Paul Wilkinson

Professor Paul Wilkinson, Terrorologist and pro-Western Propagandist

Professor Paul Wilkinson (born 9 May 1937) is chairman of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St Andrews University. He is one of the foremost academic terrorologists in the UK and a has served as an active propagandist for Western state interests throughout his long career. He retired from academia in October 2007 but continues to be involved in terrorology.

Biographical information

Early life

Born on 9 May 1937 to Walter and Joan Wilkinson, Paul Wilkinson attended John Lyons School, a private school in Harrow loosely affiliated with the more prestigious Harrow School. He studied History and Politics at University College in Swansea - now Swansea University but then part of the University of Wales. After graduating in 1959 he joined the RAF as an education officer where he served for six years until 1965 when he retired at the rank of Flight Lieutenant.

Wilkinson says his interest in terrorism dates back to his time at the RAF. He told The Herald that during this time he travelled the country "sorting out libraries" and, because there wasn't much to do, spent plenty of time reading. “I wrote about groups involved in protest, revolution and revolt in places like the Middle East – the sub-state actors rather than states," he told The Guardian, "It started as a short project for an article but the whole subject took off and turned into a major research field”

In Cardiff

In 1966 Wilkinson embarked on his academic career. He returned to the University of Wales, this time to Cardiff, where he became assistant lecturer in Politics. He spent 14 years based in Cardiff, and was promoted to lecturer in 1968, senior lecturer in 1975 and then Reader in 1978. He seems never to have gained a PhD while at Cardiff and until almost the very end of his career seems never to have carried out any empirical research on 'terrorist' groups. Whilst at Cardiff he published his first book, Social Movement (1971) which is a text book in a series titled 'Key concepts in Political Science'. Showing signs that even then he was in the orbit of right wing anti-communists, the series was edited by Leonard Schapiro and one of the other books in the series was announced as being prepared by S E Finer both of whom were associated with the Institute for the Study of Conflict, Schapiro from the beginning in mid 1970. Three years later Wilkinson produced his first book on terrorism entitled Political Terrorism (1974). The book was part of a series sponsored by the political science journal Government and Opposition, the editorial board of which was chaired at the time by ISC stalwart Leonard Schapiro (other ISC oriented people on the board or advisory Board included Julius Gould and S. E. Finer along with US devotees of elite power Daniel Bell and Robert A. Dahl.

The book, according to one reviewer, built “on three best previous treatments, by Brian Crozier (1960), 'Thomas Thronton' (1964), and E. V. Walter (1969).” In the book, that reviewer noted, Wilkinson “candidly tells us one of his aims is identifying counter-measures to terrorist attacks on liberal democracies” He urged liberal democracies to “never surrender to blackmail or extortion” because if acts of terrorism “are seen to pay, then inevitably…the terrorists’ demands will escalate.” Alex Schmid later recalled that one chapter “addressed the issue of ‘Terror against liberal democracies’ - a theme that would occupy [Wilkinson] for the rest of his life.” Indeed Wilkinson’s Manichaean portrayal of a struggle between extremist terrorists and liberal democracies became a common thread in his writings, and naturally made him appealing to Western elites. It was apparently in this period that Wilkinson began his involvement with training the police in anti terrorism. He noted that in 1981 his 'own view' that the 'real secret of the success' of the British police 'in the antiterrorism role is the extremely high standard of specialist training afforded, both at command level and to the specialist officers of the elite antiterrorist squad'. Wilkinson goes on to unblushingly record that he 'has been involved in this training for some years', suggesting at least in his own view that he has contributed to the then 'success' of anti-terrorist policing.

The theme was more explicitly developed two years later in Terrorism versus Liberal Democracy published as part of the Conflict Studies journal series by the Institute for the Study of Conflict; a pseudo-academic outfit established by a group of right-wing ideologues with connections to the secret services. In 1977 Wilkinson followed up Terrorism versus Liberal Democracy with Terrorism and the Liberal State, a more influential book which would be revised and republished in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Reviewing the book on its original release, The Economist wrote:

[One] main concern of the book, as the title suggests, is to persuade liberals to take up tougher weapons in defence of their system. Mr Wilkinson, in the most interesting chapter of his book, believes that terrorism in Ulster could have been defeated if the government had gone on with the policy of internment, thorough intelligence gathering and freedom for the army to shoot as it saw fit and on sight.

