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December 20, 2005

10 Questions with General Russell Howard Director, The Jebsen Center for Counter Terrorism Studies

The Jebsen Center for Counter Terrorism Studies was created at The Fletcher School in September 2005 to, according to its mission, increase the understanding and competency of counterterrorism professionals through a research and analysis program, hosting conferences and a visiting fellows program, and conducting outreach activities.

The Center’s Director, General (Ret.) Russell Howard, is a former U.S. Special Forces commander and counterterrorism expert who most recently was director of the Combating Terrorism Center and headed the Department of Social Sciences at West Point. He recently answered some questions about his experience with counterterrorism, the new Jebsen Center, and its role at The Fletcher School.

Welcome to The Fletcher School – but this isn’t your first time at Fletcher, is it?

This is actually the fourth time I have been at Fletcher. When I got my MPA at the Kennedy School in 1987, I took many of my classes up here in Medford. The second time, I came to Fletcher as a military fellow. The third time, I enrolled for my Ph.D. coursework, but I have not yet completed my dissertation. I’m now the oldest doctoral candidate at The Fletcher School, since I keep paying my fees! Through all of this, I’ve had long-standing friendships with professors Richard Schultz and Robert Pfaltzgraff [who are now Jebsen Center advisors].

What is some of your past experience with counterterrorism studies?

While teaching at West Point, I was founding director of the Combating Terrorism Center in February 2002. That organization attempts to better understand the foreign and domestic terrorist threats to security, to educate future leaders, and to provide policy analysis and assistance to leaders dealing with the current and future terrorist threats. It was the first center of its kind and is now a well-established operation.

I’ve also written three textbooks on counterterrorism, aimed at graduate and undergraduate students. My 2003 book, Terrorism and Counterterrorism, is the country’s bestselling textbook on the subject. An updated version was published in October 2005, along with a new volume, Homeland Security and Terrorism.

How did the Jebsen Center come into existence?

After I had been at the Combating Terrorism Center for three years, and it expanded it into an $8 million operation, I wanted to retire, but several donors approached me with the idea of creating similar centers at other locations. One particular donor, Jan Henrik Jebsen, enthusiastically offered to fund a new center, and soon afterwards, I happened to run into Professor Schultz at Logan Airport. I told him about the opportunity, and we hammered out the concept for what would become the Jebsen Center over coffee at Logan. I was so excited about our idea that I emailed Mr. Jebsen at 4:30 a.m. his time to propose the idea. Within a half hour, he for all practical purposes agreed.

After the initial excitement, we had to go through the formalities of setting up the center. Mr. Jebsen visited Fletcher – he spent a day here, attending classes, speaking with students. He liked the intellectual atmosphere and particularly enjoyed classes taught by Professors Pfaltzgraff and Schultz. So, we went ahead to the next step, which was to put together a longer concept brief that really laid out what we wanted the center to accomplish. Why a center? There is already a proliferation of centers – what is this one going to do that others don’t do?

What is the premise of the Jebsen Center – what makes it different?

Many centers are working on the history and root causes of terrorism and on conflict management, conflict resolution, and crisis response, but few are looking at ways to avoid crisis, to try and be predictive. Where, when, why, how – the interrogatives are so important in fighting terrorism. If you can be somewhat predictive, you can possibly prevent terrorism. Then, as a last resort, if your prediction and prevention regimes don’t work, you might have to preempt. Preemption is controversial, but it doesn’t have to mean military force. In fact, the goals and objectives of the center do not emphasize the use of military force, though we know it’s sometimes necessary; rather, they emphasize leveraging the other elements of power – diplomatic, informational, and psychological – which are too infrequently used.

How do you see the principles of prediction, prevention, and preemption – and the Jebsen Center as a whole – contributing to the counterterrorism discourse?

Prediction and prevention stress the use of non-military elements of power to stop terrorist acts before they can materialize. Preemption may be the necessary response – normally involving military force, but not always – if prediction and prevention don’t work. Within that, research is the most important function of the Jebsen Center. Based on research, conferences, guest speakers and with our connections, the immediate aim is to publish, give policy advice, and the like. Lastly, the center will be an important member of a greater network of counterterrorism research and study, which includes the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, the Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academics and Security Studies Institutes, and the International Security Studies Program here at Fletcher.

