the less-democratic Shah. Similarly, the CIA helped overthrow the democratically elected Allende government in Chile in 1973 and replace him with the authoritarian Pinochet.

Third, democracies have been quite rare in history. Therefore, chances for a war between them were low. The geographical distribution of democratic countries further weakens the importance of the democratic peace argument. For example what is chance of democratic New Zealand fighting democratic Spain?

Only after WWII did the number of democracies begin to increase. During this period, however, all democratic states were allies. Thus skeptics argue that security concerns rather than regime type explains democratic peace. Mearsheimer for example, argues that European democracies may experience another war after the end of the cold war.

From democratic peace to perpetual peace

Overwhelming evidence indicates that democracies are better in terms of providing internal peace for their citizens and can serve as the building blocks of a global and perpetual peace. Democratic norms and institutions provide a strong basis for peace among democratic countries. At the turn of the twentieth century, there was only a handful of democratic states; there were 22 by 1950. By 2000, according to Freedom House criteria, 85 counties had governments that came to power through free elections and respect basic human rights and the rule of law. As the number of democracies increases, the zone of peace will expand.

The end of the cold war provided the opportunity to design a new world order. After more than a decade, it seems we can claim that the US foreign policy establishment believes in the democratic peace argument and actively supports democratization throughout the world. Time will show the success of these efforts. 

Footnotes

1. The author can be reached at.
2. Charles Kagley and Eugene Wittkopf, World Politics: Trend and Transformation, 7th ed. (St. Martin’s Press: 1998), 347.
3. Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch, (1975). Online at: http://home.freeuk.com/ethos/kantperpe.htm.
4. Michael Doyle, Kant, Liberal Legacies and Foreign Affairs, Philosophy & Public Affairs 12 (Summer 1983): 205-35
5. Dean V. Babst and William Eckhardt, How Peaceful Are Democracies Compared with Other Countries? Peace Research (1992).
6. Robert Kaplan, The Coming Anarchy (Vintage Books: 2000).
7. Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996).
8. John Mearsheimer, Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War, International Security 15, no. 1 (1990): 5-56.
9. Entire speech online at: http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/offdocs/ b920615.htm.
10. Entire speech online at: http://www.crisny.org/government/us/ us.sotu94.html.
11. The Economist (1 Apr. 1995).
12. Entire speech online at: http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1917/ wilswarm.html.
13. Bruce Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).
14. Ibid.
15. For critiques of the democratic peace argument, see David Spiro, The Insignificance of the Democratic Peace, International Security 19 (Fall 1994): 50-86; Joanna Gowa, Democratic States and International Disputes, International Organization 49 (Summer 1995): 511-22; and Mearsheimer, Back to the Future.

Why and how civilizations rise and fall is a hard question to answer. To do so, one must understand the civilization and the time in which it began to rise. Jason Goodwin, an English journalist, uses memoirs of European visitors and standard histories to explore the 600-year existence of the Ottoman Empire. He writes: This is a book about a people who do not exist. The word ˜Ottoman does not describe a place. Nobody nowadays speaks their language.

The Ottoman Empire, at one time, stretched from the border of Iran to the gates of Vienna and included hundreds of ethnic groups and three dozen nations. United under a tolerant form of Islam, the Ottoman Turks forged a culture that was such a prodigy of pep, such a miracle of human ingenuity, that contemporaries felt it was helped into being by powers not quite human”diabolical or divine, depending on their point of view.

The Ottomans were the first state to maintain a standing army in Europe since Roman days. Chalcocondyle, a Byzantine chronicler, wrote:

I think there is no prince who has his armies and camps in better order, both in abundance of victuals and in beautiful order they use in encamping without any confusion or embarrassment.

Goodwin argues that the key to Ottoman success, besides an obvious skill at war, was cultural and institutional open-mindedness: The Ottoman umbrella made room for Spanish Jews, Orthodox Greeks, Venetian merchants, Albanian tribesmen, Arab bedouins, and others. The Ottomans did not demand religious or linguistic uniformity. Unlike later imperialists, they never asked themselves why others were not like them. Muslims followed Islamic law, and Christians and Jews were expected to have their own laws. Community leaders were allowed to run the community’s affairs as long as they did not come into direct conflict with Islamic organization.