At the book's launch in October 1977, Wilkinson warned the media that London was becoming a haven for terrorists. “They wish to take advantage of our democratic freedom,” he told The Guardian. During this period Wilkinson's relations with the ISC grew closer. When his next publication for the Institute was published in November 1979 he was listed as a 'Senior Research Fellow at the Institute.

In Aberdeen

In 1979 Wilkinson moved to Aberdeen University where he was appointed the first Chair in International Relations.

On 27 October 1980 Wilkinson joined the Institute for the Study of Conflict, which had published his book Terrorism versus Liberal Democracy four years earlier. Wilkinson spent only a short time at the Institute, and resigned from the Council on 26 May 1981.

Interestingly it later emerged that Wilkinson had met with the notorious Oliver North in 1984. It was revealed during the Congressional hearings into the Iran-Contra scandal that North's schedule for 10 September 1984 included two one-and-a-half hour encounters with Wilkinson. When questioned by The Guardian on the disclosures Wilkinson said North’s schedule must have referred to lectures he had given in Washington, saying, “I'm sure I'd have remembered them otherwise.”

In 1985 Wilkinson was made head of the Department of Politics and International Relations at Aberdeen University. He established The Terrorism Research Unit within the department and began to develop a computer database containing a chronology of terrorist incidents, profiles of terrorist groups and laws and anti-terrorist measures taken by governments. This project - described as being 'unique in size in Western Europe' - was coordinated with the RAND Corporation and the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel-Aviv University (where Ariel Merari was working on a similar project). This project almost certainly led to the RAND-St Andrews database developed by Wilkinson and Bruce Hoffman in the 1990s at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence.

In late 1986 Wilkinson founded the Research Foundation for the Study of Terrorism, a corporate funded 'charity' which shared an office with the right-wing lobby group Aims of Industry, but was occasionally (and probably inaccurately) reported to be based at Aberdeen. Wilkinson wrote to major corporations to ask for donations of up to £10,000 to fund 'a major research project on terrorist threats to industry by product contamination and methods of combatting them.'

In 1987 Zionist propagandist and former Labour MP Eric Moonman published a book called The Violent Society which included contributions from Wilkinson and former soldier Richard Clutterbuck. Paul Wilkinson was identified in the contributors notes as a member of the Advisory Board of Moonman's think tank the Centre for Contemporary Studies.

On 8 September 1988 Wilkinson publicly attacked a planned Channel 4 broadcast, leading to the programme being axed. Channel 4’s late night discussion show After Dark had planned a programme on Northern Ireland featuring the Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams. Although the Guardian later reported that Wilkinson was not invited onto the show and had merely been asked for advice on the programme, Wilkinson publicly said he had refused an invitation after being told Adams was to appear. Wilkinson was joined in his public protest by two Tory MPs and Channel 4's director of programmes decided to cancel the broadcast. The IBA announced later that day that, if necessary, it would have used Section 4 of the Broadcasting Act to stop Adams appearing on the basis that the broadcast might ‘encourage or incite crime, or lead to disorder, or be offensive to public feeling.’

After the Lockerbie Bombing in December 1988, Wilkinson – along with other terrorologists – developed an interest in aviation security. Following the bombing he advised the British Department of Transport and assisted the American Federal Aviation Administration. His Research Foundation for the Study of Terrorism published Lessons of Lockerbie in 1989 and became an early advocate for high-technology ID cards, calling for the ‘replacement of passports by high-technology identity cards, which would include fingerprint information.’ Several years later he would co-edit Aviation Terrorism and Security with Brian Jenkins, another key figure in the early years of terrorism studies.

In August 1989 the Toronto based think tank the Mackenzie Institute published a report authored by Wilkinson. The Mackenzie Institute had been set up by the military propagandist Maurice Tugwell three years previously. The report focused on alleged state-sponsored terrorism by Libya and Syria which Wilkinson claimed is 'seldom attacked'. He told the Toronto Star: "The state sponsors of terrorism should be made to realize that violence is a bankrupt strategy and that if they pursue it they will actually pay the price of total diplomatic and economic isolation."