Are there any specific research projects currently being pursued by the center?

Some sub-themes the center is working on at this time include Jennie Dow’s project on women as terrorists and counterterrorists, and Mike Hartnett’s project on the role of business in counterterrorism efforts. The use of business practices by the enemy has created much interest in the business community and in Swiss think tanks. Additionally, defining the enemy is important. Today’s main threat is not a state, another superpower, a conventional army, or a nuclear power. Instead, today’s enemy is a transnational, non-state actor with global reach, intent on operationalizing a radicalized religious ideology. So, the Jebsen Center is working very hard behind the scenes on counter-ideology research and efforts.

The Jebsen Center is clearly already active. Has there been an official opening yet?

We will hold the official opening of the Jebsen Center on January 25. As part of the Jebsen proposal, we have a robust guest speaker program. However, because we started the center late in the fall, and we didn’t even have office space at first, we haven’t begun that program yet. So, when the Center opens on January 25, we will host an afternoon-long event with a panel of four guest speakers who are counterterrorism experts: Dr. Bruce Hoffman of RAND, who is perhaps America’s premier counterterrorism expert; Rohan Gunaratna, an Al Qaeda expert based out of Singapore and whom I have worked with in a number of different venues; Rita Katz, who authored a book called Terrorist Hunter, which details her undercover infiltration of radical Islamist groups in America; and Jarret Brachman, a professor with the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. Jarret is only 27 years old and, in my view, he is probably the best newcomer to this field. When I plan panels, I like a mix of the most prominent figures in the field and at least one bright newcomer, because everyone needs a start.

In addition to the panel, the Honorable Fred F. Fielding will be the keynote speaker. He was President Reagan’s counsel general and, more importantly, he was on the 9/11 Commission. Mr. Jebsen will also be one of the speakers at the opening.

How do you hope to include the Fletcher community in the Center’s activities?

In general, important short-term goals of the Jebsen Center include leveraging the creative capability of Fletcher graduate students and of the greater Boston academic community. Fletcher students are unique – nearly 50 percent are international students, and over 50 percent are female. But more importantly, it’s a professional graduate school, where people have practical experience, with differing points of view. And, there are more than 100 degree-granting institutions in the greater Boston area. We believe the Boston area is the “center of gravity” for out-of-the-box counterterrorism research.

We also want to make it easier for the Fletcher student body to do research. At the center, we now have four graduate research assistants, but we also have some funding available for students interested in counter-terrorism research, particularly if their research involves prediction, prevention or preemption for thesis and dissertation work. I feel that, unless you go out and you do interviews and go do polling – you just can’t do it all in the library. Just like at West Point, where my priority was undergraduates who were going to be actively engaged in the war against terror, our priority here is for Fletcher students and graduates who will likewise be engaged internationally, at a policy level, at NGOs – many of these, whether directly or tangentially, will be included in counterterrorism efforts, and we want to give them the opportunity to be funded as well.

Is the Jebsen Center staff planning to teach or provide curriculum for Fletcher courses?

This is a mid-term goal. However, the undergraduate international relations program at Tufts may ask me to teach a course, based on my counterterrorism textbooks written for undergraduate audiences, and I’d be happy to do that. Eventually, I hope the Center, as it grows, would add to the curriculum and, of course, to the scope of opportunities at Fletcher.

What other types of activities are you planning?

In late November, our staff put together a crisis management training program for government officials in Tbilisi, Georgia. We were honored to have the opportunity to put the team together, which included a former Scotland Yard official, a Department of Energy expert, two people from the Combating Terror Center at West Point, myself, and three Fletcher graduate students. I think we learned as much as the participants did, and the feedback was really good. The experience was mutually beneficial, and the Fletcher students who represented the Jebsen Center really shined. My guess is that the Center will conduct more training opportunities like this in the future.

By Stacy Reiter Neal, MALD ‘07

Posted by fletcher at December 20, 2005 03:12 PM