Crying Wolf? : Assessing unconventional terrorism

In March 1995, members of the Japanese Aum sect poisoned several trains on the Tokyo subway with the nerve agent sarin. Twelve people died and the number of injured ran into thousands. The world was shocked: at long last, terrorism had gone ?chemical'. Would the Tokyo attack prove to be a terrible precedent?

The infamous attack provided new impetus to a public debate on the possibilities for terrorist use of unconventional weapons that has been going on ever since the early 1970s and has been dominated by American views. Crying Wolf? focuses on the current debate. It is based on the hypothesis that opinion-leaders will influence the way in which democratic governments, politicians and security experts formulate and implement policy. The quality of the public debate on the terrorist use of biological, chemical, nuclear or radiological devices is, therefore, the leading theme of this Clingendael Study.

In order to substantiate the analysis of the current debate and the study's conclusions, the evolution of the arguments over the past twenty-five years is explored, with special attention to interpretations of technical capabilities and incentives.

The main conclusion is reached that, in the United States in particular, the debate has stimulated an atmosphere of ill-defined alarm rather than creating the right conditions for well-considered and effective counterterrorist policies. As counterterrorism is an issue on various transatlantic security agendas, Europeans have good reason to follow it closely, and to participate in it.