An Ottoman was not born, but made, passing through imperial schools, following the requisite course of studies says Goodwin. There was no inherited nobility, as in other contemporary European empires, for people rose on merit. Cities prospered by agriculture and trade. Social welfare projects were maintained by tax-exempt charitable foundations holding almost one-third of the land and great wealth. These foundations built bridges and mosques, took care of the sick and the poor, and lodged travelers for free.

With the coming of the Industrial Revolution, however, the Ottomans lost their military, economic, and social superiority. Decreased military power resulted in land losses and reduced tax revenues, and self-indulgent leaders could not adapt the intricate socio-economic structure to changing conditions. Although palace intrigue, factional rivalry, military disloyalty, and nationalist rebellions in Greece and Egypt combined to sap its strength, it survived into the twentieth century.

Goodwin narrates this fascinating story in an elegantly written, thoroughly entertaining work of popular history. As he quotes from Andrija Kacic-Mosic: These songs will not be for everyones taste May those who find them pleasing sing them; may those who do not, go off to sleep.

They did this within their own families as well, developing parent-child relationships, child rearing, values and beliefs, and other systems. If a society cannot develop one or more socially acceptable systems by which to raise its young people, its continued existence is called into question.

Like everything else, systems are dynamic and evolving. A major ingredient for a successful system-wide change is sufficient time to adapt. We hear of animal species dying out and indigenous peoples losing their culture because they could nol adapt fast enough. However, some people are impatient with the pace of change. They want to speed it up, by force if necessary. One man enforced rapid national change through decree and enforced it with raw power: Pol Pot, leader of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge. The results, nol surprisingly, were beyond belief.

Other Utopians, among them Plato and Sir Thomas More, confined their utopias to books. Ironically, a close reading of their texts or those of the self-proclaimed utopian societies that have emerged probably would encourage people to flee from them. Why? Because they are grounded in suppressing individuality in the name of pursuing “Ihe greater good”-usually at any cost. But what else is a man or a woman if not an individual? To insist upon being an individual under the Khmer Rouge literally meant instant death. We can only speculate how the inhabitants of Plato’s or Sir Thomas More’s ideal societies would deal with non-conformists.

In the scientific realm, scientists are devising artificial systems to improve our quality of life. One example is the electronic nose, which can be used to detect spoiled food and air quality, assist doctors and nurses in medical diagnoses, and help the military clear land mines. Another example is that of superconductivity. Using various combinations of elements, wires, and temperatures, scientists erect elaborate structures that result in supercomputers, mag-lev trains, SQUIDS (used to study the brain), particle accelerators, and other devices

One artificial system that has spread like wildfire in many countries is e-mail. Once the preserve of the American government and military, it is now an established part of many people’s and businesses’ daily routine. Although far from perfect, the current system seems to function rather well.

And then there are the more abstract systems that shape a culture: religion, one’s conception of how and why the universe functions, why things were created, what being civilized means, and how one can live a moral life. Some civilizations define themselves and are defined by-their religion. During the Middle Ages, Christian Europe applied this standard to the Muslim world. The resulting stereotypes and misunderstandings, despite calls for mutual understanding and acceptance, are alive today and color all relations between these two civilizations.

We hope that you enjoy this issue and, as always, look forward to your comments.

Wartime coverage

For big institutions that need to deal with the media, buying advertisements through media outlets is a common way to avoid being attacked by the media and sponsoring programs is a good device for using the media as PR agents. After some bad experiences with the media in the Korean War and worse experiences in the Vietnam War, the US military determined to harness the power of the media. Like any other service-providers keen to establish and maintain the popularity of their products, the military sought to advertise their services: patriotism, heroism, military might and, of course, war. During the Gulf War they played the role of an advertising client of the media, especially the broadcast media, and, in effect, sponsored a live war spectacle in the Persian Gulf. Thousands of soldiers and innocent civilians made up the cast for a show which attracted millions to their TV screens. It was a masterpiece of collaboration between the army and the media.

In order to sustain government and national policies, especially in ‘democratic’ countries, public support is vital, and today the media monopolize this power of persuasion. We can see power centres attempting to control media as early as the 1400s. When Gutenberg invented the printing press, the Roman Catholic Church saw this tool being used to undermine the papal authority, and declared it as ‘evil.’ During the second half of the twentieth century, especially in democratic countries like the US, the broadcasting media have themselves become a major power centre. Since the majority of the intellectuals in these countries regard the media as a ‘watchdog’ over the actions of government, the media exercise tremendous political authority as well as economic power. Since very few, if any, major policy decisions can be made without media approval, government needs to reconcile itself to the media rather than control them. Indeed, whoever needs the media’s ‘seal of approval’ must appeal to the media.

