Paris Terror Strike: Fallout of Violent Disintegration of Nations

Europe had witnessed a crisis in the third century when the Roman Empire was at the verge of collapse. The era was marked by military anarchy and that caused disorder and disharmony in the entire Roman Empire. Collapse of states and violent disintegration of Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and Libya has caused similar ripple effect in the subcontinent as were felt when the Roman Empire collapsed. The chaos and disorder generated post-disintegration of states, does not remain local, especially when radical organisations assume control of remnants of collapsed states. Institutions, human values, rule based governance and balance of power are the first casualties of such events. The character of such organisations/Caliphates is that they have no loyalty or ethics, what matters to them is the means and the objective. Those who continue to support their unethical and violent means remain their allies and those who object their evil methods and design become their foes. This is what exactly was practiced by Taliban and will be repeated by ISIS. The Paris Attack has displayed that the violence will not remain restricted to the collapsing states (Syria and Iraq) and the stage is set to take this war into the heart of Europe. It is a matter of time when it will reach Russia, Central and South Asia.

Collapsing states leave large number of stakeholders competing to acquire territory, assets and resources to spread their area of influence. Some of these groups have the backing of states, some galvanise the support of radical’s world over and rest take support of non-state actors for a price. The means adopted in such an anarchical environment is violence to pursue their agenda. A group of nations may make use of such organisations/proxies for short term gain, but the ambitions and clash of interests often turn these groups hostile to their former masters.

What happened in Mumbai on 26/11 and Paris on 13/11 are parallel examples of what few men can do. It has given a sense of victory to the radicals and demonstrated to the global community the reach and their ability to strike. Even if France or the European Union is able to neutralise few modules the rest will remain unaffected because they operate in a decentralised manner independent of each other. In spite of security being tightened and technology being incorporated  the attacks have not stopped and will not stop. What will change is the methods of attack. In the backdrop of the above it is no more a problem of a nation or a region, but it is now a problem of global community and that needs to be addressed collectively.

What Should the Global Community Do?

The sad part is that the collapse of these nations is not due to internal dynamics, but is caused by design. Now the option is either to continue to use these weak and fragile nations and non-state actors as proxies for short term gain, or collectively take a decision to put a moratorium on providing support and sanctuaries to these radical organisations. It must be understood that once these organisations are created they can sustain themselves by infiltrating through cognitive domain, cyber space, economic spheres and ultimately through physical domain. This amorphous adversary cannot be fought by militaries alone;it would need combination of regular and irregular means. It is a global war and piece meal efforts by individual nations will not yield result. Another aspect is that failed states should not be considered economic opportunity by few privileged nations or syndicates. There should be an international law banning bilateral commercial relations with such organisations.

What is the priority at this stage? Rights of the citizens of these collapsed or collapsing states need to be restored at priority. Security of the vulnerable section of population irrespective of the race and religion needs to be fixed. There is a need to create secure enclaves to protect vulnerable ethnic groups under the UN aegis. Problem of refugees is a long term encumbrance to any host nation, thus it would make sense to create safe zones in the otherwise troubled region rather than relocation of refugees in different nation.

Consolidate and Assist in Stabilisation of Collapsing States.Recreation and reconstruction of institutions should be pursued to stabilise the collapsed states under the aegis of UN.The cost of allowing the instability and disorder will be higher than the cost of reconstruction of these states. The priority should be security, economic empowerment of displaced populations and establishment of rule of law.

Prevent Disintegration of New States. There are large number of nations which are at the brink of collapse or vulnerable to such manipulation by competing powers for geo-strategic space. Algeria, Egypt, Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Bolivia, Peru and Columbia are vulnerable states which can collapse due to internal and external dynamics. Such events will trigger uncontrolled chaos and unending violence. It will suck in many stable nations and displacement of population will not be easy to handle. Europe is already facing the crisis of refugees and the Paris attack has added another dimension to this crisis. No nation including the US and Russia will remain unaffected by this strategy of creating designer micro states. Today US may be supporting the Peshmerga to carve out a designer state, but the Kurds will not be satisfied to a state limited to Iraq and Syria. It will certainly stage a claim to merge areas of Turkey, Iran and even Armenia. The writings are clear on the wall that the evil empires if created will strike back at their masters.

Lesson for India

Let us be realistic, if Afghanistan again plunges into complete chaos,Pakistan and Iran are likely to get seriously affected. As a result India cannot remain unaffected by the happenings at its periphery. Attack on parliament and Mumbai 26/11 has displayed that no amount of security can insulate a nation from radicals, accept a holistic approach and collective efforts of government and its citizens. Time has come to create a national grid to track criminals and terror suspects, mapping of population digitally and federal police force with overriding powers to arrest and detain suspects. Capabilities including infrastructure needs to be created to insert force and disaster relief measures at the time of crisis. Drills and procedures to decongest the ground zero at the time of crisis are vital, which at the moment is conspicuous by its absence. Surveillance of radical groups and individuals assume significance.

India will have to develop the capabilities to keep population centres under electronic surveillance to monitor the affected areas and escape routes. Places of public gathering such as theatres, halls, stadiums and shopping malls should have secret routes of ingress for Special Forces to intervene from unexpected direction. Possibility of use of non-lethal incapacitating gases could also be considered through pre-designated conduit pipes at important places.

Some of the important lessons from the Paris terror attack were that there was structured response from the government agencies and citizens. The politicians did not go around like lose cannons to create a sense of confusion and the media acted responsibly by not telecasting this incident as an event for the TRP. The response of the government was articulated by the President himself and a very measured media briefing by government spokespersons did help in sending right signal to the population. It was sobering to see people at a crisis situation opting to sing the national anthem than to panic and cause confusion. It in fact evoked patriotism, pride and belief of the people in the nation. The response of the emergency services in providing relief to casualties was noteworthy. Though the attack in Paris was sudden and surprising, response of the French security forces and support services was diligent. These are pages that can be borrowed from Paris even from this time of tragedy.

Views expressed by the author are personal.