Daily Times

The package bombs exploding in Austin, Texas were not new forms of terror. But they are a warning as old as Vladimir Lenin.

Lenin understood that contradictions in politics and life were crucial to creating exploitive policies to seize power, increase influence or promote dissension. A most critical contradiction for democracies is one between security and freedom. Benjamin Franklin eloquently described this tension. In pursuing the former at the expense of the latter both will be lost.

Consider how to exploit contradictions in the West and the United States, especially in light of Lenin’s other dictum. The purpose of terror is to terrorise. The aim is to generate overreaction and exacerbate divisions to disrupt, weaken and destroy political cohesion. This is not limited to governments. Individuals are also quite capable too.

In 1919 and 1920 two dozen letter bombs panicked the nation. While only one person was killed — an unlucky night watchman — bombs were mailed to banking titan JP Morgan, Attorney General J. Mitchell Palmer, an associate Supreme Court justice and others notables across the breadth of the nation.

Consider how to exploit contradictions in the West and the United States, especially in light of Lenin’s other dictum. The purpose of terrorism is to create terror. The aim is to generate overreaction and exacerbate divisions to disrupt, weaken and destroy political cohesion. This is not limited to governments. Individuals are also quite capable of it

Overreaction was swift. Many tens of thousands were arrested summarily under the 1917 Espionage Act without due process and a significant number deported. The precursor of the FBI — the Intelligence Bureau under a twenty-something J. Edgar Hoover — made no arrests and not a single indictment was issued. However, the nation was terrorised over this handful of incidents.

For two decades beginning in the 1970s, the Uni-Bomber wrought fear with his explosive mailings. A decade and a half ago, white powder was sent to a number of Federal office buildings including Congress. About the same time two snipers spewed fear throughout the Washington DC, Virginia-Maryland region.

Before September 11th, Osama bin Laden had no idea how much his planned attacks would prove disruptive. He did not anticipate the Twin towers collapsing instead thinking both would remain derelict reminders of the attack. He did not predict world stock markets would lose trillions before recovering. Nor did he expect the onslaught from the United States and the trillions it would spend on the war on terror.

The Islamic State (IS) and fellow radical groups are not ignorant of the leverage of exploiting contradictions with terror to disrupt the West and the United States. The Internet and social media are ripe for orchestrating these effects. Crowd sourcing, propaganda and false news are among the new means for disruption.

How would we react if terrorists generated panic by spreading false alarms —-Orson Welles’ infamous “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast or more recently, the erroneous report of incoming missiles in Hawaii are suggestive of how to create panic? Or suppose that air traffic control was disrupted or just threatened. And if the Internet was filled with news of poisoned water supplies or food products what would the government do? The contaminated Tylenol episode decades ago could be a precursor.

From a state perspective, Russia has already demonstrated by its active measures how easy it is to interfere in elections from the US to Brexit to attempting to break NATO cohesion. False allegations of personal misconduct are easy to assert. And stock markets are not immune from electronically manipulating prices to disrupt and create panic. This is not new. So-called “short sellers” and other predators have used conventional means to rig stock prices. And affecting votes and ballot boxes is not beyond comprehension.

Because many of these means to exploit contradictions to terrorise and catalyse overreactions and disruptions are non-attributable, responses and preventions are difficult to create. Based on the past, overreaction is almost certain. Imagine the equivalent of airport security searches now writ large throughout society. Our adversaries surely win if that were to happen.

For those out to advance agendas and interests through these means, this low cost, highly effective avenue is to seed disruption through attacking societal contradictions. Worse, we are still oblivious to this line of attack. We worry about cyber, terror, and the changing military balance that is not in our favour. Yet, exploiting these contradictions in the information age to exacerbate the security and freedom dichotomy can have powerful negative effects on democracy.

If you were a former intelligence operative trained in seeking maximum political effects of disruption, misdirection, misinformation and deception, what might be your intent? Lenin had it right. But will we understand and act on that knowledge?

The writer is Chairman of two private companies; senior adviser at the Atlantic Council; and Distinguished Senior Fellow and Visiting Professor at the US Naval War College in Newport Rhode Island. He can be reached @harlankullman on Twitter

Published in Daily Times, March 22^nd 2018.