Addressing the New International Terrorism: Prevention, Intervention and Multilateral Cooperation

by Joseph S. Nye Jr., Yukio Satoh, Paul Wilkinson

Virtually every nation has a role in preventing international terrorism, and many have both expertise and experience to offer. This concise report concludes that the effectiveness of international counterterrorism cooperation diminishes in the face of differing national and regional perceptions of the threat and the most effective methods to address it. The authors explore those differences and a range of approaches from the perspectives of Europe, Pacific Asia, and North America. What emerges are different emphases and preferences for solutions, but a clear appreciation of the urgency for transnational cooperation. This report looks at the need to develop common definitions, reconcile differing threat assessments, compare and integrate policies, seek common interests, develop effective international institutions, protect civil liberties, involve the private sector, and discourage unilateralist solutions. The authors agree upon a series of recommendations for action, and in doing so demonstrate the effectiveness that shared antiterrorism efforts can provide.

31 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Joseph Samuel Nye Jr. was an American political scientist. He and Robert Keohane co-founded the international relations theory of neoliberalism, which they developed in their 1977 book Power and Interdependence. Together with Keohane, he developed the concepts of asymmetrical and complex interdependence. They also explored transnational relations and world politics in an edited volume in the 1970s. More recently, he pioneered the theory of soft power. His notion of "smart power" ("the ability to combine hard and soft power into a successful strategy") became popular with the use of this phrase by members of the Clinton Administration and the Obama Administration. These theories from Nye are very commonly seen in courses across the U.S., such as I.B. D.P. Global Politics.
Nye was the Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he later held the position of University Distinguished Service Professor, Emeritus. In October 2014, Secretary of State John Kerry appointed Nye to the Foreign Affairs Policy Board. He was also a member of the Defense Policy Board. He was a Harvard faculty member since 1964. He was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, a foreign fellow of the British Academy, and a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy.
The 2011 Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) survey of over 1,700 international relations scholars ranked Nye as the sixth most influential scholar in the field of international relations in the past 20 years. He was also ranked as one of the most influential figures in American foreign policy. In 2011, Foreign Policy magazine included him on its list of top global thinkers. In September 2014, Foreign Policy reported that international relations scholars and policymakers ranked Nye as one of the field's most influential scholars.