Except for government financed channels, all media outlets are commercial and the goal of channels like ABC, NBC, and CNN is making profit, rather than playing the ‘watchdog’ role. Inevitably, the ‘watchdog’ role is often compromised by the need to make profit. A well-known example of this in the past was the relationship between the media and the cigarette industry. Cigarette companies paid huge amounts of money to the media which encouraged them not to discuss the harmful side- effects of smoking. ‘Information concerning the hazards of cigarette smoking was available as early as 1938 but was ignored, censored or played down by the media to such an extent that, even two decades later, only 44 percent of the people thought smoking was a cause of lung cancer’ (Jensen, 1993, p.212). In exchange for some benefits, the media can be manipulated to hide information and sometimes even give false information. Such a case occurred during the Reagan administration: each of the three big networks ABC, CBS and NBC was acquired by corporations that might have been unqualified under earlier FCC standards which Reagan lifted. In return, the big media dispensed relentlessly positive news about Reaganism and the great trickle-down dream (ibid., p.25). Furthermore, by writing positive news, ‘government lying was too willingly supported by the media’ (ibid., p.26). The general public are quite ignorant of the extent of distortion and false reporting. We are not speaking of hiding some few government blunders but of giving erroneous background information to favour a declaration of war or the application of murderously punitive economic sanctions against a country. Seriously independent, investigative journalists, such as those who publish annually The Censored Year Book, document many cases of disinformation and misinformation by the US media on serious issues that involve loss of human life. 

Following what they saw as the bias of the media during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the American military made a study of the weak points of the media, as of an enemy. In particular, they realized that the media’s concern to find the most interesting, up- to-date and spectacular news so that their channel would be viewed by large audiences was more important to them than their ‘watchdog’ role: ‘the larger the audience, the more they can charge for advertising’ (Fitzgerald). The media’s need for high ratings made them vulnerable to bargaining pressure, which the military exploited as any business interest would. War crimes and horrors were not to be shown, if the media wanted access to the international which would secure their audience ratings. The media’s capacity to present war as a big show was first realized (and managed) by British officials during the Falklands conflict. They knew that if the media were denied other alternatives than showing the official propaganda footage, they would use the propaganda rather than have nothing to broadcast. The British experience became the pattern for US military officials who set up a new, semi-formal code for US media and military relations. Following the Falklands pattern, military officials in charge of the Grenada, Panama and Gulf wars made it clear to media executives (through, for example such agreements as the Pentagon’s ten-page list of rules, revised in January 1991) that if they did not misbehave by revealing war crimes or US casualties they would have access to their military show and would make some profit. The deal suited both sides. CNN Executive Vice-President Ed Turner said:‘In the end, we are going to co-operate [with the US military]’ (Sukow, 1991) revealing his desire not to miss the chance to air the curious military show about to happen in the Arabian desert. However, it was not a show, it was a war. As a result, just as arguments for a non-military resolution were denied prominence, so too the unpleasant realities of the imposed military resolution, including the loss of human life, were hidden from a world-wide audience.

Conclusion

The military evolved tactics against the media to influence them as they had once influenced the military, began with the Korean War. Until the beginning of the end of the Vietnam War, the relations continued in the same pattern. Following the British example in the Falklands, the US military had their own model of media control in place before the Grenada invasion, and had made it more effective still for the Panama invasion. During the Gulf War, in the latest phase of these evolving tactics, there began a new level of almost overt commercial co-operation between the US military and the US mass media.

Today media and military planners work together on the battlefield. In the Gulf War, reflecting on the effort the broadcasting companies and other mass media put into advertising the war and attaining public support for it, we can say that correspondents seemed as if they were working as members of the army: the media functioned as a department of the military with the task of achieving public support for the victory. The co-operation between the army and news media succeeded. In the Gulf War, many reprehensible acts were committed by the US and its allies such as the bombing of civilian targets, including shelters and apartments, or concocting lies in order to make propaganda against the enemy seem legitimate. Sometimes this was even done by means of the President, George Bush. However, the war was legitimized in the eyes of the US public, and also in the eyes of many people all around the world.

