The Roots of Terrorism in "Sovereign" Nation-states
and the Path to a Secure World Order
The
deeper assumptions behind our institutions and world order remain unquestioned
and unthought by even highly educated people. If humankind is to survive much longer
we must examine these unquestioned assumptions. The basic presuppositions
guiding our institutions thwart the best intentioned actions and efforts to
achieve a peaceful and just world order. People commit their life-energies to
peace and the result is violence, war, and terror. People work to eradicate
poverty, misery, and disease and the result is ever deepening poverty, misery
and disease.
Nearly all people wish to eradicate terrorism,
yet terrorism continues to grow and flourish within and between nations and
groups. Without a deeper level of thought, without deep insight and
understanding into what one thinker called "the perversity of what is
perverted," we continue to rush headlong toward ever greater planetary
disaster. What are the deeper assumptions behind our present world order that
foment the terrorist mentality and terrorist forms of organization?
Today books and articles pour forth about
terrorism, its causes and consequences. Conferences are held, governmental
agencies formulate definitions, systems of monitoring and investigation are
formed. Yet terrorism continues to increase. People in general lack a sense of
security, peace, and well-being. They live in terror, in fear, regardless of
whether they have had any direct experience of terrorism. Yet we will see that
the foundations of a peaceful and secure world order are entirely within our
grasp if we correctly diagnose the causes and remedies for world terrorism.
The 1999 FBI definition of terrorism can serve
as a working definition for understanding this phenomenon. Terrorism, according
to the FBI, is "the unlawful use of force or violence committed by a group
or individual, who has some connection to a foreign power or whose activities
transcend national boundaries, against persons or property to intimidate or
coerce a government, the civilian population or any segment thereof, in
furtherance or political or social objectives." The essential points of
this definition are that terrorism is (1) connected with violence or the threat
of violence that transcends national boundaries and (2) it is the
"unlawful" use of violence to achieve political or social objectives.
One important principle that astute thinkers have
pointed our repeatedly in our time is the distinction between non-governmental
forms or terrorism and state-sponsored terrorism. We have come to understand
that nation-states also engage in terrorism. It becomes more and more difficult
to distinguish between private terrorism and terrorism routinely engaged in by
nation-states. Military violence or the threat of violence by nation states
fits this FBI definition perfectly. The use of military power to achieve
international political objectives in a world of isolated "sovereign"
nation-states is inevitable in a world where there is no true, enforceable
world law.
As the issue of terrorism continues to be
discussed, the history of interventions by the imperialist powers has come to
light. One discovers a history of interventions, surprise bombings,
assassinations, support for death squads, overthrowing of small nations,
subversion of democracy, mining of harbors, blowing up of facilities, covert
actions, drug smuggling, torture, arbitrary execution of political enemies, and
outright warfare.
Under the world-system of the past five
centuries, all imperial nations have engaged in such terrorism. Author William
Blum describes this process with respect to the United States: "From 1945
to the end of the century, the United States attempted to overthrow more than
40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist
movements struggling against intolerable regimes. In the process the U.S.
caused the end to life for several million people, and condemned many millions
more to a life of agony and despair" (Rogue State, p.2). The selling of
weapons to foreign regimes, the training and equipping of foreign military
machines, and outright military interventions in foreign countries, all of
which have been major policies of the U.S. throughout this period in order to
politically manipulate or control the world order in its own interests, fit
perfectly this FBI definition of terrorism.
Indeed, since the advent of the United Nations
there have been some 130 wars resulting in some 25 million deaths. Most of
these deaths were civilians. Compared to this, the number of people killed by
non-governmental terrorists through car bombings, suicide bombings,
assassinations, etc., is minuscule. Why is it that the vast preponderance of
the terror of our world throughout the past 50 years has come from state
terrorism, not private terrorism?
The majority of countries in the U.N. have
called have called for study of the basic causes of terrorism, convene
conferences on terrorism to define it and differentiate it from the
[legitimate] struggles of people for national liberation. The U.S. has vetoed
such actions by the U.N. for the obvious reason that its own unlawful and
violent foreign policy to achieve global political objectives would be exposed
and condemned by such conferences. Nevertheless, much excellent work has been
done on the causes and conditions that foster terrorism.
The causes of private terrorism are often
identified as extreme poverty, exploitation, imperial domination, and the
humiliation that states, groups, or religions impose on others. The terrorists
think of themselves as being in a war against such forces. State terrorism is
often understood in the literature as being the mirror of private terrorism, since
it is the use of state military power to enforce a system resulting in extreme
poverty for the majority, exploitation, domination, and humiliation. However,
despite the important insights presented here, the real sources of terrorism
lie deeper than this.
