American Psychology and Post 9-11 Terrorism:
Extant and Emerging Roles

Pacific Institute for the Study of Conflict and Aggression
A Nonprofit Scientific and Educational Organization
Kamuela, Hawaii

Recognizing our obligation to address terrorism, a form of collective violence which represents a critical issue facing humankind today, we the undersigned affirm and support the following Statement.

We assert that terrorism is a biopsychosocial phenomenon, and that American psychology is in a unique position to contribute to the amelioration of this type of violence.  Given the crisis-producing events since 9-11, the time is right to heed the call to address emergent issues. We urge the readers to become involved in the many new and meaningful activities relevant to terrorism-related research, evaluation, intervention and consultation, and present 10 hypotheses for reflection, discussion and investigation.  We fully endorse the statement circulated by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists sponsor John Polanyi in 200l and signed by 110 Nobel laureates that reads in part: “To survive in the world we have transformed, we must learn to think in a new way.”

All human violence begins with a decision to act.  This places the attitudes, values and cognitive processes associated with terrorist violence into psychology as a legitimate area of inquiry.  We believe that ending terrorism and achieving peace are realistic possibilities.  We maintain that terrorism can be addressed effectively, before we attempt to change, cure, incapacitate or otherwise render terrorists harmless, through moral clarity and advocacy of others.  We hold that it is crucial to employ a combination of primary, secondary and tertiary prevention efforts, in tandem with superior technology and strategies, with the caveat that even superb technology and the soundest strategies by themselves can never defeat terrorism.

As psychologists, our values are augmented by well-meaning codes of ethics within the various related disciplines.  Unfortunately, although there are currently over 100 definitions of terrorism,  none of the disciplines define terrorism or any other type of violence.  Almost all of the definitions of terrorism incorporate the notion that terrorism is deliberate violence toward innocents with an intent to instill fear or to otherwise coerce or intimidate the larger victim group of which the innocents are members. The direct targets are often not the final targets. Yet the term terrorism is often self-serving and defies precise definition. A terrorist entity can be an individual, group or nation at a particular time and place.  Assumptions behind one’s idea of terrorism must therefore be examined in terms of who is inflicting harm on whom as well as the circumstances under which it occurs.

HYPOTHESIS #1:   Violence and the threat of violence preempt other events for attention and action.  As a first hypothesis, we hold that violence and the threat of violence preempt other events for attention and action.  We pay keen attention that which might harm us.  This focus is an adaptive, arousal-related attentional event that is linked to survival-related responses. In modern times, the destructive power of conventional weapons is awesome, the specter of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) looms over us and unconventional warfare is rampant around the globe. As a result, the most prudent tactic is often to slow down rather than speed up the response to threat.

Counteraction thus should be avoided before concluding who may have perpetrated given acts of terrorism.  For example, after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, a large segment of our population, including those in key leadership positions, wrongly believed that Middle Eastern terrorists were responsible for the atrocity.  As another example, we know now that within a few  months after 9-11, the United States invaded Iraq, based on the now discredited rationale that Iraq had WMD and had forged operational ties with the Al Qaeda. Massive and unnecessary human suffering and death resulted–both by the Iraqi people and American military.  Iraq continues to be devastated, its resources squandered, with increasing alienation of the U.S. from the world community. At current estimates, the cumulative and projected cost of the Iraq war could have easily fully funded Social Security for decades to come, supplied virtually all of the estimated costs to meet clean-water standards in the U.S. and paid for a 5-year child immunization program for several virulent diseases for every child on planet Earth.  Avoiding precipitous conclusions calls for temperance and self-control on the part of those who contemplate action, as well as those who support such choices.

HYPOTHESIS #2: All forms of proactive violence, including terrorism, are maladaptive.  Our second hypothesis is that all forms of proactive violence, including terrorism, are maladaptive, except in the defense of self, others or country.  No cause, history of oppression or previous violence against the potential terrorists, or any other circumstance justifies terrorism unless the possible victim is in the path of harm.  It is always illegitimate, always murder when people are deliberately killed except in the unique circumstances of avoiding or attempting to evade or escape violence from others. This applies to individual terrorists, violent groups, rogue states and third- and first-world nations.