In the past, the relationship between the military and the media was not so close. For the sake of getting good and interesting coverage, in many cases, the media harmed the aims of the military by exposing their failures or wrong actions, such as in the Vietnam War. In response, military and government offices increased censorship and stopped media access to military and governmental sources. After a long struggle and animosity between the media and the military, they appear to have become wholly reconciled in a mode of co-operation beneficial for both sides: exciting coverage and an international audience for the media and unquestioning public support for the military and government policies. Today the media, knowingly or unknowingly, function as the US Army’s PR agent, and in return the military gives them an important and exciting international event to report, which everyone is curious to see: war.

References

• FITZGERALD, J. (1995) ‘Aesthetics & Media Criticism’. Lecture in Emerson College, Media Criticism Aesthetics course, January 19.
• JENSEN, C. (1993) The News That Didn’t Make the News and Why, The 1993 Censored Year Book, Sheburne Press.
• KARNOW, S. (1984) Vietnam: A History. The first Complete Account of Vietnam at War, Penguin Books, New York, NY, p.23.
• LEE, R. S.H. (1978) ‘Early Korean War Coverage’, Journalism Quarterly, 55, pp.789fl93.
• MARTINI, L. Director. Lines in the Sand. Griffin-Wirth Assoc. c.1991.
• SHARKLEY, J. (1991) Under Fire, The Centre for Public Integrity, pp.614.
• SUKOW, M. R. (1991) ‘The Storm and the Eye’, Broadcasting, January 14.

The era of illumination which began with the coming of our Prophet, upon him be peace, lasted for centuries. Then, we began to lose the dynamism of our civilization, to collapse. As a result, we came to regard the enemy as more powerful than ourselves. Our power of will and strength of spirit were paralysed. We sought excuses for our defeats, and considered the enemy invincible. The people, in consequence, lost their hope and resolve.

For many centuries we have deluded ourselves into believing our enemies irresistible, singing the praises of their military superiority. On occasions, we have even accused our ancestors of failing to match the technical advances of our opponents and have spoken ill of them. At other times, we have moaned that the enemy is cruel and pitiless. What we have not done is to criticize ourselves and honestly evaluate our own attitudes. In doing so, we have inflicted further heavy blows to the hope and resolve of people. It will remain impossible to establish the real reasons for our collapse, impossible to achieve a true revival as long as we continue to ascribe our defeats only to the military or technical superiority of the enemy and the superior number of their mechanized troops.

So ask yourselves, and then tell me, have you actually fulfilled your obligations? Have you been able to pursue the right road in your activities? Do you have enough will-power and resistance to overcome the obstacles that you face? Are your thoughts and actions in conformity with your beliefs? Have you been able to keep clear of such sinister motivating forces as hatred, malice and vengeance? And your plans and projects–are they carefully, accurately and appropriately thought out?

Only those afflicted with paralysis of will-power and spirit are so blind to their own faults that they busy themselves in finding fault with others. Such poor souls will never be able to perceive the truth, nor make a spiritual recovery, unless they admit that they are themselves fallible.

Every defeat and decline from greatness arises, first of all, from spiritual bankruptcy, and it will continue until there is spiritual recovery. What is most ominous for the well-being of the community is that the spiritually bankrupt individuals do not hold themselves responsible for the decay of the social order, and persist in laying the blame for it on others.

For God’s sake, stop blaming others, and allow yourself to carry a little of the blame. Be self-critical, at least a little. If indeed you are on the right road, if indeed your hearts are set on the service of the truth, and fully alert to your responsibilities, then no one will be able to do you any harm. Remember that only by the Will of God does harm or good come to anyone. Remember that the way has always been paved by Divine Destiny for those pure, loving souls who are determined to serve and support the truth.

How often has a small, resolute band, devoted to jihad, overcome, by God’s leave, a more numerous host. Many devout, godly persons have spent their whole lives in the way of God, and not quailed in front of whatever has befallen them. They have neither been weakened, nor brought low. They are the fortunate ones who are welcomed by the angels, and it is they who will be commemorated by succeeding generations.

Terrorists aim to get a lot of people to pay attention to their cause; they don’t necessarily want a lot of people dead. Since they have neither large armies nor economic power, the terrorists’ political hopes lie in the success or failure of their propaganda (Livingstone, 1988, p.120). However, to get attention terrorists must terrorize, must escalate violence in order to capture or recapture headlines (Jenkins, 1985).

