How much emphasis should be placed on the use of military force as a means of defeating terrorism?
Three factors are particularly important when analyzing terrorism and counter-terrorism. First, the terrorist strategy, second, what the terrorists want to achieve and third, how to best fight them. Almost no democracies have fallen as a consequence of terrorism but many have overreacted to terrorism and thus made terrorist groups stronger, and more popular, and fuelled their recruitment drive on the vulnerable and young. The diversity of terrorist groups is another consideration, each terrorist group will have its aims and ideals, for example, some may want to overthrow political and economic systems where whereas some may want to become part of the political and economic system. However, they all have one thing in common, they all want to provoke the state to react or in some cases, overreact. This leads to the final key consideration and that is how best to fight terrorism. Three approaches can be taken to do so, see it as a crime that falls under policing, see it as a security threat that falls under the armed forces, or see it as a political problem that falls under diplomats. However, in today’s society most counter-terrorism strategies, especially in the UK, employ an element of all three.
What most states are trying to achieve in today’s counter-terrorism strategies is robustness, a strategy that is tailored to the particular threat at hand but takes a long-term perspective rather than a short-term perspective. It is almost impossible to completely defeat a terrorist group so today most states are approaching counter-terrorism policy by means called containment, the idea being that you can fight, prevent, or prosecute the perpetrators of an attack but to some extent will have to live with an element of political violence. Therefore, the idea that terrorism must be contained in the long term and not necessarily defeated overnight can often be counterproductive as they involve strong, sometimes repressive measures that end up playing into the terrorist narrative and gaining them more recruits. The UK’s predominant national security objectives set to deal with global threats are ‘to protect our people’, ‘project our global influence’ and ‘promote our prosperity’. In terms of terrorism specifically, the UK counter-terrorism strategy is outlined in CONTEST and is broken down into four pillars, Prevent, Pursue, Protect, and Prepare. This essay aims to provide an argument for a large emphasis on military involvement in defeating terrorism using the four pillars of CONTEST.
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Armed forces play a huge part in the prevention pillar of CONTEST. Training other nation’s security forces, especially in hostile areas or states of civil unrest. Op MONOGRAM, the MOD-led program supports the UK’s counter-terrorism strategy CONTEST overseas providing training, equipment, and resources to foreign security forces. The UK armed forces carry out counter-terrorism capacity-building work in areas such as Nigeria, Mali, and Iraq which can have direct improvements in relations and aid securing goals in countries where the military has strong influence. Over 600 troops have been deployed to Iraq, where they have trained more than 72,000 members of the Iraqi Security Forces. UK military forces are at present helping Nigeria and other parts of West Africa to develop the skills and capacity to help tackle their security challenges and the threat from Boko Haram-associated extremism. The emphasis is on the military to conduct these types of prevention tasks as they have the expertise and capability to operate at reach in potentially hostile areas but also the training to adequately deliver the necessary training for these countries’ militaries and police forces. This aims to enable the host nation to improve security and therefore stability in that region, denying terrorists safe havens to recruit, train, and stage attacks against the UK.
The UK military pursues terrorist networks with a large overseas presence. Daesh’s initial state-building narrative persuaded thousands of people, including women and families, to travel to Syria from around the world, including from Europe and North Africa. This includes around 900 people of national security concern from the UK. Of these, approximately 20% have been killed while overseas where the UK has deployed around 1,400 military personnel and launched over 1,680 air strikes as well as providing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance support to
Coalition partners. This reduces the risk of terrorism spreading back to the UK and to British interests overseas. The continuous pursuit of terrorist organizations and key terrorist cells ensures the UK maintains a firm global reach to actively disrupt those who directly threaten the UK or UK interests.
The UK armed forces conduct counter-terrorism MACA (Military Assistance to Civil Authorities) through Op TEMPERER. This is a standing task whereby if necessary 10,000 personnel can be deployed, within 12 to 96 hours in support of the police in the UK and to assist the civil authorities. Op TEMPERER was implemented after the Manchester Arena and Parsons Green attacks due to the strain of manpower experienced by the police at these large-scale events and attacks and it is only the military that has the trained manpower available at such short notice to conduct these duties. Op TEMPERER’s implementation helps to free up the Police, usually responsible for guarding important sites and buildings, to conduct armed patrols to reassure the community, one of the crucial roles and responsibilities of the Police. Additionally, the military augments and trains specialist Police units, such as Counter Terrorism Specialist Firearms Officers (CTSFOs) making them more effective when countering a terrorist attack. UKSF are more often exposed to counter-terrorism operations abroad, where they learn, develop, and improve training and tactical procedures which can be shared with specialist Police units at home. Again, this further emphasizes the necessity for a well-equipped and specialist military to achieve this.
UK military forces have a limited role in the immediate protection of UK citizens against terror attacks when they happen within the city. The emphasis is on Civil Authorities to directly protect the public against terrorism and at present the UK faces several different terrorist threats. The threat from Islamic extremists remains the foremost and most significant. Extreme right-wing terrorism is also a growing threat and in 2016 the then Home Secretary proscribed National Action, an extreme right-wing terrorist group for the first time. Northern Ireland-related terrorism also remains a serious threat, particularly in Northern Ireland itself. All threats listed above cannot be solely protected by a military force. For example, 25 Islamist plots since June 2013, 12 of which have been since March 2017, and four extreme right-wing plots have been disrupted since 2017 by MI5 and counter-terrorism Policing driven by intelligence agencies and civil authorities together. Also, the rapid response of armed officers can have an immediate effect and save the lives of many within minutes, as experienced in both June 2017 were Police successfully eliminated three terrorists who had killed eight people in under ten minutes, and in February 2020 when another man was shot dead by police after stabbing two people in London. The military can deal with this threat in the same manner but it is the community and regional Police officers who are the first responders and therefore are a critical asset in countering terrorism.
As identified, military force underpins much of the UK’s counter-terrorism strategy and therefore it should be heavily emphasized, but not solely relied upon. The UK faces several persistent and different threats with the main caused by the rise of ISIS (Daesh) and the ongoing Al Qa’ida threat. The military’s role in pursuing terrorist networks overseas is critical to the UK counter-terrorism strategy where it has seen a constraint of Daesh by the actions of the global coalition in which the UK is playing a key role and has helped to degrade propaganda and erode territory. The large emphasis placed on a military force in defeating terrorism allows for a balance of forces conducting training and defense engagement as described in the prevent pillar, helping to make potential problems less likely but also maintaining a strong and reactive force for when situations do occur. A task that can only be achieved through a well-resourced military force and not civil authorities.
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