'New Terrorism' expert sheds light on events of Sept. 11

Two years prior to Sept. 11, one man and his colleagues envisioned an attack on the World Trade Center that would kill thousands of people.

They were not prophets -- nor were they terrorists themselves -- but concerned American strategic analysts.

And on Nov. 1, as part of a special post-Sept. 11 International Relations program speaker series, 1979 College graduate Ian Lesser spoke to about 20 students and professors on "Countering the New Terrorism."

According to Lesser, the most striking thing about "New Terrorism" is that it is really not new.

"We're struck by the lethality of what happened on September 11, but, in fact, this is a trend that has been going on for a long time," Lesser said.

In 1999, Lesser, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, co-wrote a book also called Countering the New Terrorism. The talk, based on the book and a more recent briefing to the Air Force, sketched the "New Terrorism" and explored counter-terrorism strategies for the future.

"We're still carrying around with us a lot of very old images of traditional institutionalized terrorism, with well-defined hierarchies, state-sponsorship and an unambiguous political agenda," Lesser added.

"We knew what they were, we knew what they wanted," he said.

But today's leading terrorist groups are "amorphous entities with a lot more amorphous agendas," possessing "fluid and highly networked" organizational structures.

Drawing analogies from the business world, he described "the privatization of terrorism." Groups increasingly receive non-state funding, and have adapted new technology and methods, becoming less visible but more lethal.

"Terrorists too know about organizational innovations," he added.

Lesser concluded by outlining a multi-pronged strategy against the new menace. He pronounced himself "cautiously optimistic" that America and its allies can contain the New Terrorism -- Cold War style.

Bruce Newsome, the International Relations Program Activities Director, lauded Lesser as "one of, if not, the leading experts on terrorism in the world today." This story appeared exclusively at dailypennsylvanian.com.

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