By engaging in terrorism, the perpetrator--an individual or a collectivity–usually experiences a host of maladaptive consequences in addition to the perpetrator’s own possible death or injury. Such consequences include distortions of the truth and the emergence of rigid views of good versus evil, us versus them and dominance versus submission, all of which delimit attempts at compromise or negotiation.  Paradoxically, the original goal of the terrorists typically recedes into the background as the violence itself restructures and warps the perpetrator’s view of the world.  Aside from the obvious trauma to the surviving victims and their significant others, the perpetrator becomes a lesser person, debased by the experience of killing others. 

Likewise, terrorism almost always causes maladaptive responses, including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in those who are the target of aggression.  A substantial behavioral science literature on PTSD reveals that the syndrome is worst when the catastrophe is by deliberate human design, and when trust is violated, as in the 9-11 attack on America and the war in Iraq.  Primary PTSD, which results from being directly victimized, has demonstrable neuropsychological and psychological consequences. American psychologists have made great strides in addressing terrorism through the application of primary PTSD-related interventions.   

American psychologists have also conceptualized and designed interventions for secondary PTSD–which is experienced by those who witnessed or observe violence but were not directly threatened by the event--as a condition which can manifest itself in severe and disabling symptoms.  It is likely that a significant proportion of the hundreds of millions of individuals worldwide who repeatedly watched victims leaping from the Twin Towers and other aspects of the 9-11 attack, were victims of secondary PTSD. This phenomenon is likely rampant among civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq as a result of the ongoing conflict in those countries.  Domestically, our mental health efforts will be strained to the limit as American personnel return from the Middle East and other zones of conflict.  Indigenous people in areas of combat will be largely untreated.

Dynamically, victims of secondary PTSD learn to repudiate violence itself as a problem-solving method and develop a death anxiety, or embrace the experience and become more integrated and self-directed.  Individuals react involuntarily react when they see the victims of a massacre, the piles of corpses, or a genocide, or contemplate the look of fear on a soon-to-be-executed person, or smell the death-stench in concentration camps from the safe position of an observer, or witness almost any other form of collective violence. A common response is for witnesses to feel fortunate to have been spared and to experience shock when the full import of the violence hits them. In an attempt to regroup and organize an appropriate response, many individuals freeze as an assault on their senses takes place. Survivor guilt is a natural response, regardless of the logic of the atrocity. Some continue to show finely tuned executive behavior, at least from the outside, especially those who have built-in protective barriers to such trauma, while others act out in strange and dysfunctional ways, in accordance with their unresolved PTSD. The rationalizations and reasons for the violence help them go on with their lives, but at a huge cost. Their thinking and feelings are forever affected. The memories don’t go away. The end result for successful adaptors is when the atrocity or genocide unavoidably becomes part of oneself, sinks deep into the conscience, and becomes a stimulus for self-examination and moral action. Many of these witnesses eventually put words to their particular ordeal, prior to their own action-imperative. It goes like this: if they accepted and adjusted to the violence they witnessed, without transforming themselves in the process, there is nothing they would not accept. “Never again!”, the cry of victims-witnesses from the Holocaust is an example of this internal process.   

HYPOTHESIS #3: Micro-violence and macro-violence are functionally similar and tend to potentiate each other.  Our third hypothesis is that micro-violence and macro-violence are functionally similar and tend to potentiate each other.   For example, it has been shown that both victims and perpetrators of war are more prone to individual violence as civilians once they have returned home. Micro and macro changes will synergistically affect each other.  By this principle, changes and events in the individual and family can have profound effects on the larger society, and vice versa. As an illustration, some studies have found that widespread punitive child practices lead to a greater propensity for war for the affected society. Clinical and counseling psychologists are at the forefront of child and family interventions, as well as addressing most forms of individual violence in various contexts, which then may make a real difference for society as a whole.

