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Richard N. Haass
Lancaster, Penn.
May 16, 2004

Good morning. I am pleased— make that honored— to receive a degree from this wonderful institution and to be asked to speak to you this morning. I am especially honored to be included with my dear friend Marilyn Ware and with these four other individuals of such great distinction.

Let me say at the outset to the students who are graduating that I was impressed to learn that you were bringing back Greek to campus – at least until I learned that you had in mind the status of fraternities rather than the study of ancient language.

I was also surprised to learn that Franklin & Marshall had its origins in a brewery. I expect some of you found a way to show your respect for this tradition – repeatedly.

President Fry, fellow honorees, parents, faculty, trustees, friends, and last but far from least members of the class of 2004: I hope you do not come to regret my being your commencement speaker, as I plan to deliver a talk this morning that is anything but light-hearted. But then again, these are serious times.

When I graduated from a liberal arts college not too different from this one some 31 years ago, the United States was involved in two wars. We were marking a quarter century of cold war, and we were in the final stages of the war in Vietnam, a war that claimed more than 50,000 American lives.

You, the class of 2004, have done the class of 1973 one better. We meet here this morning at a time the United States is waging no fewer than three wars.

One is inside Iraq, where we are in the final weeks of an American-dominated occupation, one that has been at times and in places intensely and violently resisted. Although we are on the cusp of a new phase there, one in which Iraqis assert increasing control over their own future, there is no assurance that the risk to American forces or civilians will diminish. Nor is it clear how long we will be there and what we will leave behind. But it is my hunch that a large U.S. presence will remain in Iraq for less time than many speculate, not because of any lack of staying power on our part, but because of Iraqi nationalism and the all-but-inevitable emergence of a desire to be rid of foreigners, regardless of their intentions.

A second ongoing war is inside Afghanistan, the former sanctuary of al Qaeda, now a country with a central government that is struggling to right itself amidst resistance from warlords, drug producers, and the same Taliban who led Afghanistan into darkness. Again, it is difficult to predict with any certainty how long the thousands of American soldiers and others will remain and with what effect, but again I believe this presence will be of finite scale and duration.

The third war is everywhere, including inside this country. I speak, of course, of the war on terrorism.

I want to focus on this third war, this war on terror, because of the three it is the one most likely to be a part of your lives for the rest of your lives.

First things first. What do we mean by terrorism? There is no universal or universally accepted definition, so let me give you mine. Terrorism is the intentional killing of innocent men, women, and children by non-state groups for political purposes.

Terrorists tend to differ in the scale of their ambitions, in the means they employ and where they employ them, in the degree of support they receive from governments. But what terrorists of all stripes have in common is a willingness to take innocent life to promote their goals.

There is nothing inherently new about terrorism. It has been with us in one form or another for centuries. But what is new is the ability of terrorists to cause immense damage anywhere at any time.

Terrorism is no longer a local phenomenon. Terrorists can travel widely and gain access to the tools of their trade from an almost unlimited number of suppliers in transactions both legal and illegal.

What is more, today’s terrorists have or soon will have access to the most terrible weapons, including toxic chemicals, biological agents, and nuclear material.

Behind these changes lies globalization. Globalization, as you know, is the ability of information, people, technology, weapons, dollars, food, germs, drugs, carbon dioxide, and just about anything else you can think of to move across national boundaries in great volume and with great speed. Often these cross-border flows occur in a manner that governments cannot regulate or prevent; at times they take place without governments even knowing about them.

Globalization itself is neutral, neither benign nor malign. The movement of dollars across borders can raise living standards or fund crime. The same jet plane that takes you on vacation over spring break can be turned into a guided missile. The Internet can carry emails ranging from love letters to formulas for the production of biological weapons. A container moving from a port in Asia to the east coast of the United States can hold your household effects or a nuclear device.

Terrorism, to be sure, represents the dark side of globalization. But what motivates a terrorist? Why do young men and women give up their lives so freely in order to claim the lives of others so coldly?

Like many important questions, this is one easier to pose than to answer.

For some, what motivates their terror is a narrow ambition, say, to bring about an independent state for their own ethnic group or nationality.

For others, terrorism is more existential, more a way to cause pain to those perceived as responsible for their plight.

This is a distinction with a difference. In the case of the first sort of terrorist, there is the option, there exists the possibility, of addressing some of the concerns that animate the terrorists and those who support them through traditional politics and the give and take of traditional diplomacy. One may choose not to do this, but the option exists.

With the second group, when it comes to those who seek to avenge history, there is no way to even begin to address what motivates them. Their problem is less what we do than who we are. Their hatred is of our principles even more than our policies. This is the case with al Qaeda and other manifestations of radical Islamist terror.

What, then, can and should be done about terrorism, especially of this more dangerous variety?

There is no simple answer; nor is there any single answer.

Understanding the true nature of terrorism, however, is a start. I will confess I do not much like the war metaphor. Wars tend to be fought with military arms. On battlefields. Between soldiers. With both beginnings and ends.

I am not at all sure that any of this applies to terrorism. Terrorism is not necessarily waged with guns, and it is rarely if ever carried out using tanks or battleships or fighter-bombers. Box cutters, civilian aircraft, parked cars and trucks: these are the tools of the trade.

There is no battlefield. There is no Gettysburg where great armies meet. Or rather everywhere is a battlefield, a potential Gettysburg. Airports, office buildings, shopping malls— all are targets.

Terrorists are not soldiers. They do not wear uniforms; they tend to attack civilians rather than soldiers who are on duty.

