After the tragedy of the eleventh September 2001, terrorism has become one of the most discussed and researched issues not only in the United States of America, but all over the world. Politicians and the military discuss reasons that lead to terrorism, as well as measures that should be taken to prevent it. This essay is aimed on analyzing an article devoted to the issue of terrorism and reasons for it. the article was written by Edward Newman in 2007. One can see even from the title of the article “Weak states, state failure and terrorism” the main reasons for terrorism. However, everything is not as simple as it may seem.
Some researchers state that terrorism occur only in weak countries. However, the author of the article tried to prove that every medal has its reverse. The point is that terrorism occurred and occurs nowadays even in strong countries. The author argues that the strength or weakness of a country is not an obligatory condition for terrorist groups. However, some scholars suggest that a weak country is the reason for fast development of terrorist groups. On the contrary, the author of the article argues that some terroristic groups are non-state or come from strong state. The main idea of the article is to prove that weak states and state failure are not the main reasons for terrorism, as some scholars used to think.
As every analytical article, the article written by Edward Newman has both weak and strong sides. The advantage of the article is that the author does not take any side. Edward Newman tries to be objective and look at the problem from different points of view. In the first part of the article Edward Newman presents evidence for weak state and state failure theory as the main explanation of terrorism. The author states that weak states have unsatisfying economic conditions, as well as political systems cannot deal with situation in a country. Besides, Edward Newman presents one more reason for terrorism group development is weak countries: healthcare system. When health care system does not work properly, citizens have different contagious diseases such as HIV/AIDS. The point is that such countries with weak economic, political and healthcare systems become threats to a country neighbors. Besides, such conditions meant that in some time an aggressive terrorist group might come to power. Hence,
“that weak or failed states provide a ‘‘breeding ground’’ or ‘‘sanctuary’’ for terrorists who will threaten international interests, especially in the West.” (Newman, p. 466)
Another strong point is that the author of the article tried to analyze the strategy of the United States government of preventing terrorism groups’ formation. In 2006 the government of the United States of America presented a strategy against terrorism. However, it was not the way out. The strategy was built on a thought that terrorists might stop their activity if they were isolated. The point was to isolate weak states from the rest of the world, prohibiting them to trade or have other communication with the world’s community. On the contrary, Edward Newman states that if to do so, terrorism will only prosper in such countries. Terrorist groups will have a splendid opportunity to recruit new people, train them or develop new plans. Besides, there is a moral side of the issue: those who are not willing to cooperate with terrorist will suffer. Such strategy means mass killing. The author of the article illustrates all the evidence with examples of Afghanistan or Iraq. In my opinion, this is the strongest point in the article. One should be able to present evidence to support the view.
However, the article has weak points as well. The author of the article could not present clear evidence that suggest that weak and failed states is not the main reason for terrorism. The point is that in the beginning of the article the author stated:
“Terrorist organizations operate in weak and failed states but it is not necessarily the condition of weak or failed statehood which explains their presence. Moreover, it is not necessarily the weakest states which do host such groups. Therefore, this condition is not a sufficient explanation for their presence. While weak or failed states might provide an enabling environment for certain types of terrorist groups to operate, additional explanatory variables need to be identified.” (Newman, p. 463)
However, when reading the article, one could not find any evidence that terrorism could appear in a strong state. Obviously, there might be some people with terroristic points of view in strong states, but they are few and cannot damage much. Another weak point of the article is that Edward Newman did not present any logical strategy or theory based on his research. On the one hand, the article was analytical and did not mean to present something new. On the contrary, the author criticized the existing theories and did not present any solution. In my opinion, Edward Newman should have proposed a better way of collecting information for statistics. Although, there are several weak points in the article by Edward Newman, I think that the article is rather strong. The author presented clear evidence to support his point of view. Besides, he analyzed the works of others.
References:
Newman E. 2007 Weak states, state failure and terrorism. Terrorism and Political violence. Routledge
