Terrorism: The 21st-Century War.

• Author: HOWELL, LLEWELLYN D.
• Position: Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

WELCOME, George W. Bush, to the presidency and the 21st century. It's a new world with many corners turned at the onset of a new millennium. Among the most critical of corners is in the conduct of war.

The major changes haven't been linked with particular counts of years, whether millennia or centuries. Firing from cover was a monumental change in tactic for Western armies that arose in the mid 18th century following encounters with savages in the colonies. Armored ships and vehicles entered the picture a century later in the American Civil War. In the mid 20th century, atomic weapons intruded on the primitiveness of human fighting by initiating the use of mass destruction in international conduct.

Today, the fast pace of technological change, an increasing level of knowledge in every imaginable party and group, easy access across borders made more porous for the purpose of international trade and investment, and a rapidly increasing global population combine to shift not merely the tactics and strategies, but the very nature of war itself. The weapons of choice have become backpack bombs, computer and biological viruses, and chemicals. Military units are no longer divisions and battalions, but teams of two or 10. Terrorism is the next highest stage of war.

Armies once were needed not only to wield the weapons of war, but to occupy the land of the enemy, like the Germans occupied much of Europe for a time or the Japanese occupied China and Korea. Modern war won't involve occupation. Americans will never occupy China or Russia, and no one will occupy America. The U.S. couldn't occupy Vietnam, and NATO forces can't really occupy Kosovo, even with a mostly friendly and appreciative population. The tactic of choice is now the dramatic explosion or chemical attack that generates fear and destroys economic functions. The objective is no longer to kill or capture or bring down the government. Instead, it is to undermine, panic, hinder, or get simple revenge.

The shift to terrorism as the means of conducting war in the 21st century poses a dramatic problem for which we are still unprepared. A war by a country's armed forces can be responded to by another nation's armed forces. There is a matching of military power measured in men, weapons, and technology. How is an act of terror to be matched? More importantly, how is it to be prevented? The best defense for the moment seems to be the errors and simple clumsiness of the terrorists themselves.

The...