UK drops ‘war on terror’
The UK will stop referring to the ‘war on terror’, amid concerns it is empowering and unifying terrorists, the international development secretary Hilary Benn said today.
Mr Benn told a meeting in New York that the aggressive war on terror terminology gives a shared identity to small groups with divergent aims and allows them to believe they are part of a grander struggle.
He told the meeting, organised by the Centre on International Cooperation think tank, that the focus should shift from ‘hard’ military and economic means to values and ideas, or so-called ‘soft’ power.
“In the UK, we do not use the phrase ‘war on terror’ because we can’t win by military means alone,” Mr Benn said.
The war on terror is not “us against one organised enemy with a clear identity and a coherent set of objectives,” the minister will argue, but instead “the vast majority of the people in the world” against “a small number of loose, shifting and disparate groups who have relatively little in common”.
“And by letting them feel part of something bigger, we give them strength,” he warned.
Disparate terrorist groups aim to force individual and narrow values on others, Mr Benn argued, using violence rather than dialogue and debate.
Combating terrorism therefore requires the government to address values and beliefs, rather than relying on violent means. World leaders should look for common ground with the enemies before resorting to “hard” military power, the international development secretary argued.
Mr Benn also restated the UK’s support for the International Criminal Court, which Washington has historically resisted, as well as underscoring the importance of international development.
Dr John Sloboda, from the Oxford Research Group, welcomed Mr Benn’s statement but said he would be more interested to see how it translated into policy changes.
“I welcome the realisation that we are not engaged in a war with the various proponents of terrorism around the world,” Dr Sloboda said.
“But if we simply change words without a radical change in policy, nothing much has been achieved.
Mr Benn is seen as a likely contender for deputy prime minister or foreign secretary after Tony Blair leaves Downing Street. Today’s speech has been interpreted as a signal that a post-Blair government will move away from his seemingly unshakable pro-American stance.
‘The war on terror’ was first coined by president George Bush in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks. Mr Bush promised to retaliate against al-Qaeda, but also to defeat “every terrorist group of global reach.”
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