The real source of terrorism is the
nation-state system itself, structured, as it is, to be inseparable from global
monopoly capitalism. The modern system of nation-states first developed during
the Renaissance at the same time the capitalist economic system developed in
15th century Italy. Many scholars define the "sovereign" nation-state
as a political entity that his complete control over its internal affairs and
complete independence with regard to other nation-states in its external affairs.
The world today has about 190 of these territorial entities, all claiming to be
"sovereign" and independent of all the others. A moment’s reflection
reveals this system as not only extremely irrational but morally perverse as
well.
None of these "sovereign" entities
lives under the rule of law. None of them lives under democracy. None of them
in effect recognizes the equality, rights, and sovereignty of peoples outside
their borders, since any such principles can only be enforced within nations.
So-called "international law" is not law but a misnomer, since it is
not democratically legislated, it is not enforceable, and compliance with it is
merely voluntary. Relations between "sovereign" nation-states are
mere treaties, that is, voluntary, unenforceable agreements that can be
renounced or subverted at any time the nations party to these treaties feel it
is in their self-interest to do so. Hence, even though some nations claim to be
"democracies" within their borders, and to believe in "democracy"
as the only legitimate form of government, their defense of this bizarre
concept of "national sovereignty" shows this to be false. They do not
want to live under the rule of democratically legislated law but want to be
entirely "independent" in a lawless, chaotic world of
"international relations."
With modern weapons systems the absurdity of
this system has been underlined over and over again as intercontinental
ballistic missiles have been developed capable of bringing nuclear weapons to
any city on earth is the space of 20 minutes. Today, U.S. Trident nuclear
submarines patrol the bottom of the oceans of the world, each submarine capable
of launching nuclear warheads sufficient to destroy 123 cities worldwide, upon
being given the order to do so. The criminal nature of this system, the
consequence of the absurd system of sovereign nation-states, is surely apparent
to anyone who cares to think objectively.
Under this system every nation is thought to
have the right to militarize itself for "self-defense" purposes.
Nearly all of these 190 entities, living in a lawless world, arm themselves to
the utmost, costing their citizens a large portion of the wealth they produce
and causing other nations to perpetually renew their armaments to keep up with
the possible threat from other sovereign nations, all independent and claiming
the right to operate as they please in their foreign affairs and internal
affairs.
Under this system a nation can violate human
rights within its borders with impunity. Indeed, the imperial nations, led by
the U.S., have supported brutal, repressive regimes around the world in the
interest of both international political struggles (e.g. against Communism) and
creating, as they put it, "a stable investment climate." World
private arms dealing and official government "military aid" to
regimes perceived to be "friendly" amounts to many billions of
dollars per year. All told, the world spends close to a trillion U.S. dollars
per year on militarism and weapons, while less than half of this amount could
provide clean water and sanitation for every person on the planet. This entire
system of militarization amounts to violence or the threat of violence.
On the rare occasion that the nations of the
world claim they perceive massive human rights violations within some sovereign
nation, the only option in a world of sovereign nations is to attack the entire
nation by sanctions, military, or both. Individuals within these nations who
may be responsible cannot be arrested because so called "international
law" is a collection of treaties among "sovereign" nations, not
law enforceable over individuals. Hence, economic sanctions causing starvation
and misery or outright war are integral to the system of sovereign nations.
For example, when the claim was made in 1998
that Yugoslavia was committing massive human rights violations (a claim never
made against the official client states of the imperial powers whose human
rights record is equally as bad or worse), the supposed suffering of the
Yugoslav people from their government had to be compounded by militarily
attacking them with cruise missiles and cluster bombs, destroying their
factories, homes, and hospitals. In the FBI definition of terrorism, this was
clearly the "unlawful" (between nations there is no genuine law) use
of violence to achieve political or social objectives. Whether these objectives
are thought to be noble is irrelevant, since all terrorists believe their
objectives are noble. The nation-state system is nothing if not terrorist in
its very foundations.
The international system of militarized
violence is based on a false analogy that the propaganda machines of the
imperial powers do not wish us to examine too closely. It is an analogy with
the individual’s right of self-defense under the rule of law. Under democratically
legislated law within nations, individuals and groups are prohibited from using
violence against one another to achieve political or social objectives.
Mechanisms such as arbitration, courts, the right of political participation,
and freedom of expression are created by law to allow for the non-violent
adjucation of differences and the achieving of political or social goals.