And there is no clear moment from which to date the outset of the struggle against terrorism— and, alas, no end point.

It may be more useful to think of terrorism as a disease. We need to take steps to prevent it. We need to take steps to reduce our vulnerability to it. And we need to have in place mechanisms to recover from it.

The good news is that there are steps than can and should be taken to reduce the threat and its potential to cause great harm.

We must act to persuade states not to sponsor or support terrorism in any way. This can involve the use of incentives to those who behave responsibly— and sanctions, including the use of military force, for those who do not. More generally, we must use the full range of national security instruments— intelligence, diplomacy, economic and political assistance, investment, trade— and not simply the military. Poor and weak states must be strengthened so that they can resist having terrorists make use of their territory and recruit their citizens. In all of this, the United States must work with other countries and organizations; there is no way the struggle against terrorism can be waged unilaterally. The goal must be to have every government in the world and as many of the world’s peoples as possible come to see terrorism as illegitimate— much as slavery has come to be viewed— and to work together against it.

Simultaneously, we need to take steps to reduce our vulnerability. Much has been done to protect airports. But much needs to be done to protect our rail systems, our shores, and our ports. The same holds for government offices and the installations of high-profile businesses in this country and abroad. And we must do more to make sure that we are ready for those awful moments when all of our precautions prove insufficient and all we can do is rush to minimize the consequences of a successful attack.

This last point is a sober one but all the same unavoidable: We can reduce our vulnerability to terror, but in no way can we eliminate it. As one government document put it, “Victory against terrorism will not occur as a single, defining moment. It will not be marked by the likes of a surrender ceremony on the deck of the USS Missouri that ended World War II.” As I said at the outset of my remarks here today, this is a struggle that is likely to be part of your lives for the rest of your lives.

I can imagine some of you who have gathered here today are sitting there thinking, “What he has said is all theory. How are we doing in fact?” Alas, this, too, is a question easier to ask than to answer, a point made in a memorandum dated 16 October 2003 by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. “Today, we lack the metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror. Are we capturing, killing, or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training, and deploying against us?”

The question is an important one. It is hard to measure progress; that said, I do believe we are making progress in the fight against today’s terrorists. Over the past two and a half years, the world has become a more difficult place for terrorists to succeed at their work. Far more intelligence resources are devoted to terrorism, and the sharing of intelligence within and between governments has dramatically increased. So, too, has law-enforcement cooperation. Many sources of financing have been shut down. Afghanistan is no longer available as a sanctuary; Libya is no longer a state supporter. Billions of dollars have been spent by the United States and other governments on homeland security, making this and other countries less vulnerable than they were.

But it is just as important that we take steps to discourage individuals from becoming terrorists. This will require that we reduce the alienation that is widespread in the Arab and Muslim world. Three things come to mind in this regard. The first is Iraq. The United States and its coalition partners should go ahead with plans to transfer sovereignty— real sovereignty— to a new Iraqi government on June 30. Any delay would only raise new questions about our intentions and create new opposition to our role. We should also try to get to the bottom of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal. We cannot undo what was done, but we can take steps to prevent new abuses, reveal past ones, and hold those responsible accountable for their actions.

A second phenomenon that helps fuel terror is the perception that the United States is not using its influence to bring about a just solution to the Palestinian problem. Here it is important that we work with Europeans, the United Nations, Arab governments, and Palestinians who renounce terrorism so that any territory relinquished by Israel is governed well and is not used as a base for terrorism against Israel. The goal must be to bring about a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Third, nothing is likely to be more important in reducing the supply of potential terrorists than changing Arab and Muslim societies so that young men and women perceive reason to live. This translates into introducing educational and economic reform so that young people can acquire the skills to work in a modern global economy. It also means political reform, so that people feel they have a stake in their own societies and have the ability to work within the system, peacefully, for change. Such reform must include but not be limited to elections; in the end, what makes a country democratic is not simply a right to vote but the diffusion of power within both government and society. It is not for the United States to impose reform, but Americans can and should be a voice and a source of moral and economic and technical support.

My purpose in speaking the way I have today about terrorism is not to frighten you, much less to discourage you. To the contrary, I want to encourage you to consider careers in which you will be an active participant in this struggle against modern-day terror.

You can do it as a member of the armed forces. But also in the intelligence community. In law enforcement. In diplomacy and foreign policy. In the Peace Corps. As an economist who fights poverty at the World Bank or IMF. As an academic specializing in the history of the Middle East or Islam. As someone who joins an NGO [nongovernmental organization] that promotes civil society. Working at a foundation that seeks to improve the access of girls to quality education around the world. As a businessman or woman who creates good jobs.

There is no reason to put this off. Many of the soldiers making a positive difference in Iraq and Afghanistan are your age. Meghan O’Sullivan, who worked with me at the State Department and is now Ambassador Paul Bremer’s liaison with the Iraqi Governing Council, is in her early thirties. Drew Erdmann, who also worked on the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff during my tenure, went to Iraq to help rebuild their universities. He now serves on the staff of the National Security Council. He, too, is thirty-something. You can make a difference and have an extraordinary experience at one and the same time— and not have to wait until you are as old as those of us up here today— or as old as your parents.

My only request is that you find a way to join this effort to influence the world’s future. It can be for a time; it can be for a career. We can prevail in the struggle against terror, but only if Americans bring to bear all the resources of our society and all the talents of our citizens … including those of you here today.

Thank you for inviting me to Franklin and Marshall to share with you this wonderful rite of passage. My congratulations to the class of 2004 on your graduation— and to those teachers, administrators, friends, and family who had so much to do with it.