In many ways, piracy is one of the more manageable threats emanating from failed states, one that can be mitigated by better security procedures by shippers and a greater naval presence. Failed states also are sources, incubators, and facilitators of terrorism, weapons proliferation, organized crime, infectious diseases, environmental destruction, and violence that often spill over national borders. A recent civil war in Congo, for example, ended up drawing in nine of its neighbors before it was over. Indeed, the Bush administration revised its national security doctrine to label failed states as posing the same level of threat to the homeland as hostile powers.

Yet, the United States still lacks both an official definition of what constitutes a failed state and a comprehensive strategy for dealing with such countries. Managing failed states will undoubtedly be a central challenge for Barack Obama’s foreign policy team. Past efforts have had decidedly mixed results. These states have been addressed in an ad hoc manner, if at all, with goals that are notoriously ill-defined, whether it was peacekeeping operations in Haiti, the disastrous military foray into Somalia in the 1990s, or the simultaneous conflict and stability efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The roll of the world’s failed-and failing-states is well known: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Somalia, and Haiti, to name a few. Then there’s a threat from countries that are not “failing” in the conventional sense but swerve perilously close to the brink-countries like Pakistan and North Korea, each of which boasts nuclear arsenals.

It’s Pakistan that is the national security community’s greatest nightmare-a hotbed of radicalized anti-Americanism, the home of al Qaeda, a bellicose history with neighboring India, and a weak central government clinging to both its hold on power and the launch codes for an arsenal of nuclear weapons.

Indeed, after the 9/11 attacks, which were planned from the second-poorest nation on the planet, the Bush administration wrote in its 2002 National Security Strategy that failed nations “pose as great a danger to our national interest as strong states.” The dangers of failed nations is a reality not lost on the incoming administration. In his stated foreign policy goals, Obama has pledged to “embrace the Millennium Development Goal of cutting extreme poverty and hunger around the world in half by 2015″ and to “double our foreign assistance to achieve that goal.” Such aid, he says, will “help the world’s weakest states build healthy and educated communities, reduce poverty, develop markets, and generate wealth.”

Susan Rice, a longtime Obama foreign policy adviser and his nominee for ambassador to the United Nations, coauthored a major study of failed states last year for the Brookings Institution. It offered a series of recommendations, from the need to alleviate global poverty to the importance of multilateral efforts to promote regional stability.

“U.S. officials now understand that weak states deserve particular attention because they can incubate transnational security threats,” Rice wrote. Strengthening those states and helping those governments help their own citizens “must become a significant component of U.S. national security policy.” The Bush administration did take some steps toward at least mitigating the impact of failed states in some cases. One notable step was its creation of an Africa Command for the U.S. military in 2007, an acknowledgement that a military presence-for combat, peacekeeping, or humanitarian missions-will likely be needed on the continent to address a variety of military and humanitarian missions.

Nation-building has rarely enjoyed wide political support from any side of the political spectrum, particularly when it comes at the cost of American lives. President Clinton withdrew American forces from Somalia after the incidents described in the book Black Hawk Down. In 2000, George W. Bush famously campaigned on a platform opposed to nation-building. With Obama facing a deepening recession and a U.S. military in the throes of two wars, any serious new effort at rebuilding failed states may not be all that politically viable.

Whatever direction Rice and the Obama administration have in mind for U.S. failed-state strategy, it is likely to meet with resistance. “It will be hard politically, for instance, for those who opposed U.S. action against Iraq because it lacked United Nations Security Council authorization to advocate action against, say, Sudan, without similar U.N. approval,” says Brett Schaefer, an expert on sub-Saharan Africa at the Heritage Foundation.

But the United States is not alone in its new focus on nations that fail at their most basic level. Britain, Canada, France, and Germany have each shown a renewed interest in such efforts. Three years ago, the United Nations formed the Peace Building Commission, which is aimed at helping countries, including many failed states, that are emerging from long-running military conflicts. Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast, for example, are two of the program’s first development beneficiaries.

And it was the United Nations that this winter authorized the use of force against the Somali pirates. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hailed the measure and called for international support against the pirates while acknowledging the root cause of the problem. “It’s a symptom of the instability, the poverty, the lawlessness that have plagued Somalia for the past two decades,” she said.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/world/2009/01/14/under-president-obama-will-failed-states-like-somalia-merit-new-attention.html

A wave of pirate attacks from raiders along the coast of Somalia over the past few months has forced navies to begin developing a set of tactics against modern-day buccaneers equipped with automatic weapons and satellite telephones. But while Somali pirates have captured most of the headlines, they are far from the only buccaneers on the high seas. The South China Sea, the coast of West Africa, and parts of South America also are troubled waters.