If one is threatened or attacked, the law
requires that citizens call the police or otherwise handle the provocation nonviolently.
On the rare occasion that ones bodily integrity, property, or life is
threatened and it is impossible to call the police, then the law provides for
"the right of self-defense." Under these narrowly defined
circumstances it is legal to use violence or the threat of violence to protect
oneself, one’s property, or family.
But to project this "right of
self-defense" to the system of nation-states is entirely fallacious. For
under the world system of "sovereign" nations, there is no rule of
law, no democracy, and no police protection of nations, groups, or individuals.
Without the rule of enforceable law in the world, we have nothing left but what
the philosopher Immanuel Kant called the "savage" and
"barbaric" condition of the world without the rule of law. Under the
system of "sovereign" nations, the big nations do what they please
and the weaker nations suffer. For under this system, each nation may decide
for itself what constitutes legitimate self-defense and act accordingly.
Under the rule of law within nations, I may not
machine-gun all the people in the next neighborhood , claiming self-defense,
because I surmise they might some day attack or threaten me. The courts and
enforceable laws decide what is legitimate self-defense and what is not. However,
in international affairs, there is no superior force (government and law) that
can decide the legitimacy of any particular nation’s claim to self-defense. The
powerful do what they please and use the "self-defense" argument to
justify whatever they perceive to be in their self-interest. That is why Kant
called this an immoral system of "barbarism" and
"savagery."
Even the very existence of a military
organization within nations is a terrorist consequence of the present world
system as the FBI definition quoted above makes clear. Nations create a
military for self-defense. The very existence of these military organizations
constitutes a "threat of violence" to other nations, saying that if
you attack us we will use violence to defend ourselves. It a world without
genuine law (which is inevitable under the system of "sovereign"
nation-states) the existence of such militaries constitutes the threat of the
use of violence to achieve political or social objectives, namely, the
protection and preservation of this government vis-a-vis all other
"sovereign" governments.
A world order without democratically
legislated, enforceable law over everyone is inherently terrorist, that is, the
use of violence or threat of violence to achieve political or social objectives
is built into the system itself. As long as nations claim there that there can
be no world law above themselves (because they are "sovereign") and
as long as they claim the "right of self-defense" in a world without
law, then the use of violence or the threat of violence to achieve political or
social objectives is inevitable. It is built into the very system of
lawlessness itself.
For several decades the World Constitution and
Parliament Association has offered the world a practical alternative – the creation
of non-military, democratic world government under the Constitution for the
Federation of Earth. The ascent to democratically legislated world law under
this Constitution is not just another arbitrary possibility among the may peace
proposals offered today by the U.N. and non-governmental organizations. For
only democratic world government can move us beyond the "barbaric"
and "savage" condition of international lawlessness and terrorism to
a morally legitimate world of peace and security. There is no other option.
Without the rule of democratically legislated enforceable law over all nations
and individuals, we continue in the immoral mode of the rule of violence and
the threat of violence to achieve political or social objectives.
Sentimental appeals to peace and
respect for human rights like the Hague Appeal to Peace will not make a
substantial difference. Neither will attempts to reform the U.N. achieve peace
or put an end to terrorism. The U.N. charter is explicitly premised on the
preservation of the system of sovereign nation-states. Treaties among sovereign
nations controlling weapons of mass destruction or other militarized systems
will not be successful. For none of these addresses the root cause of terrorism
which is the system of "sovereign" nations itself. Only non-military
world government under the Constitution for the Federation of Earth can give us
a world of peace.
For only democratic world government creates
enforceable rights for all people and nations under the rule of law. We move out
of the barbaric world system of the past five centuries which was predicated on
the use of violence or the threat of violence in international affairs. We move
forward to a new world order that is the only morally legitimate order. For the
use of violence for reasons of self-defense is only justifiable in extreme
circumstances under the rule of democratically legislated laws with guaranteed
due process, freedom of expression, and equal rights for all peoples and
nations. No longer will there be the rule of power in world affairs but the
rule of right, law, and due process.
There is no other way beyond terrorism, since
terrorism is predicated on the lawlessness of a world order that abjures
democracy, law, and universal human rights in favor of the rule of violence and
the threat of violence. The present system of so-called "sovereign"
nation-states is inherently terroristic. Terrorism can only be overcome through
democracy and a democratic world order. Terrorism can only be overcome through
ratification of the Constitution for the Federation of Earth.
Dr. Glen T. Martin
Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Radford University
President, International Philosophers for Peace
Secretary-General, World Constitution and Parliament Association