9/11 : the 'war on terror': all articles

The faultlines exposed by 9/11 run within as well as between us, says Paul Gilroy. The network society has produced its ‘other’, warns Francesco Grillo. Allenna Leonard uses systems analysis to advocate a creative response, while Ann Pettitt recommends ‘militant moderation’. For Mary Midgley, Jeffrey Isaac, Steven Lukes and Nadia Urbinati, the way language is used is a crucial index of political maturity in time of crisis. Paul Frosh, Nissim Calderon and Shaun Gregory bring insights from Israel and Pakistan.
Tuesday 13th January

The paradox of Basra

Mary Kaldor, 13 January 2009
A visit to Iraq's second city reveals fraught divisions of both wealth and ideology
Thursday 25th September

'New thinking' needs new direction

Mary Kaldor, 25 September 2008
US military strategists are debating a new security paradigm. But only politics can make it happen
Thursday 10th July

Afghanistan: state of siege

Paul Rogers, 10 July 2008

A Taliban-al-Qaida regroupment in the Pakistani borderlands is bringing the war closer to Kabul

Thursday 26th June

Prisons of war, furnaces of radicalism

Paul Rogers, 26 June 2008

The United States's global detention policy is incubating the insurgents of the future

Wednesday 20th November

France and the Security Council: poker diplomacy wins

Patrice de Beer, 20 November 2002
The lengthy negotiations leading to Security Council Resolution 1441 were a success for French diplomacy. France’s ‘two-step’ approach may not avert war on Iraq; but in deflecting the United States’ unilateral drive to war she has served the world’s interest.
Wednesday 13th November

Afghanistan, one year on

David Loyn, 13 November 2002
There is progress, but is it too little, too late? Civil servants in Afghanistan are unpaid, roads impassable, and justice undone. Where there is no effective governance, and more money being spent on warfare than development aid, is it surprising that the Taliban still has support? A year after Kabul changed hands, a bleakly realistic assessment from the BBC’s Developing World Correspondent.
Thursday 24th October

Understanding the 'war on terrorism'

Mary Midgley, 24 October 2002
If the war on terrorism is literal, it cannot be won. If it is metaphorical, it offers only a continuation of the frozen, abstract hatreds made possible by the cold war. And how do you defeat a metaphor?
Thursday 26th September

After the cataclysm: a systems analysis

Allenna Leonard, 26 September 2002
Can the creative insights of systems analysis illuminate the motives of the attackers and suggest a western response that is likely to be truly effective?
Wednesday 24th April

The West against terrorism

John Downey, 24 April 2002
The imbalance between political and military science has brought us to a major turning point in world history. Do we have time to correct it?
Thursday 14th March

Civilian casualties in Afghanistan: the limits of Marc Herold's 'comprehensive accounting'

Jeffrey C. Isaac, 14 March 2002
Marc Herold’s report on the civilian victims of US bombing in Afghanistan has gained wide circulation. But are his own methods and conclusions reliable?
Wednesday 13th February

Cranking the 'axis of evil'

Todd Gitlin, 13 February 2002
Bush the father in 1990 announced : “What we say, goes”. Twelve years on, Bush the son captures the US’s enemies in words equally vulgar and inaccurate. Behind the latter’s phraseology, however, is the impending tragedy of a decent patriotism hijacked by geopolitics.

Three cheers for the Bush doctrine

Frank Vibert, 13 February 2002
The Bush doctrine for conducting the war against terrorism was greeted with shock and dismay by many in Europe. It should not have been. The six principles set out in Bush’s “axis of evil” speech are ones that European countries should support.
Thursday 29th November

A war against politics?

S Sayyid and Barnor Hesse, 29 November 2001
The military might of western power is matched by its ideology’s closed assurance in the face of challenges to and victims of its ‘war on terrorism’. Defusing such opposition is the work of a ‘cynical reason’ that threatens to silence dissidence, cancel historical awareness, and collapse the process of politics itself.
Thursday 8th November

The terrorist threat and a new form of warfare

Vladimir Slipchenko and Alexander Khokhlov, 8 November 2001
The Russian military analyst, Vladimir Slipchenko, argues that a new era of asymmetric warfare has begun. Against international terrorism, conventional or guided missiles are futile. An effective response requires a new civil-military force, and a post-Nato counter-terrorism alliance – one that includes Russia.

Fighting the Taliban: a West Point graduate's view

Richard Kidd, 8 November 2001
US military personnel were deeply involved in the Afghan struggle against Soviet occupation in the 1980’s. What lessons do they draw for today’s war on the Taliban? Here, a graduate of an elite US military academy – and of aid campaigns in the region – distils his experience into frank advice.
Thursday 1st November

Why I am against the war

Tracy Worcester, 1 November 2001
The war is being argued over within families as well as between nations. Here, a green activist explains to her children why legality, justice, and aid should guide our actions towards Afghanistan – and that the answers to ‘terrorism’ can only be long-term.
Wednesday 24th October

The binary war

Nira Yuval-Davis, 24 October 2001
The meaning of the war is often presented in terms of a “clash of civilisations”. But this radical polarisation of the world is an example of the “binary” view that only increases conflict. Even the alternative UN formulation of a “dialogue among civilisations” reinforces the view that civilisations are separate and internally homogenous. What we need is a “dialogical civilisation” which seeks also the shared elements in our value systems.
Wednesday 17th October

Future war

Paul Hirst, 17 October 2001
With growing global inequality, competition over resources, and deepening militarisation, the world will face intensified crisis later this century. (Warning: parental guidance recommended in reading this article).
Wednesday 10th October

Don't turn Afghanistan into America's Chechnya

John B. Dunlop, 10 October 2001
The "forgotten war" in Chechnya bleeds on. Three respected Russian journalists - democrat, centrist and hawk - predict that it will be nightmare without end.

9/11: What should we do now?

Tim Garden, Scilla Elworthy, S Sayyid, Mary Kaldor, and David Held, 10 October 2001
A group of key thinkers on matters of war, fear, human and international relations discuss the possible outcome of post-9/11 policies at an event held by openDemocracy and the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London in October, 2001. Here are some excerpts…
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