Last month alone, the U.S. Navy tracked hostile incidents on the seas near a dozen countries, including attacks by suicide boats near Sri Lanka, an oil tanker seizure off Bangladesh, and attacks on sailboats in Venezuela and Ecuador. The second-fiercest pirate hot spot in the world is Nigeria, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

Pirates worldwide are increasingly heavily armed with rocket launchers, heavy machine guns, and agile speedboats that let them challenge ships farther away from their sanctuaries. And the cost is going up for legitimate ocean-going commerce. In 2007, according to the British insurer Lloyd’s of London, the average pirate ransom demand was about $500,000. The figure has jumped to between $1 million and $8 million. Lloyd’s estimates that pirates will very likely pull in $50 million this year.

The Somali pirates became celebrities last fall after the seizure of a ship carrying some $30 million in weapons, including dismantled battle tanks. But they seized the world’s attention as well and brought renewed focus on a problem that has plagued the seas for years. Within days, Russian and U.S. warships were in pursuit, but the pirates are still holding the ship and its crew hostage.

By the end of 2008, increasingly bold Somali pirates had mounted more than 100 brazen attacks on freighters, cruise ships, and a Saudi-owned oil tanker, the Sirius Star, which held 2 million barrels of crude oil. There were reports of rampant inflation in the pirate economy, as ransom money flowed in and the prices at local Somali tea shops jumped in response.

But the pirates may soon be victims of their own success, as the increasing number of attacks has galvanized international desire for action. Last month, the United Nations gave member states a one-year mandate to attack pirate bases in Somalia, meaning that some kind of strike against the Somali pirates is only a question of time, military experts say.

Critics say that chasing down the pirates may look good on television but that military action alone won’t end the problem. “There is money in this, and so people will continue to do it regardless of a few raids on their bases,” says James Carafano, a Heritage Foundation defense expert. “The only way to cure the disease is to have a Somali government capable of exerting authority.”

A study from the Office of Naval Intelligence points out that there are simple steps that mariners can take to avoid pirates.

Perhaps the most obvious is to avoid the areas where pirates thrive. The U.S. 5th Fleet and warships from several other navies protect the main commercial corridors through the Gulf of Aden. Ships moving through pirate-infested waters outside those corridors are often looking to save time or just as often looking to avoid attention.

The freighter loaded with battle tanks, for instance, traveled under a Ukrainian flag and carried Russian-made weapons ostensibly bound for Kenya. A senior U.S. military official says that the weapons were most likely headed for Sudan, and the shipment was flouting a series of U.N. restrictions on weapons sales to parties in the ongoing conflict there.

Another step ships can take is simply to go faster. Analysts at the Office of Naval Intelligence conducted a review of all pirate attacks and unsuccessful attacks over a period of several months. Vessels with an average speed above 15 knots reported 10 unsuccessful pirate attacks, while vessels traveling below an average of 14 knots reported 11 successful attacks.

In addition, none of the successful pirate attacks occurred at night, leaving mariners with a clear formula for minimizing trouble. “All vessels are advised to proceed through the entire Gulf of Aden at maximum possible speed. Vessels with characteristics that put them at higher risk, like maximum speeds of 15 knots or less, as well as those with low freeboard, are advised to minimize risk by transiting as much as possible of the eastern Gulf of Aden in hours of darkness,” the report concluded.

For deterring speedboat-riding pirates, several ships reported success with fire hoses, parachute flares, smoke bombs, and sound cannons, the report found.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/world/2009/01/13/piracy-a-50-million-business-and-counting_print.htm

Al Qaeda, which was not directly linked to the attacks in India, has historically striven to pull off more dramatic, deadly, and complex plots than the one in Mumbai, meaning its attacks have been less frequent and more difficult to bring about. But intelligence experts worry about what lessons Osama bin Laden and his followers might take from the brutal effectiveness of a handful of men armed with automatic weapons.

Whatever bin Laden may conclude, al Qaeda remains one of the greatest threats to the homeland for the foreseeable future, intelligence and defense experts agree. “Al Qaeda has suffered serious setbacks, but it remains a determined, adaptive enemy, unlike any our nation has ever faced,” outgoing CIA chief Michael Hayden said recently. The group “is both resilient and vulnerable.”

Despite the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and in the tribal regions of Pakistan, there has been a rise in the number of high-ranking al Qaeda leaders reported killed. On New Year’s Day, Usama al-Kini and Sheik Ahmed Salim Swedan, both Kenyan nationals wanted in connection with the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa, were killed in an apparent U.S. airstrike. In November, a similar attack killed Rashid Rauf, who was wanted in connection with a plot to use liquid explosives to down trans-Atlantic airliners. In 2008, there were more than 30 missile strikes against suspected al Qaeda targets.

Yet al Qaeda has still managed to mount or inspire attacks around the globe, from the killing of Benazir Bhutto and the Marriott hotel bombing in Pakistan to the unsuccessful attacks against the airport in Glasgow, Scotland. U.S. intelligence officials say al-Kini was involved in the Marriott attack and an unsuccessful bombing attack on Bhutto several months before she was assassinated.

