How substantial has US-European counter-terrorism cooperation been since 1990?

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How substantial has US-European counter-terrorism cooperation been since 1990?

There has been both continuity and change in US-European counter-terrorism cooperation from 1990 to the present day. Several factors, including differing values, historical experiences, threat perceptions and military capabilities have led to different “strategic cultures” that have limited the cooperation that is possible between the two. However, the events of 9/11 led to a new impetus and urgency for cooperation between Europe and America, in order to jointly tackle what was now seen as a major threat to western civilisation. Despite progress with cooperation in key areas in internal security, obstacles remain, and external security cooperation has barely improved at all, as the case of Iraq in 2003 showed. This essay will explore the underlying history and issues that have served as impediments to transatlantic cooperation on terrorism, and then go on to look separately at progress made in internal (that is domestic security, usually achieved within a legal institutional framework) and external (international security often achieved by military means) security cooperation since 1990. The biggest focus of the essay will be on the post-9/11 period, as this has seen far more cooperation than the 1990-2001 period.

It is certainly the case the America and Europe, as much as the latter can be seen as a unified actor, have taken different approaches to counter-terrorism. According to Hoffman, “terrorism has long been a source of friction between the United States and Europe,” for instance in the 1970s and 1980s the US viewed Europe as soft on terrorism because many countries appeared to appease terrorists acting against US interests in order to avoid reprisals on their own soil. International terrorism directed against US allies and interests was relatively rare in this period, and many European countries were more worried about dealing with domestic terrorist threats such as the IRA in Britain, ETA in Spain and the Baader-Meinhof gang in West Germany.

It is in many ways these differing historical experiences that have led to the current different approaches to terrorism. Europe’s experience has mainly been with the “old” domestic focused terrorism based on issues of national succession or ethnic strife, and this form of terrorism has tended to be more restrained, aimed at particular political goals, and more open to political accommodation or settlement. America’s experience with terrorism, by contrast, has mostly been with the “new” Islamist terrorism, that is much more apolitical in that it aims not at particular achievable goals but the complete overthrow of the system via massive death and destruction, or often simply massive death and destruction for its own sake. Negotiation is unlikely to achieve anything with terrorists like Al-Qaeda, especially since it is not a terrorist organisation in the traditional sense like the IRA, and leaders such Bin Laden serve more as an inspiration to potential recruits than a direct leadership figure. This has led to a fundamentally different approach to dealing with the terrorist threat.

Another possible explanation for the differing approaches comes from the ideas most famously expressed by Robert Kagan, that America’s preference for using military action and Europe’s preference for sanctions, engagement and negotiations comes from their differing abilities to project military power. Kagan claims that “on major strategic and international questions today, Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus: They agree on little and understand one another less and less.”  America’s military power and spending now far outweighs that of all of Europe combined, and no other countries can hope to beat America militarily. This comparative strength naturally leads America to use this strength, while Europe’s comparative weakness leads it to favour methods that do not rely on military force, such as sanctions, diplomacy and engagement. But this can lead to misunderstandings and divisions between the two. Europeans believe that America “resorts to force more quickly and, compared with Europe, [and] is less patient with diplomacy.” Meanwhile the Americans tend to see Europe as weak and dependent on America for their security.

Americans and Europeans also have different values, with Europeans putting more emphasis on things like privacy, human rights, and the rule of law. America has alienated many Europeans with allegations of torture and “extraordinary rendition” in the fights against terror. In many cases what America regards as necessary evils are sacrifices that Europeans are unwilling to make.

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These differing explanations are all part of what Rees and Aldrich term different “strategic cultures”, that is Europe and America have vastly different historical experiences, political systems and cultures that predispose them to deal with problems in a certain way. It is certainly true that the US has had a greater disposition towards using force and that Europe has preferred non-military methods, although it is also true that the two approaches are not mutually exclusive. It is also worth pointing out that Europe is made of many separate actors, and is not unified like the US, and while we can ...

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