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Director:
This event-filled year, in both the domestic arena and in international affairs, which has included the continuing war on terrorism, the buildup to and launching of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the reorganization of Al Qaeda and a resurgence of terrorist attacks on a wide variety of targets throughout the world, has ensured the continuing relevance and importance of the work of the Counterterrorism Project. In particular, Congressional scrutiny surrounding the creation and subsequent operations of the Department of Homeland Security, along with the ongoing activities of the Justice Department and a wide variety of law enforcement and intelligence agencies, allowed the project to contribute expertise and analysis to the debate on crucial issues of intelligence gathering and analysis, and equally important concerns over the correct balance between civil liberties and the need for more focused and intrusive surveillance of terrorist suspects. Heightened recognition of the strategic importance of Turkey and the expectations and concerns of the large Muslim populations of the new states of Central Asia, as part of the diplomatic and military preparations for the invasion of Iraq, brought renewed attention and interest to this area of the world. As a result, the book edited by the Counterterrorism Project, The Far and Distant Lands: Russia, the West and the Future of Eurasia (Claymore Books, 2002), gained additional relevance and attention. The collection of nine essays in this book, each written by a leading expert and edited by Jane Leibowitz Brody, the vice president of development for Cresta Point Productions and a former research associate at the World Policy Institute, and WPI Senior Fellow Ian M. Cuthbertson, explores the history, attitudes and aspirations of both the leaders of these nations and their citizens and presents a number of alternate models designed to ensure the future security and balanced economic development of the region. With American soldiers still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, American warplanes continuing to be based in Uzbekistan, Western energy companies energetically competing to exploit the huge oil and natural gas reserves of Central Asia and American Special Forces troops acting as trainers for a number of local militaries–largely to combat Islamic fundamentalists insurgents allied with Al Qaeda –Central Asia remains a key focus of both American foreign and counterterrorism policies. As the United States and its allies settle into what may be a prolonged occupation and policing role in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and as extremists groups espousing Islamic fundamentalism experience growing success in gathering adherents, we are entering a period when the geopolitics of the entire Eurasia landmass is clearly shifting at an ever-increasing pace, making an understanding of its basic dynamics and directions more critical than ever. The work of the Counterterrorism Project emphasizes that the price of the West not remaining constructively engaged throughout the region could be very high. The risks of states collapsing in Eurasia, as happened in Afghanistan, or becoming rogue regimes, as occurred in Iraq, remains real. Such states would not only pose a risk to their neighbors, but by acting as either willing or unwitting bases for international terrorism, they would also pose a tangible danger to international security as a whole. In this regard, the construction, transportation, theft and smuggling of weapons of mass destruction (WMD's) throughout the region remain a very real threat. The Counterterrorism Project has repeatedly emphasized that the United States and its allies, now including Russia and a number of the new states of Eurasia, must continue to cooperate in promoting nonproliferation for WMD, tracking such weapons and focusing on the need to strengthen and broaden their pre-emptive military capabilities, coupled with diplomacy and economic leverage, to tackle all terrorist threats in the area. The recent revelations by a variety of intelligence sources that a rapidly reconstituting Al Qaeda and its network of affiliated terrorist organizations is now thought to be capable of at least the limited use of radiological, chemical or biological weapons only serves to further reinforce the Counterterrorism Project's argument that the international community must be willing to use force aggressively and pre-emptively against terrorist support infrastructures, wherever located. Such an aggressive approach on the part of the international community is essential to prevent new havens for terrorists and their training camps from being built and new categories of weapons from being developed and used. At a time when the United Nations is struggling to reassert the centrality of its international role and NATO is searching for a mission to justify its existence, these are the types of operations that such organizations should be examining and conducting, lest the United States continue its unilateral actions in pursuit of its particular perception of what constitutes international security.
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