For intelligence agencies and the U.S. military, the main challenge is to understand the reasons for the group’s resiliency and to figure out how to exploit its vulnerabilities, such as ideological rifts. While the threat of an attack with weapons of mass destruction always tops U.S. fears, there are other, perhaps more likely, scenarios that worry counterterrorism officials, including more low-tech attacks and possible cyberassaults.

Lessons from Mumbai. The vast majority of terrorist strikes worldwide involve explosives or guns to wreak havoc. In Mumbai, using grenades and machine guns, terrorists killed more than 170, wounded 300, and paralyzed the city. It was the second-largest global terrorist attack since 9/11. (Also last year, terrorists in the United Kingdom tried using a flaming sport utility vehicle to ram the Glasgow International Airport.)

The Mumbai attack was so shocking that New York City immediately revised its training for police officers to include the use of machine guns that may be used in response to such an incident. The NYPD is also looking for ways to disrupt cellphone communications during an attack, after the Mumbai perpetrators used cellphones repeatedly throughout their three-day rampage. “You could envision that happening in any American city,” says Kenneth Wainstein, the president’s homeland security adviser. “It’s something we’re very worried about.”

Just as the West relies on small groups of commandos to ferret out terrorists, so, too, have these terrorist groups come to rely on small, innovative, disciplined units to achieve outsize results. David Kilcullen, a coauthor of the Army’s Counterinsurgency Field Manual , says Mumbai marked a departure from the traditional terrorist modus operandi. “[The Mumbai attacks] have all the hallmarks of a Special Forces raid, closer to a commando raiding activity than a traditional al Qaeda-style terrorist attack.”

That’s something that counterterrorism officials have long feared. This winter, a group of men were convicted of planning a machine gun attack on Fort Dix in New Jersey. “After 9/11, the great fear was that terrorists would attack shopping malls with small bombs or machine guns. It’s nearly impossible to stop, cheap to fund, and as likely today as it was then,” says Jamie Smith, a retired CIA officer who now heads a private security firm.

Theological deterrence. Acquiring WMD remains a stated goal of al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, and the potential for damage has kept such an attack high atop the country’s list of concerns, despite the difficulty in carrying out such a strike. But if those technological hurdles can be cleared, the traditional measures of deterrence are ineffective against stateless, suicidal adversaries. So U.S. efforts have begun to focus both on locking down any unguarded materials in foreign states and on screening cargo coming into the country.

That is sure to continue in the coming years, as will efforts to keep gainfully employed scientists with knowledge about biological and nuclear weapons. A shortage of jobs for such scientists is a particular problem in Russia.

One new approach the government thinks will be effective in countering a WMD threat is theological. “We know that al Qaeda and terrorist leadership and operatives actually care about the perceived theological, moral, and political legitimacy of their actions, especially within Muslim communities,” Wainstein says. “This is why encouraging debate, especially among credible voices, about the legitimacy of using weapons of mass destruction is important and can affect the intentions and planning of terrorists.”

That’s a recurring message from counterterrorism officials who’ve quietly promoted programs like those of Indonesia and Saudi Arabia that try to moderate radical voices as authentic counterweights to al Qaeda’s messages. “Showing the barbarism of groups like al Qaeda in the light of truth is, ultimately, our strongest weapon in this long struggle,” Michael Leiter, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said recently.

Cyber security. A spate of recent cyberattacks, including those in the former Soviet republic of Georgia and hacking from countries like China against the Pentagon, suggests that computers might be the next terrorist weapon.

A congressional bipartisan commission recently concluded that the fight to secure the country’s digital infrastructure from hostile nations and individuals “is a battle we are losing.”

But traditional hacking-which is often more like cybergraffiti-may not be the most problematic issue when it comes to terrorism. Terrorists are now using advanced programs to encrypt E-mail, produce propaganda, and design websites, and they are distributing these programs free.

Traditional software piracy is a worldwide problem, but intelligence officials say that al Qaeda and similar organizations are distributing pirated copies of Arabic-language software to both increase their productivity and cover their tracks.

Stolen E-mail encryption tools are widely available on al Qaeda-sympathizing websites, including a program called Mujahideen Secrets 2. As the name suggests, it’s the second such release and contains file-shredding software and E-mail encryption designed to mask and erase cyberfootprints and forensics that authorities use to track down propagandists and militants.

Overall, al Qaeda has boosted its online presence tremendously. According to the Washington-based IntelCenter, which tracks online activity by al Qaeda and affiliated groups, the terrorist organization has dramatically upped its online presence in the past few years. After releasing just six video or audio messages in 2002, al Qaeda’s media wing, al Sahab, now releases new video or audio recording every three days, all of which are quickly posted on sympathetic websites hosted around the world.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/world/2009/01/12/where-the-terrorism-threat-from-al-qaeda-is-headed_print.htm