HYPOTHESIS #4: The attack on America on September 11, 2001 will serve as a benchmark by which terrorism is judged and compared for the foreseeable future.  A fourth hypothesis is that the attack on America on September 11, 2001, having unanimously emerged as the perceived trigger for the continuing crisis, and the government’s response, the GWOT, global war on terrorism, will serve as a benchmark by which terrorism is judged and compared for the foreseeable future, despite its long and horrific history.  Across many fields and disciplines, in the writings of military commentators, politicians, historians, economists and others, 9-11 is viewed as the date on which this country passed through the portals of history into a still-existing crisis mode.

Acts of terrorism since 9-11–in the Middle East, Afghanistan, Spain, Russia, Philippines, Indonesia to name a few–directed at a variety of targets–government, military, commercial enterprises, schools–make it clear that this phenomenon is pervasive and inextricably intertwined with the world polity, economics, religions and social psychology. This perception has profound implications for how the world has become fractionalized.  We propose a new specialty--“geopsychology”– to address these universal issues, previously covered in areas such as political psychology, peace psychology and community psychology.  The role of non-government organizations (NGOs), such as Amnesty International, International Red Cross, Psychologists for Social Responsibility, and universities can reduce the impact of terrorism and war.  Geopsychologists may play crucial roles in the United Nations in meeting crises of collective violence.

HYPOTHESIS #5: The decision path of terrorist entities that lead to violence should be articulated before intervening.  The fifth hypothesis is that the decision path of terrorist entities that lead to violence should be articulated before intervening.  Terrorist groups against the United States desire our country to incur huge expenditures, engage in killing of innocent civilians and sustain high casualties among our troops. This leads some experts to speculate that terrorist groups wanted the war in Iraq.  From the terrorist groups’ perspective, our nation’s overreaction to 9-11 may have furthered their aim of eventually causing the demise of our government as well as the governments of other Western nations, as a function of the loss of credibility, prestige and resources.

HYPOTHESIS #6: Terrorist entities and those who support terrorism think wrongly because their underlying core beliefs are affect-driven and not subject to modification from external events.  The sixth hypothesis is that terrorist entities and their supporters use faulty thinking, not because they are mentally disturbed as collectivities or as individuals–they are usually not--but because their underlying core beliefs are affect-driven and not subject to modification from external events. Thus, they typically mispredict their opponent’s behaviors and as well as those of the society from which they originate.  The Taliban in Afghanistan widely predicted that any U.S. invasion would fail because it viewed U.S. military troops as coming from a decadent society and being “soft” and unwilling to face death.  In the main, American warriors have been highly effective in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Terrorists believe that they will eventually win, if not directly by force, then ultimately by undermining the credibility of the opposing force.  Yet, both sides in a terrorist conflict are enmeshed in a delusional, zero sum game.  For the U.S., the hard reality is that radical Islamic terrorist groups, which are the current terrorists of concern for our country, are unlikely to be defeated in the short term, given their cell structure, the intractable beliefs of their members, suicidal tactics, and constant replenishment of fighters from a supportive population.

Likewise, Islamic terrorists can never defeat the U.S. by direct violence alone.  They are not sufficiently powerful to overcome the U.S. military–the most lethal martial organization ever assembled in recorded history--even if they had WMD.  Islamic terrorists are learning that our combat soldiers and marines are every bit as dedicated and assured of the righteousness of their actions, these beliefs determined on an individual basis, as are they.  Islamic terrorists don’t have the means or  the technology to mortally wound the United States at home.  Scores of attacks such as  9-11 would not destroy this country.  The most terrorists could hope for are an increase in the death anxiety of the American population, an exacerbation of the already-existing financial bleeding of this country, and over-responding to every known or threatened terrorist act. A dirty bomb, a real possibility since one has already been prevented, or even several in major urban areas would create panic and most likely evacuation, as well as abandonment of the radioactive areas.  However, such an attack would not totally demoralize Americans, and would only strengthen their determination to ferret out and kill the terrorists.  To defeat American citizens, terrorist would have to subjugate their will, sap their motivation, or instill immobilizing fear or dread.  But Americans are conditioned to act, to master the situation, to behave in the direction of our underlying values, the very opposite of helplessness and inaction.