At St. Andrews

In 1989 Wilkinson left Aberdeen to join the University of St. Andrews as Professor of International Relations. Wilkinson introduced two new courses at St. Andrews, one of course in International Terrorism and another in Comparative Intelligence Systems. The Times called them 'the most controversial courses yet offered in British universities'. Wilkinson taught the terrorism course which was aimed at influencing future state and corporate personnel: "I would hope that our graduates would put their training to good use in government, industry, the armed forces, the Foreign Office or the law," Wilkinson told The Times. The Comparative Intelligence Systems course was headed by Myles Robertson, a Kremlinologist who planned the course over six months with the help of "former government people."

In December 1989 Wilkinson became a director of the Research Institute for the Study of Conflict and Terrorism, a new think-tank which was formed by amalgamating the Research Foundation for the Study of Terrorism with the Institute for the Study of Conflict (which had published Terrorism versus Liberal Democracy).

In the wake of the first Gulf War, Wilkinson was openly critical of the hasty resort to force and authored an op-ed in The Guardian warning of the potential loss of civilian lives; a stance rather unusual for a 'terrorism expert'. He was also critical of ‘British people [who] have come to tamely accept the idea that Britain should unquestioningly follow the bidding of the US President.’ However, this analysis was coupled with dire warnings of the potential terrorist threat Saddam Hussein might pose. He told the Press Association that “once hostilities have broken out, Saddam will order ruthless attacks on civilian targets, such as airlines, check-in desks and other public places without any compunction.” He told The Times, “We do have evidence that the dangerous groups really experienced in terrorism who receive substantial sponsorship in terms of money, training and intelligence from Saddam, are in place ready to launch attacks when he gives the word.”

In 1994 Wilkinson resigned from the board of the Research Institute for the Study of Conflict and Terrorism and was appointed head of the School of History and International Relations (a post he held until 1996). 1994 was also the year Wilkinson founded the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence with RAND analyst Bruce Hoffman. Wilkinson was appointed a director of CSTPV in 1999 and a Chairman in 2002.

Into retirement

In October 2007 Wilkinson officially retired from St. Andrews but he remains Chairman of the Advisory Board of CSTPV.

Influence on policy makers

European policy

On 13 November 1980 the Council of Europe held a terrorism conference in Strasbourg. According to a Spanish radio broadcast translated by the BBC, “The international conference on terrorism…brought together 100 or so European experts.” Wilkinson was one of them. At the conference he reportedly urged for laws to prosecute the BBC for interviewing the killers of the British politician Airey Neave, and for filming an IRA road block. He said: “Certain employees wilfully conspire or collaborate with terrorists and allow their programmes to become vehicles for terrorist propaganda.”

According to The Guardian a secret session on security measures was held during the conference. It was attended by academics, policemen and politicians, but was “dominated” by Wilkinson and Richard Clutterbuck. Clutterbuck, a counter-insurgency expert, was a former Council member of the Institute for the Study of Conflict, which Wilkinson had recently joined. Years later he would become involved in Wilkinson's Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence.

The session discussed “an international intelligence computer, a kind of Euro-MI5 and international commando squads.” Clutterbuck and Wilkinson agreed on the computer proposal but not on Wilkinson’s proposal for “a central coordinating cell of half a dozen security and intelligence experts” to strengthen intelligence links between European states. In addition to his proposals for “a small permanent European Commission to improve international co-ordinating”, Wilkinson also proposed SAS style “hostage rescue squads for other regions of the world”.

In November 2004 Wilkinson told the Parliamentary Select Committee on the European Union that he was "due to meet [the EU Counter-terrorism Co-ordinator] very shortly"

Government consultant and the Lloyd Inquiry

Wilkinson appears to have first been consulted by the government on its anti-terrorism policy in the early 1980s. In 1982 he gave written and oral evidence to the Home Office's review of the Operation of the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1976, and a year later was consulted by the Northern Ireland Office in the review of the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1978. In 1987 was consulted again by the Home Office for its review of the Operation of the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1984. His most significant contribution to policy however was his involvement in the Lloyd Inquiry.

