Poverty and Terrorism

Over at Becker-Posner, the gentlemen scholars are debating the connection, if any, between poverty and terrorism. In general, Becker argues that a connection exists to the extent that the growth of a nation's economy, and the concurrent expansion of political liberties, seems to reduce terrorism. Posner, while offering (and shooting down) an excellent encapsulation of the liberal tendency to see terrorism as a "symptom" of a "root cause," namely poverty, argues that no correlation seems to exist. To bolster his point, he offers examples of terrorism that originates in affluent societies, from Timothy McVeigh to the Red Army Brigades to nineteenth century anarchists in the U.S.

Read both opinions, as they're sophisticated and thought-provoking. Behind them, of course, lies the debate over current U.S. foreign policy, particularly the belief of the administration that terrorism can be stamped out or at least dramatically reduced through democratization in the Middle East.

While Posner is certainly correct in noting historical examples of terrorism in seemingly stable countries, one trait of his examples that he doesn't mention is that, in most cases, they're home grown terrorists attacking their own people (or their immediate neighbors and former rulers, as with the IRA and the English). Basque terrorists haven't targeted New York or Washington; the KKK didn't go after the royal family.

And, most notably, with the fall of the Soviet Union, several groups he mentions -- the Baader-Meinhof gang and the Red Army Brigades, lost their sponsor and ceased to exist. That doesn't mean that domestic terrorists won't continue to pose a problem -- one could argue that the brigands of the Roman Empire were terrorists of a sort. But it does at least indicate a variety of terrorism that neither man mentions has indeed been reduced by the demise of totalitarianism in Europe. The IRA, for that matter, has lost much of its public support in our post 9/11 world; even Ted Kennedy is no longer reflexively on their side.

I'm off to Washington until tomorrow evening (more elder care).