HYPOTHESIS #7: A focus on positive characteristics is a viable solution to proactive aggression and violent interlocks.   The seventh hypothesis is that a focus on the strengths and virtues of individuals and groups is a viable solution to proactive aggression and violent interlocks.  American psychologists need to move beyond the predominant focus on psychopathology and what is wrong with people.

The prediction has repeatedly been proffered, and not without good reason, given the persistence of terrorist attacks, that the chances of future attacks within this country are high. Authorities warn us to expect and prepare for further attempts to harm us.  In several venues, American psychology is shifting toward the inculcation of fortitude, resilience, wisdom, courage, perseverance and a host of other positive traits and virtues to actively meet these challenges.   This is half the battle.

The remaining half is just as important. Social psychologists caution us to avoid the fundamental attribution error.  This is a tendency to explain others’ actions, like those of terrorists, in terms of negative dispositional (internal) rather than situational (external) causes. An illustration of this error is demonizing the enemy, or casting  upon them a variety of pejorative terms such as we witness in the media.  Our mental flexibility is thereby reduced and the reversal of perspective, seeing the position of others from another’s viewpoint, is compromised, along with the ability to accurately predict and effect positive changes. American psychologists can show that there is a greater reason not to demonize the enemy.  It degrades us and prevents the attitude of advocacy toward all humankind. 

HYPOTHESIS #8: To break violence interlocks, we need to understand and apply sound psychological concepts.  The eighth hypothesis is that to break violence interlocks, we need to understand and apply well-founded psychological concepts. “Functional autonomy”, a term coined by Gordon Allport, as but one example provides explanatory power for understanding the persistence of terrorism.  Applied to violence, functional autonomy refers to the continuation of an activity by virtue of its previous expression, independent of its original causes. Psychological studies have shown that successful violence is frequently followed by self-reinforcing thoughts, feelings and behaviors.  The process eventually defines the person or organization. Violence becomes functionally autonomous, and persists even if the original issues motivating the violence have been resolved. Simply put, violence thrives on itself. Once established, functional autonomy becomes highly resistant to change.

Palestinians who were forcibly removed from their lands after WW II formed the ideology for terrorism by Islamic extremists. But the resolution of those issues, as in the creation of a Palestinian State, aside from the moral necessity of redressing this fundamental wrong, will not eliminate terrorism as we know it. The roots of antagonism toward the U.S. and Israel are too deep. Likewise, the U.S. bringing the Muslim terrorists “to justice” will not obviate the fear of terrorism or the need of nation-states such as the U.S. to discontinue the GWOT.  Functional autonomy explains why.

Interventions that respond violently to violent events lead to self-generating violent interlocks.  And the delay to violence by victims can be in moments or years. Croatians sided with the Nazis in World War II and, over half a century later, the Serbs have not forgiven them.  Serbian leaders invoked this decades old atrocity to justify their own genocide in the former Yugoslavia.  Arab terrorist groups often refer to Americans as “Crusaders”-- harkening back to the Crusades a millennium ago.  History provides endless examples of how violence begets more violence.

To break aggressive cycles, we should understand that terrorism, like all other types of violence, involves discrete stages: baseline responding, planning for the violence, executing the violence, the immediate aftermath, and an attempted return to typical ways of behaving, if such is possible. Violence is always a choice after costs are weighed and nonviolent options are attempted or excluded.   This means that interventions and strategies can be linked to any stage in the violence sequence. History, opportunity and triggers (HOT) to violence, operating in concert against inhibitions, are the key contributions to violence.  The HOT acronym, constructed by forensic psychologists, can be utilized when judging the violence risk of an individual or group.

Deception must be considered in attempting to break violence interlocks. Truth almost always is the first casualty on both sides in a violent conflict. To buy into the distortions and outright fabrications of the terrorist entity, typically followed by those of its opponent, reduces true understanding and accuracy of prediction.  Thus, one should be trained in the analysis of deception and distortion  Faking by violent perpetrators--minimizing, denying, concealment, misattribution, fabrication, exaggerating strengths and weaknesses–usually occur at every stage of the violence sequence.