In December 1995 the Conservative Government set up an inquiry into anti-terrorism legislation in the UK. At that stage British anti-terrorism legislation was limited to a series of temporary emergency powers designed specifically to targeting the IRA and other militant groups in Northern Ireland. The inquiry set up to review the existing legislation was headed by Lord Lloyd of Berwick and published its report in October 1996. Wilkinson was not only an advisor to Lord Lloyd, he even authored the second part of the report. The main report, which Lord Lloyd admitted had “drawn heavily” on Wilkinson’s research, essentially recommended the indefinite extension of the Draconian powers until then limited to Northern Ireland to the rest of the UK and concluded that there was “a continuing need for permanent United Kingdom-wide legislation.” It also recommended that the government develop an official list of organisations prescribed as terrorist - a key mechanism used by states to condemn acts of terrorism committed by enemies whilst exonerating allies. The report was part of a legislative process which led to the Labour Government's Terrorism Act 2000.

Not only was Wilkinson connected with the inquiry which led to the Terrorism Act 2000, but he is also connected to Lord Carlile, the supposedly independent reviewer of the United Kingdom’s anti-terrorism legislation. In November 2005 Lord Carlile told the House of Lords he considered Wilkinson “the greatest non-lawyer expert in this country… on terrorist organisations around the world.” He also commented offhand that he had “sat in Professor Paul Wilkinson's interesting attic office in the University of St Andrew's Centre for the Study of Terrorism.”

On Friday 11 July 1997 Wilkinson attended an MoD seminar organised by the new Labour government on its Strategic Defence Review. The seminar was chaired by the diplomat turned investment banker Michael Alexander and attended by 19 other academics, journalists and think-tank members.

Consultant to Parliamentary Committees

Wilkinson gave evidence to the Defence Select Committee in its 94/95 and 95/96 sessions. After the attacks on the World Trade Center in September 11, 2001, Wilkinson appeared at numerous parliamentary committees offering his wisdom on terrorism and security. In October 2001 he was appointed a special advisor to the Select Committee on Defence, and in January 2002 he made the first of several appearances before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee as part of its series of reports on ‘Foreign Policy Aspects of the War against Terrorism’. Evidently, however, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee was already a fan. Donald Anderson, who chaired the Committee from 1997 until 2005, recommended Wilkinson’s book Terrorism versus Democracy to the House of Commons three days after September 11th. It was, he said, “an excellent work”. The day before, Anderson and Wilkinson had both appeared on the BBC current affairs programme World At One but their connection probably goes back much further than that; both men studied Politics and History at the Swansea College and graduated only a year apart from each other.

In addition to his appearances before the Defence and Foreign Affairs Committees, Wilkinson has given evidence on terrorism-related reports compiled by the European Union Select Committee, and the Transport Committee

Propaganda connections

Propaganda and think tank publications

Wilkinson has also edited or co-edited a significant number of books. these are mostly the result of conferences hosted by Wilkinson or his vehicles often in collaboration with other intelligence and state connected think tanks and networks. Thus Wilkinson produced the following numbers of edited collections in each of the decades starting in the 1970s: 1, 2, 3, 2. They are notable for the connections they reveal with other leading propagandists and intelligence connected operatives. For example his first edited collection (Terrorism : theory and practice edited by Yonah Alexander, David Carlton, and Paul Wilkinson. Boulder, Colo. : Westview Press, 1979) was edited with Yonah Alexander a one man publishing dynamo who has co-authored and co-edited many books on terrorism and at that stage (1976/77) and ran the Institute for Studies in International Terrorism (State University of New York) which although it appeared to Herman and O'Sullivan 'to be little more than a one-man operation', nevertheless was able to put on conferences in London and elsewhere and published 'Terrorism: An International Journal.' Alexander himself has had a book published by the World Zionist Organization and is described as 'a committed ideologue and propagandist rather than a scholar' Wilkinson's next edited volume in 1981 was also published as a special issue of Alexander's journal Terrorism. In January 1982 two pamphlets by Wilkinson on Northern Ireland were published by the British government's propaganda department the Central Office of Information. These would be used as a tool for suggesting that the problem in the North of Ireland was 'Murder Incorporated' and 'orange extremismn', the titles of the two pamphlets referring to the Irish Republican Army and loyalist paramilitaries. This fitted well with the British propaganda approach of trying to suggest that the problem in the North was an intaractable ethnic conflict in which the British 'held the ring'.

