Interesting Question on US, UN and International Terorrism

Preparing for the topic and questions on International Terrorism has enriched with me wider perspective.

According to some sources, for example Linda Fasulo in her book "An Insider's guide to the United Nations" (pg 79-81), she states that tackling international terrorism only began to "claim major attention" in the United Nations (UN) from the 1990s. The increased globalisation (flow of people, funds and weapons) and religious fundamentalism highlighted the need to clamp down on the trend. Apparently, the push came from the US particularly on one UN Security Council Resolutions 1267 targetting the Taliban of Afghanistan. Other academic sources also state that Western nations were generally not excessively concerned with the issue as domestic terrorists like the Red Brigade in Italy came under control by the 1980s. Domestic laws and enforcement had restricted the negative impact.  The implication for this is that there was no great will to overcome the problem through the UN since the West made up 3 of the 5 permanent members of the Security Council.

To verify the reliability and accuracy of the above information, I went to read Thomas M. Magstadt's "Understanding Politics: Ideas, Institution and Issues." A US government survey estimated international terrorist events in 1985 at 635 while another organisation Risk International gave a figure of more than 3000. (pg 446) This contextual information provides a clearer picture of how relatively insignificant the international terrorist problem was to the US. This is further corroborated by the increased terrorist attacks (actual or attempted) on US soil and property. There were a total of 11 such incidents in the 1990s alone. US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed for instance in 1998 with 224 killed. Therefore, it seems safe to argue that the US was indeed responding to the heightened terrorist threat which was starting to seem out of control. As it remained as a superpower, it was able to drive through such initiatives.

And now, perhaps one can go on and study the past approaches and attitudes of the US towards terrorism before 1990. I gather it would both be useful and interesting to discover US policy in this respect.

Mr Chen