Middle East Strategy at Harvard

From Daniel Byman

The threat of terrorism has faded from the minds of Americans as the unemployment soars and our IRAs shrink. Even though I specialize on counterterrorism, this is a welcome corrective: terrorism remains an important issue, but it should not always be the top priority for policymakers.

Yet as the Obama administration and American allies overseas focus on how to get the world’s economic wheels spinning again, they should recognize that the financial crisis is likely to have a dramatic impact on terrorism. Most obviously, though perhaps most difficult to specify, the economic crisis and the attendant misery will make many people around the world more willing to believe that the current system is corrupt and more open to radical ideologies—first steps toward embracing violent extremism.

More concretely, however, are the problems the crisis poses for effective counterterrorism. Strong governments usually have few terrorism problems, even if (like, say, North Korea today), they are brutally repressive and bring economic woe, not prosperity, to their citizens. However, weak governments, even if benign, are prone to domestic strife—and the financial crisis will further weaken many regimes. So looking around the world, it is not surprising that countries like Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Yemen suffer terrorism and civil strife and that less-governed regions of a country (e.g. tribal parts of Pakistan) are more prone to violence.

The financial crisis will lead new countries to join this unhappy club. In some countries, security services may not be paid, increasing their incentives for corruption and reducing their loyalty to the regime. In other instances, the government may curb the security services as part of regime change or to win over potential political opponents—and in so doing, weaken the services’ ability to stop terrorism.

Economic collapse may also lead to outright regime change as citizens demand new leadership in response to current regimes’ economic failures. As most governments around the world cooperate with the United States on counterterrorism, the prospect of a new regime taking power is of concern. In many countries (e.g. Iceland and Latvia), the impact will be negligible, but it is plausible that new leaders may replace current partners.

To offset pressure for regime change, some governments may reach out to different factions and power brokers in their own country. For the most part, this is positive as it widens the circle of democratic inclusion. However, not all these actors are positive from a counterterrorism point of view. Egypt, for example, has tried to coopt (largely successfully) the Muslim Brotherhood, and in so doing greatly weakened more radical groups like the Islamic Group and Egyptian Islamic Jihad. This cooptation, while effective in the short-term, empowers a group that, while avoiding a direct endorsement of violence, shares some of the teachings of the salafi jihadists and legitimates some of their actions. In other cases, such cooptation or autonomy may allow sympathetic local regimes to abet terrorists. Outside of terrorism, this cooptation has contributed to the rise of a more Islamicized Egypt, with upsetting consequences for non-Muslims in the country and women’s rights, among other issues.

The United States must also worry that the crisis will decrease local regimes’ willingness to cooperate openly with the United States. Despite the bump in favorable views of the United States with a new administration, the United States remains deeply unpopular in the Muslim world. As governments scamper for legitimacy to offset their losses for economic reasons, they may try to reduce, or play down, cooperation with the United States. High-profile counterterrorism measures that are unpopular with allies’ citizens (e.g. Predator strikes in Pakistan) may be particularly difficult to sustain.

So even as Obama administration officials press allies to step up their support, they must recognize how new economic pressures will complicate our efforts.