In 1993 Wilkinson edited a collection on Technology and Terrorism, which was the product of a 'seminar for experts on technology and terrorism held at St Andrews' 24-26 August 1992. It was so-sponsored by Wilkinson's own Institute (the successor to the ISC) and the National Strategy Information Center in Washington, an intelligence connected institute run by Roy Godson, both a writer and activist in the field of intelligence and connected to Oliver North through his involvement in Iran-Contra operations. Three year later a further edited collection appeared co-edited with Brian Jenkins from the RAND Corporation.

Testifying for the British government

Wilkinson gave evidence for the British government in 1983/4 in their case for the extradition of Maze prison escaper Joe Doherty in the US. The Belfast journalist, Martin Dillon, has recounted the British government's invitation to him to give evidence in the US at court hearings held to consider the extradition of Republican prisoner Joe Doherty. One 'classified' British government memorandum he received, while making a decision about whether to testify, revealed government strategy, outlined at a meeting in July 1983:

It would be prudent for the Northern Ireland Office during the period leading up to the defence's response to our depositions, to give thought to possible witnesses on the general situation in the Province at the time of Doherty's offences. It would be important for any such witness to be dissociated from the British Government, and for him to be able to paint a picture of declining violence and impartial law enforcement and judicial procedures. While such high profile figures as Conor Cruise O'Brien, Lord Fitt or Robert Kee could be difficult to land, the bigger the 'fish' the better.

In the event Dillon declined the offer and his place was taken by Professor Paul Wilkinson of St Andrews University - who was presumably viewed as a smaller 'fish'.

Wilkinson & Colin Wallace

In 1986 Wilkinson intervened in the 'Colin Wallace' affair. The Information Policy unit set up in Northern Ireland in 1971 was connected to the Information Research Department-run psychological warfare operations headed by Jeremy Railton and Maurice Tugwell. Tugwell, according to Edward Herman and Gerry O'Sullivan, is an old ally of Paul Wilkinson, having participated in Wilkinson's conference in Aberdeen in April 1986, as well as contributing a chapter to a Wilkinson-edited volume, 'British Perspectives on Terrorism.'

In the summer of 1987 rumours were spread through a small group of journalists that Colin Wallace's claims to have been a sky-diver were false and that this indicated that his wider claims concerning government covert operations were also false and that he was a fantasist, a' Walter Mitty'. These rumours arrived at Channel Four News who had been one of the few media outlets to cover Wallace's claims and prompted other journalists such as Paul Foot and Robin Ramsay (who were convinced that Wallace's sky-diving stories were as true as his other claims).

But when Ramsay contacted the British Parachuting Association to check their file on Wallace he found they had no record of him. Eventually Paul Foot discovered that a duplicate set of records were held by the international parachuting body and Wallace's records were there, confirming that he was what he said he was — as far as sky-diving went. A journalist now with the BBC, John Ware, still ran the 'Wallace-is-a-fake' parachuting story some months later in a double page spread in the Independent smearing both Wallace and Fred Holroyd.

Ramsay argues that:

The point here is, we can now work out some of what this MOD-MI5 operation against Wallace consisted of. First, they picked one area of Wallace's CV, his parachuting, and set out to discredit him with it. If they could show he was lying here, they believed, journalists would not believe his other claims. They burgled his house and stole his jumping log book; they burgled the British Parachuting Association and removed his file, substituting a fake file for the one with his number on it. Then they began spreading the word through their press contacts that Wallace was a fraud, knowing that Wallace didn't have his jumping log and knowing that —eventually —some journalist would ring the British Parachuting Association and ask about his record. Finding nothing, because his file had been removed, such a journalist would consider the allegation that he was a fantasist proven and would thus dismiss him as the 'Walter Mitty' figure described at his trial. This operation was certainly run at Channel Four News and John Ware, then working for the BBC.

