October 2001
Trading Our Way to Peace
by Filip Palda
Stalin was fond of saying “remove the man, and you remove the problem.” He might decide that thousands would die if his first cigarette of the day was a bad one. It seems that Stalin had trouble getting good quality tobacco because he devoted many days to removing problems.
The US could rid itself of terrorists if it took Stalin’s advice, but it would also have to follow his example. Unless President Bush asks Congress to fund a secret police, gulags, assassination squads, and a system of internal passports that each citizen would have to show when crossing US state lines, the war on terrorism will fail.
The UK’s experience in Ireland suggests that democracies cannot kill terrorism by force. For the last 30 years, the UK has infiltrated the IRA with informers, caught them in fusillades arranged by the elite of the world’s commandos, and patrolled the streets of Belfast with armed cars. After losing several thousand sol-diers, the British victory flag is still col-lecting dust in its locker. In the 1980s, the US declared a war on drugs that has burned through billions of taxpayer dollars and has ended in failure.
To find an example of a country that has beaten terrorism by force, one has to go back to the dying days of the Roman Republic, when the Senate of Rome voted funds and extraordinary powers to Gnaeus Pompeii to fight piracy in the Mediterranean. Pompeii went after the pirates with a brilliant naval strategy, but he understood that every pirate he killed cleared a spot for aspiring young apprentices in plunder. Pompeii captured pirates and settled them in colonies that Rome policed and with which Rome traded. Put in mod-ern terms, he made them understand that upward mobility was a word that applied to legitimate commerce better than it applied to mayhem.
Pompeii understood perhaps better than does Bush that terrorism is a pro-fession. To enter a profession you must see gains and you must invest years in training for success.
Countries that breed terrorists are poor, and going nowhere fast. Young men bursting with energy and ambition see no gains to investing in commerce that promises meagre returns. Those who cannot climb the corporate ladder may turn their energies to climbing the lad-der to heaven.
Pope Urban II launched the first crusade in 1095 to liberate the Holy Land by giving his famous “jihad” speech at Clermont. He showed thousands of soldiers and citizens with nothing to gain in the material world that despoiling what was then called Palestine was the surest way to conquer the spiritual world. Only two hundred years later did Christians stop harassing the Middle East—when the economic boom of the medieval period diverted their energies from converting infidels to converting customers.
To win the war on terrorism, Bush will have to find some way to accelerate eco-nomic progress in lands drunk on reli-gion. His instinct to strike terrorists with force is a jab that must be followed by a solid blow that changes the struc-ture of countries where terrorists breed.
Bush might note that in the 1960s and ’70s, millions of young Americans trav-eled to Europe and brought back home a taste for cappuccino and wine. Starbucks and the booming US wine industry would not have grown had Europe not taught Americans how to appreciate the finer things in life. Bush can befuddle terrorist leaders by inviting the young from poor countries to study in the US and bring back the message to their countries that opportunity comes in packages bigger than shoe boxes con-taining explosives. If Bush invades Afghanistan, he must prepare a Mar-shall plan that will open the Khyber Pass to US trade.
Most of all, the US must win the hearts of those who believe they have no hope. If people can be made to believe that trade will be to their benefit, they will topple their dictatorships and join the gold rush of globalization that is making all of its participants rich. In a gold rush, no one has time to reach for a Kalashnikov or spend hours training banking manoeuvres in flight simulators.
Filip Palda is Professor at l’École Nationale d’Administration Publique in Montreal, and Senior Fellow of The Fraser Institute. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago.
info@fraserinstitute.ca
4th Floor, 1770 Burrard Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6J 3G7
Tel: (604) 688-0221 Fax: (604) 688-8539 Book Orders: 1-800-665-3558 ext. 580
You can contact us at the above email address for any comments or information requests. Please report any dead links or technical problems.