The state’s response to terrorism can be categorised as ‘legitimate’ ‘suppressive’ or ‘concessionary’. ‘Legitimate’ measures include the whole range of legal procedures and punishments, special but ‘irregular’ counter-terrorist forces assisted by special courts, special rights of surveillance and arrest, very specific media restrictions, visa controls, etc. ‘Suppressive’ measures can include punitive military strikes against the terrorists (if they can be located) or military or economic or diplomatic sanctions against foreign powers alleged to be supporting the terrorists, intensive propaganda campaigns, extensive media restrictions, etc. ‘Concession’, obviously, involves negotiating some sort of deal with the terrorists.

The state’s counter-terrorist strategy has four major aspects: deterrence; intelligence (early warning); defence; retaliation. Deterrence works on the assumption that the terrorists can be persuaded that the costs of their policy exceed the benefits. Typically, however, terrorists do not have identifiable assets against which the state can take or threaten action. Deterrent action is therefore usually directed against foreign powers allegedly involved in assisting or supporting the terrorists. Apart from the diplomatic and legal complications which may result from such deterrence, the state must also calculate how far action against the foreign power really would affect the terrorists themselves.

lntelligence aims primarily at early warning of what are by their very nature surprise military attacks. ‘Humint’ or covert human intelligence depends on infiltrating terrorist cells, a more hazardous and difficult task than against other types of enemy organizations. Also, information collected about terrorist activity is usually limited in quantity and quality.

Active defence, pre-emptive arrests or military strikes, depends on identification and early warning. Passive defence consists mostly of so-called ‘target hardening’, that is, making potential targets harder to reach and harder to damage. The financial costs of protecting embassies, airports, individual official or private buildings, are very high. Also, protective measures can seriously interfere with the operations of such institutions. Finally, target hardening can encourage terrorists to move to ‘softer’ targets, terrorists can attack anything, anywhere, at any time, whereas the state cannot secure everything, everywhere all the time. The terrorists, in short, retain an edge over state security forces and security measures (Kegley and Wittkopf, 1989, pp.417-18).

The political cost of retaliation against foreign powers allegedly supporting terrorists can be very high unless there is strong proof of such support (Ofri, 1984). Also, as above noted, retaliatory action of this kind may not always impinge upon the terrorists themselves and may, conceivably, exaggerate the importance of their cause and enhance support for it. It is worth noting, in this context, that the international law surrounding counter-terrorist action is problematic. First of all, it is vague. Secondly, three principles of international law have often worked in favour of terrorist groups and their supporters: the right of self- determination, the right of asylum, and the rule of non-interference in the affairs of other states.

The role of the mass media is a crucial one. The terrorists need publicity since their goal is to win support for their cause. The media generally see their role as checking or criticizing the state: in theory, not being on the side of the state can mean being on the terrorists’ side. State imposed media blackouts certainly do not work. Experts on terrorism have pointed out that this policy only forces terrorists to escalate violence until they do get the media attention. The state, therefore, aims to get the media on its side–to encourage media to focus on the horrors of terrorist acts, and to deny exposure to the terrorists’ cause. Extensive anti-terrorist media-coverage can be of great benefit to the state in providing the background which allows it to plan and carry out retaliatory or other measures, in particular to obtain special legal powers which the public might otherwise resist (Clawson, 1987).

‘The state sponsorship of terrorism’ is an accusation that has been exchanged between various states. For example, the US has accused the former Soviet Union, Cuba, Libya, Iran, North Korea and Syria among others, of the practice and has itself been accused of sponsoring terrorist activities in Vietnam, Chile, and Nicaragua, and, as an ally of Israel in many other places (Kegley and Witkopf, 1989, pp.418-19). The historical fact is that ‘terrorists’, according to the definition of one ideological or political purpose are, according to another, ‘freedom fighters’. There is no coherent or generally accepted set of criteria by which the terrorists can be defined as such. However, acts of terrorism can be identified, and it is generally accepted that such acts should be prevented and/or punished. The difficulty lies in how to do so.

The terrorists are hoping to provoke an over-reaction from the state so that it will appear repressive. But if the state is to counter terrorism effectively it may have to take strong and unpopular action, given that a weak response will give an impression of weak government. One way out of this dilemma is for the sate always to act through the normal processes of the courts and not be panicked into any hasty suspension of civil liberties.