Without Foot's investigation journalists would have been struggling to rebut the Wallace-is-a fantasist line. Ramsay argues that another disinformation project about Wallace was fed through Paul Wilkinson, then at Aberdeen University, and ITN's official consultant on terrorism.

Somebody in the MOD or MI5 fed him some material about Wallace which accused him of trying to get a man in Northern Ireland killed so he —Wallace —could have the man's wife. This smear story had been created just before Wallace left Northern Ireland —presumably in case they ever needed to get at Wallace. Wilkinson wrote a letter, passing this derogatory material on to ITN. Fortunately, by this point,Channel Four News' management were pretty sure Wallace was telling the truth and showed us journalists Wilkinson's letter. The allegations it contained were refutable, and Wallace wrote to the University authorities. Wilkinson was reprimanded and apologised and lost his job as ITN's consultant on terrorism. The point here is this: Wallace had already been framed for manslaughter and convicted in a rigged trial. Having failed to shut Wallace up with six years of imprisonment, the secret state then set about discrediting him. If you could get to the people on the MOD/MI5 committee which planned this and asked them why they were doing it, they would simply say, it was in the national interest to prevent Wallace talking. In the minds of the secret state the national interest —as defined by them—overrides the competing claims of justice and democracy.

Edward S. Herman and Gerry O'Sullivan provide this analysis of the affair in their book The 'Terrorism' Industry:

Wilkinson's service to a repressive state was carried to a new level in his attempt to discredit Colin Wallace, formerly of MI5 (British intelligence) and the Army Information Department. Wallace had exposed the workings of an MI5-backed "dirty tricks" campaign designed to discredit Labour MPs by linking their names, prior to elections, with the Irish Republican Army, as well as an MI5 campaign to smear Harold Wilson in 1976. Wallace also went on record in exposing abuses of psychological operations undertaken against the Irish by British intelligence.

In response to Wallace's charges, Wilkinson passed along a letter of dubious origin to ITN Television, which accused Wallace of all manner of wrongdoing. Wilkinson's accompanying letter (on University of Aberdeen stationery and dated July 21, 1987) to a representative of ITN began, "Herewith the interesting letter I received from one of our researchers on the Colin Wallace affair. . . . It certainly raises major question marks about the extent to which one can rely on his version of events in Northern Ireland and elsewhere."

The letter in question, a rather crude piece of disinformation, wrongfully accused Wallace of attempting to have the husband of a woman he was allegedly having an affair with killed by the Ulster Defence Association, and attributed his claims regarding Wilson and MI5 to 'James Bond fantasies.' Subsequently, in a letter to Wallace himself dated June 9, 1988, Wilkinson apologized for having caused him any undue "discomfort or embarrassment." A letter of retraction was simultaneously sent to various news agencies calling the allegations against Wallace (which he had, in essence, provided as fact) "totally untrue."

Media presence

Television and Radio

On 3 January 1987 BBC 1 broadcast Crisis!, a documentary cum drama surrounding an imaginary hijacking and hostage crisis. The concept was that a committee of MPs and experts, chaired by Wilkinson, would have to make to deal with the imaginary emergency. Other participants included Roy Jenkins, Francis Pym and Gerald Kaufman.

In 1990 The Observer said Wilkinson was “a familiar voice on the radio following any terrorist outrage when his views as ‘an expert’ are eagerly sought by Brian Redhead [presenter on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme] and others.”

Print Media

The graph on the right shows Wilkinson’s presence in the English print media from 1975 until the end of 2007. The figures were compiled by searching All English Language News at Lexis-Nexis for references to Terrorism and Paul Wilkinson.

The graph shows a significant increase following Wilkinson’s move to St. Andrews in 1989, which also coincided with media discussion of the Lockerbie bombing. As you might expect it also shows an enormous increase following the September 11th terrorist attacks.