Due to the presumed pervasiveness of faking by terrorist entities, setting aside our own distortions for a moment, there is a critical need for this country to develop deception analysis methodology and deception-detecting instrumentation.  (Imagine deception-detecting software on a battlefield laptop computer that gives almost instantaneous feedback on a suspected terrorist’s truth-telling without resorting to torture or other inhumane methods of inquiry). Research in the neural sciences informs us that the brain patterns of people who are lying can be readily distinguished from those who are not deceiving. Research in biometrics, in combination with the principles of deception and distortion, suggests the development of a digitalized version of this device in the foreseeable future that is not dependent on wire leads.  This would represent a technological advance that is as far beyond the polygraph as DNA fingerprinting is to blood type analysis.

Yet we repeat: No technological advance or breakthrough alone or in combination with other methods will defeat terrorism. In fact, it is our opinion the GWOT itself as a tertiary strategy of force of arms cannot succeed alone, in part because it conflates a multiplicity of goals far beyond any nation’s ability to achieve. We need to put equal effort into conflict resolution and other primary and secondary prevention strategies to insure a sound peace.  With regard to deception, we must adhere to the truth in order to maintain our own credibility.  Both victims and perpetrators engage in deceit.  We should exercise prudence as we make judgments based on all information which may be influenced by deception and distortion. 

HYPOTHESIS #9: As a basic rule for effective intervention, primary, secondary and tertiary prevention strategies should be simultaneously employed.  The ninth hypothesis is that as a basic rule for effective intervention, primary, secondary and tertiary prevention strategies in combination should be employed, with an emphasis on primary prevention.  Let’s take the last strategy first.  Tertiary prevention consists of addressing a problem after a negative outcome, such as a violent attack, has already occurred. Like counter-terrorism, or military action as a response to attack, tertiary strategies are needed for self-defensive action.  All people and countries have the right to defend themselves.

Secondary prevention focuses on persons, situations or organizations that are at high risk for violent behavior.  Target hardening as a secondary prevention strategy is utilized extensively to increase security, from cutting off access to pilots from the main cabin in airplanes to digging tank traps around military garrisons.  Unfortunately, it is of limited usefulness, with several studies showing that overall it is successful less than15% of the time across the board in removing or diminishing an attack.  Examples abound of breached security. The successful bombing of the highly secure U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983 or the USS Cole in 1997, or the frequent attacks within the supposedly secure Green Zone in Baghdad are cases in point..  A dedicated foe is never stopped and is at most delayed or diverted by target hardening. 

Violence risk analysis as a secondary strategy can be utilized in predicting terroristic acts.  A  generation of violence prediction methods consisting of pure actuarial measures made a quantum breakthrough during the 1990s.  Although no studies with terrorist entities have been performed, there is no theoretical or even practical reason that future investigations can not eventually create tests that are normed on terrorists, or on a group of terrorists that is dominated by a forceful, ruthless leader to maintain control.  It may turn out that in the latter case, the group behaves as the leader acts which means, in essence, that individual predictions are proffered. In short, it may be possible for psychology to produce a measure in the next several years that will yield statements about the numerical probability of the occurrence of terrorist acts,  and normative information regarding how a given terrorist entity’s risk compares to than of others.

A few of the findings from the literature on violence risk analysis that may be reframed for terrorism follow:

1.  Start with the valid information about a terrorist entity first; do not be biased by recent data or by confirmation or hindsight bias.

2.  Remember that the terrorist, victim and context in which the violence occurred must all be analyzed in order to understand the terrorist event.

3.  Retain validated decision rules even when tempted to abandon them for a particular case.

4.  Think in terms of base rates unless using predictive devices that focus on decision analysis for prediction (e.g., classification tree method). 

5.  Avoid accepting illusory associations, unsupported by data, as part of the fact base  (e.g., the false notion that terrorists are mentally ill, the inaccurate position that faking behaviors are never shown by victims of terrorists).

6.  Consider opportunities for future violence given the availability of weapons, victims, and other factors (e.g., attempts to procure WMD).

7.  List alternative hypotheses that explain terrorist violence and seek evidence for each, especially those contrary to your own leanings or biases.