One approach is vigorous police action against terrorists, short of a full military commitment but not altogether excluding military involvement–for example, commando-style raids to seize hijackers, relieve hostages, etc. Overt and full-scale military action against terrorists is more controversial–for very good reasons. The record of what might be termed cross-border, military, punitive responses to terrorist actions is not particularly encouraging. For one thing, the motives and consequences of such actions are liable to misinterpretation. Incursions into a foreign country by the forces of one power may provoke another power which has interests or ambitions in that country. Also, such incursions, however honourably motivated, may legitimize similar incursions by others which claim, falsely, the same motive of combatting or punishing terrorism. For example, only five weeks after the US raid on Libya of 14-15th April 1986, South African forces attacked a series of targets in Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Botswana, arguing that they were terrorist centres. Then, there is the difficulty of choosing the targets of such military-punitive raids. It is not at all easy to select suitable targets since relatively few potential targets are indisputably associated with terrorism (Freedman, 1986. pp.l9-22).

Although there is considerable evidence that military retaliation does deter terrorism to some degree, military force is certainly not the answer to every terrorist challenge. Both politically and militarily, the army is a crude instrument. It, at least partly, legitimizes terrorist demands to be treated as political or military prisoners rather than as criminals. Army involvement heightens public tension and creates a feeling that the situation is getting out of hand. What can a state then do to combat terrorism?

One is never sure, where, when, how terrorists will attack. The state should use special intelligence and anti-terrorist units rather than the army. Such units must operate, and be seen to operate, within the law and under the control of legitimate authorities of the state. If not, these units may themselves be labelled terrorist and lose public support for the state’s policy. Given that such units must be ‘undereover’, public supervision of their work is bound to be a difficult and delicate task.

A ‘no concession to terrorists’ attitude, although painful in hostage situations, has been proven to be effective. Following the experience of Irish security forces in 1975, a policy of ‘no deals’ and ‘no assaults’ in a hostage situation was found to work. The tactic used is to wear down the resistance and the morale of the terrorists. Negotiating with or giving in to terrorist demands is generally perceived by the public as weak government and leads to anxiety about what the next concession is going to be (Wilkinson, l988, p.l3l).

Domestic or internal acts of terrorism can usually be traced to minority groups who perceive themselves to be excluded from the political or economic rights and privileges enjoyed by the majority. It is self-evident that the legitimacy of the power and authority of the state will be challenged by grieved parties if their grievances cannot be redressed through the normal political channels. Similarly, international terrorism can flourish where the international system fails to satisfy the aspirations of people whose national or ethnic or religious-cultural rights (or hopes) are denied and, often, denied brutally. Terrorism is, insofar as one can generalize, the weapon of the desperately weak: the despair and the weakness need to be addressed if the causes of the problem, as well as its symptoms, are to be eradicated. The sad reality is that, despite the existence of international law, that law is relatively ineffective in controlling the ‘competition for power’ between powerful states. Sometimes overtly, sometimes covertly, terrorism is used as an instrument of foreign policy. To the extent that a foreign policy may be shared by a number of states, these states may agree to poll information and resources in the fight against terrorism (Borg, 1988, pp.11-12). But international co-operation achieved in this way is limited to the states who support or share foreign policy objectives–once the objectives are not shared, the co-operation becomes a pretence, terrorism again finds an ideological space to inhabit and a cause for which to seek attention and support. 

References 

• Borg, P. W. (1988) ‘The evolution of US. anti-Terrorism policy’ in Livingstone and Arnold (1988).
• Clawson, P. (1987) ‘We need more but better coverage of terrorism’, Orbis.
• Freedman, L.(1986) Terrorism and International Order, Routledge, New York.
• Jenkins, M. (1985) ‘Will terrorists go nuclear?’, Orbis.
• Kegley, C. W. And E.R. Wittkopf (1989) World Politics, St Martin’s Press, New York.
• Livingstone. C. Z. (1988) ‘New media strategies for addressing terrorism’ in Livingstone and Arnold (1988).
• Livingstone, C. Z. and E.T. Arnold. (1988) (eds) Beyond the Iran-Contra Crisis, Lexington Books.
• Ofri, A. (1984) ‘Intelligence and counter-terrorism’. Orbis.
• Wilkinson, P.(1986). Terrorism and the Liberal State, Macmillan, London.