Civilization and its enemies: the next stage of history

Abstract

CIVILIZATION AND ITS ENEMIES The Next Stage of History Lee Harris New York: Free Press, 2004. xxi, 232pp, $39.00 cloth (ISBN 0-7432-5749-9)Lee Harris offers a quirky, idiosyncratic, and unconventional verview of the challenges facing western civilization since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the demise of the communist vision. The attacks of 9/11 highlighted the presence of a new of civilization, the radical Islamic terrorist acting out a religious fantasy by exposing the vulnerability of the Great Satan. What the current enemy has in common with previous totalitarian ideologies in the 20th century is the will to ruthlessness without inhibitions regarding the use efforce. What is different from the earlier communist challenge is that the religious fanatic is more irrational, unpredictable, and essentially part of a movement with no clear military strategy or overarching political objectives.The most controversial aspect of the author's interpretation of radical Islam is his explanation of the motivation behind the 9/11 attacks. This was not an act of war in the Clausewitzian sense that it served to weaken the United States strategically or to produce an alteration in policies, notably support for Israel. Nor was the objective to undermine the general morale of the American public. Thus there were no follow-up attacks-bombing of shopping centres or communications lines. In short, the attacks were part of a symbolic drama to demonstrate the power of Allah, a God that favoured the Muslim world over the militarily and economically superior western world. The audience that al Qaeda was trying to impress was the Arab street, not Pennsylvania Avenue.This view is questionable if only because we still don't have the appropriate documentation from the terrorist side. It is quite probable at this time that intelligence agencies have a much clearer picture about what is driving bin Laden based on interrogations of captured al Qaeda operatives. One plausible interpretation suggests that al Qaeda had launched a series of escalating attacks against the United States, beginning with the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 and culminating in the massively destructive attacks of 2001. These attacks did indeed serve a larger design to antagonize the United States into a reckless military overreaction, thus further alienating Muslim states. In the end, the radicals believed their particular brand of religious enthusiasm would topple the most vulnerable Muslim states and perhaps lead to the acquisition of either the nuclear weapons of Pakistan or the oil riches of Saudi Arabia. Probably the clearest example that there was a Clausewitzian objective was the recent terrorist attack in Spain that prompted the new Socialist government into announcing the withdrawal of its troop contribution to the Iraq occupation forces.This reviewer has a few minor quibbles about historical inaccuracies. The author mistakenly identifies Captain Dreyfus as a colonel and incorrectly interprets the United States' demands on Japan in 1941, notably the removal of occupying forces in Manchuria. In fact, it was the Chinese territory acquired after 1937 that most concerned the United States. Sometimes the author employs terms that are vague and over-generalized, such as all previous threats in the history of mankind (25). …