Psychohistory, a term proposed for the study of the psychological contributions to our historical past and trends for the future, emerges as another fascinating involvement and secondary prevention strategy by prediction on a macro level. It turns out that crises of the magnitude of 9-11 have regularly occurred throughout the last millennium in both the Orient and Occident.  These crises have occurred 80-120 years apart since the late Middle Ages, using Anglo-American history as an example, which led into the English Civil War, the Armada Crisis, the Glorious Revolution which bridged Great Britain and the American colonies, the American Revolution, the American Civil War, and World War I and II.  In all cases, these crises were followed in a few years to a couple of decades by a transformational period such as a general war between a superpower, its allies, and a challenger, and their allies. The nature of the conflict  in the transformational period may not be readily discernable by the preceding triggering crisis.  The Boston Tea Party did not translate into a full blown war against the British Empire.  The crisis trigger represented by the 1929 stock market crash on Black Tuesday did not tell us much about World War II as the upcoming transformational event. Likewise, the principle opponents of the U.S. in a transformational war may not be Islamic terrorists groups or Muslim nations.

What drives these historical cycles, and why should psychologists be interested? For one, a cyclic understanding of history, or even a spiraling one to account for improvements in various spheres of human activity, as opposed to the linear model that we have been taught, allows us to predict future cycles and the likely components of the current cycle in which we find ourselves. Some of these components are psychological in nature, including generational mindsets (especially as it appears every fourth generation), the economy of the times, assassinations, and armed conflict. The predictions of some data-based cyclic historians–George Modelski, William Strauss, Neil Howe, Arnold Toynbee, L. L. Ferrar, William Thompson, among others–converge on the narrow range between 2015 to 2030 as to when we are due for the next transformational event, as shown by five long cycles over the last five centuries.

But is a global war the inevitable outcome?  Only one transformational crisis in Anglo-American history–the Glorious Revolution--which in the last portion of the 17^th century yielded few casualties along with massive political and humanistic reforms--did not end in a total war.  So we know that a peaceful and uplifting conclusion to a transformational period can take place.  But in every transformation characterized by global war, all available weaponry was utilized to defeat the enemy. There is no reason to believe that this would not be the case in the future.

A psychohistorical view thus suggests that the most dangerous issue confronting us today may not be terrorism at all, as alluded to above, the convolutions produced by the 9-11 and subsequent events notwithstanding.  Terrorism is only one type of catalyst for action in a crisis period, others in the past being a collapse of the economic system, perceived unfair taxation, religious conflict and ethnic/cultural discrimination. Given our history over the last 500 years, the most dangerous time may be at the tail end of the cycle when we are at high risk for a global war.  Given a global war, it is likely that WMD would be utilized by the warring collectivities with that capacity. 

For the U.S., the likely enemies in a global war are those seven countries identified in the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) as authorized targets of preemptive nuclear strikes–China, Russia, Syria, North Korea, Libya, Iran and Iraq.  Presumably, the next NPR will remove Libya and Iraq if trends favorable to our security posture continue in those nations.  The current NPR  states that nuclear weapons could be unleashed in vaguely defined situations such as a military conflict between China and Taiwan, a war in the Middle East involving Israel, North Korea invading South Korea, as well as “surprising military developments”.   The mindset required to produce the current NPR represents a fundamental shift from using nuclear weapons as a last and deterring resort to a pre-planned and proactive means to achieve victory.  This last is consistent with the Pentagon concept of Total Battlefield Dominance (TBD) in which all other considerations are subordinate to winning by vanquishing the enemy.  The NPR also calls for the development of new and specialized nuclear devices, now being produced in national weapon labs across the country, that can be used against deep or hardened targets such as we experienced in Afghanistan.  In addition to other disadvantages such as a loss of credibility when we attempt to control nuclear proliferation, this encourages other countries to develop similar weapons. A nuclear war between Pakistan and India, for example, could wipe out one sixth of the world’s population, and very possibly escalate to a global thermonuclear war.  Paradoxically, and over the long run, the current strategy employed by most nuclear armed nations to deter nuclear war or attain victory if it should occur itself increases the risk for eventual nuclear war. The problem solving method is the problem itself.

The “Doomsday Clock”, as a symbol of nuclear danger depicted in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and on their website, has shown seven minutes to midnight since it was reset in 2002.  This is the highest setting since the clock first made its appearance 57 years ago. Among the reasons for the increasing nuclear danger is a growing concern that the global community is becoming more complacent about ongoing research and development in nuclear weapons, and has focused on the economy, current small wars and the GWOT.

Ominously, these new nuclear weapons add to the more than 31,000 nuclear weapons still maintained by the eight known nuclear powers, representing a decrease of only 3,000 since 1998.  More than 16,000 of these weapons are operationally deployed by the U.S and Russia.   The reductions in nuclear weapons are actually insignificant.  The nuclear arms disarmament talks themselves are thus rendered meaningless.  The inactive weapons are simply placed in storage for later deployment.  Even if they were dismantled, and almost all the U.S. weapons are not, they could be reassembled in a few days or weeks.  In essence, only the delivery time is delayed and hence the basic vulnerability of the targets remains untouched. It is projected that the U.S. stockpile will remain at 10,000 or more warheads for the foreseeable future, in addition to stored nuclear weapons and radiological substances such as uranium and plutonium.  The U.S. currently has nearly 750 metric tons of weapon-grade uranium and 85 metric tons of weapon-grade plutonium. (A rudimentary nuclear bomb can be constructed from 55 pounds of uranium or 18 pounds of plutonium).

In blind adherence to that suicidal anachronism, MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction, and despite the end of the Cold War, both the U.S. and Russia dangerously have on high alert thousands of nuclear weapons that can be launched within minutes.  By several estimates, the U.S. targets Greater Moscow alone with over 200 nuclear warheads.  Increasingly, China as a NPR-approved target is mentioned in U.S. military forums as a leading contender as a economical and military challenger to this country.

These grotesque policies, numbers and actions suggest an underlying belief by the leadership of the U.S. and Russia that a nuclear war is acceptable, perhaps inevitable, and certainly survivable.  For the last half-century, genocide by thermonuclear war has formed the underlying structure of international defense policy.  But in a global war, there will be winners and losers.  Very likely, the nuclear-armed nations in a general conflict will use their deadly weapons rather than risk conquest or face defeat. 

What are the psychological underpinnings that sustain such illogical beliefs that account for the continued support of nuclear weapons?  They are, in our opinion, first and foremost, the need to maintain power and dominance, and reaping the status, prestige and economic gain that come with such an allegiance, and, secondarily, the need to sustain national morale and reduce death anxiety. In the final analysis, it is all about control and the unwillingness to give up that control.

Yet it is possible to encourage and train people to seek out correct information even if it is uncomfortable.  Individuals and groups can redirect their competitive behavior that leads to attempts to dominate others. In short, individuals can change in significant ways, relinquishing rigid world views and cherished images when they are no longer adaptive. We suggest that the first concept we must relinquish is that of good versus evil, or its more subtle companion, the pursuit of competitive policies even when they have negative consequences for security. As Psychologically, we face deeply held resistance to the simple truth that we are all interdependent and mutually vulnerable.  One way out is through cooperative behavior based on an awareness of that vulnerability.

Historians contend that global decision mechanisms must be in place and operational 10-15 years before the transformational event is due to occur in order to have any significant effect on the outcome. This makes sense from both the animal and human aggression literature that shows the narrowing of a range of actions to a fight or flight action tendency the closer one gets to the violence itself. Given that a transformational event will occur in the range of years as predicted, we as individuals and as a profession should help identify and develop those positive decision mechanisms as soon as possible..  Otherwise, we may be locked into a negative transformational event such as a nuclear war from which there is no escape.  We already see increasing resistance to actions and programs reflecting cooperation and advocacy of others.  Adding to the difficulty is the ultra-conservative, martial mindset and core values of leaders during a typical crisis period, which is antithetical to a liberal, peace-oriented approach.

We suggest that primary prevention efforts by psychologists be accelerated in order to build in these decision mechanisms (e.g., through the United Nations, NGOs, peace movements, state and national politics) before it is too late.  These efforts would address the conditions which gave rise to terrorism, war and genocide–questions such as poverty, economic deficiencies, repeated exploitation, social injustice, and racial, religious and cultural intolerance.  On an individual basis, the attitudes behind working towards the elimination of those conditions should also be a target of primary prevention. Primary prevention can be directed at our own attitudes about the acceptability of violence on any level of consciousness. What does this mean for ourselves and those with whom we direct our efforts?  Effective and long-lasting intervention presupposes the worth of the individual and the value of the superordinate cultural, religious, racial and national group to which the terrorist and victim of terrorism hold membership.  We have a long way to go and so little time.

HYPOTHESIS #10: Reframing and redirecting our violent mindsets requires transcending violence interlocks to cycles of affection and gratitude.  As a tenth hypothesis, we believe that reframing and redirecting our violent mindsets requires transcending violence interlocks to cycles of affection and gratitude.  Training in altruism and advocacy of others, including our perceived adversaries, should start in childhood and proceed throughout the lifetime of each individual. We should do this even knowing that our efforts may not be appreciated.  School psychologists and developmental researchers in this country have initiated a few such programs which teach conflict resolution and an advocacy view of others.

Our ideas surrounding terrorism commence with incomplete and imperfect information about people and emanate from various such sources as governments, private institutions, media and perhaps our own experience.  At times which are difficult to predict, what we have come to believe gives us the opportunity to make individual choices and individual actions for which we are morally responsible. We are equally accountable for inaction.  If our vision of what should be done leads to action, there is no guarantee of success.  In fact, the odds may be against it, as least as far as the violence-related challenges presented in this Statement. Nevertheless, the outcome may be positive. As stated by Nobel Prize Laureate Vaclav Havel, it is possible to foresee countless everyday individual decisions whose common feature is an awareness of the global threat to the human race posed by collective violence.  These decisions can be founded on an understanding of our own limitations, but should not yield resignation.  Finally, above all, it is possible to imagine that through these decisions, carefully wrought, planned, combined and well timed, we can create first individual and then local climates–marked by altruism, creativity, cooperation, tolerance and perseverance–such that a critical mass will begin to change the direction of our nation and hence the global community. Moral leadership and moral leaders are an essential part of this process, but we should not depend on them for our success. The individual will always matter most.  Each individual’s world view, decisions, and actions would be characterized by the simple desire to help shape a safer and more loving world.  Psychologists can help make this happen. The alternative is unthinkable.

Signatories:
(please email us at pacinst@lava.net if you would like us to add your name below)

Beatrice Austin, PsyD, Clinical Psychologist, Independent Practice, Hilo, Hawaii

Gay Barfield, PhD, Lic. MFT, Independent Practice, Hilo, Hawaii  

Harold V. Hall, PhD, ABPP, Forensic Neuropsychologist, Pacific Institute, Kamuela, Hawaii

Philip Johnson, PhD, ABPP, Forensic Psychologist, Independent Practice, Louisville, Kentucky

James L. Joliff, PhD, Child Psychologist, Independent Practice, Kamuela, Hawaii                                 

David Kannerstein, PhD, Private Practice, Philadelphia and Abington, Pennsylvania

Scot Liepack, PhD, Child and Family Psychologist, Community Practice, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii

Sandra McPherson, PhD, ABPP, Forensic and Clinical Psychologist, Cleveland, Ohio

Charles W. Mueller, PhD, Professor, Social and Clinical Psychology, Univ. Of Hawaii, Manoa

Joseph G. Poirier, PhD, ABPP, Forensic and Clinical Psychologist, Rockville, Maryland

Steven W. Pollard, PhD, Clinical Psychologist, Independent Practice, Hilo, Hawaii

Craig Robinson, PhD, Clinical Psychologist, Independent Practice, Honolulu, Hawaii

Lita Linzer Schwartz, PhD, ABPP, Professor Emeritus, Pennsylvania State University, Ogontz

Errol Yudko, PhD, Assistant Professor, University of Hawaii, Hilo