Writings and views

Wilkinson became a leading expert on terrorism setting the agenda for public debate, not just in the academy but in the media, policy circles and in relation to thin tanks and the legal system. His writing on terrorism are notable however, for their lack of engagement with empirical research and for their over-reliance on official sources and media reports. It is notable however, that only those sources which do not contradict his views were in general cited or used as 'evidence'. Although Wilkinson is often treated as if he were a dispassionate and simply 'expert' analyst, there is little to distinguish his views or analysis from that of the counterinsurgency theorists produced from within the military, such as - in the UK - Robert Thompson, Frank Kitson, Richard Clutterbuck, Maurice Tugwell and others. Early critics of Wilkinson argued that his work amounted to 'counterinsurgency doctrine masquerading as political sociology'. Wilkinson's work shares the main limitations of the counterinsurgency school, weaknesses - arguably - shared by the entire field of mainstream 'terrorism studies'. The recurrent problems with counterinsurgency writing are first a 'a near total failure to arrive at empirical conclusions derived from microanalytic, first-hand research in the communities that support the guerrillas' and second an over-reliance on 'information and interpretations provided by the governments and security forces fighting guerrillas'. It is worth highlighting that this second problem also extends to the total absence of studies of the reliability of official information including any work on the propaganda activities of the state. The counterinsurgency writers prefer to disseminate state propaganda than to analyse it. The problems with Wilkinson's work run through his entire career from his first book on terrorism published in 1974 to his later and most well known book Terrorism and the Liberal State, a book which was reprinted several times and was issued in a second edition in 1986.

Empirical Vacuum

Wilkinson's academic career spanned three universities and over three decades. In that period he has published a significant amount of work. However, although he has published what looks like a lot of books and other single authored works (see below), on closer examination it appears that he published three single authored books in the 1970s, one in the 1980s, none in the 1990s and two since 2000. To be fair, three of these were republished in second editions. The other single authored publications produced by Wilkinson were mostly short pamphlets and publications done for think tanks and propaganda organisations such as the Institute for the Study of Conflict or its successor the Research Institute for the Study of Conflict and Terrorism, which Wilkinson ran. Other bodies included the Israel lobby group the Institute of Jewish Affairs/American Jewish Congress, the Canadian based Mackenzie Institute for the Study of Terrorism, Revolution and Propaganda, run by Wilkinson collaborator and former British propagandist Maurice Tugwell and the elite policy planning group the Trilateral Commission.

The most important point to make about Wilkinson's work is the severe lack of original empirical research. Wilkinson seems not to have gained a PhD and seems never to have engaged in any significant empirical academic research. Given the twin themes of 'terrorism' and the 'liberal state' that run through all of his work one might expect some empirical work on the activities of the sub state terror groups. Alternatively as an advocate of liberal democracy, one might expect to see empirical work on the state or that his writings might be informed by or engage with other academic debates on the state. But neither of these possibilities has ever come to pass.

The Soviet Terror network

On 28 January 1981 the new American Secretary of State Alexander Haig used the occasion of his first press conference to announce a review of American’s counter terrorism policy. He told journalists that the Soviets were “involved in conscious policies which foster, support and expand” terrorism. Later in March, Haig told a congressional committee that the Soviet Union, “bears responsibility today for the proliferation and haemorrhaging of international terrorism” and that if the US didn’t act against it, “we will find it within our own borders tomorrow.” Later that month an anonymous source told The Times that a draft report of the CIA’s national intelligence survey “strongly disagrees with Reagan’s and Haig’s contention that the Soviets are behind international terrorism.” After The Times ran the story Wilkinson wrote the paper a letter in which he accused the CIA of, ‘misinforming the United States Government and public’. He wrote that the CIA’s findings ‘will astonish experienced students of the subject,’ adding that, ‘processes of Soviet involvement in terrorism have been carefully analysed by Western specialists since the early seventies.’

On Thames TV’s This Week programme broadcast on 28 June 1990, Wilkinson asserted that the communist Czech government had supplied arms to the IRA, ‘carrying out their portion of the overall work of the Warsaw pact Countries in sponsoring terrorism, in training people to do it.’. Wilkinson went on to state that: ‘there’s absolutely no doubt that they regarded aid to…groups like the IRA, as a positive step towards helping to weaken or disrupt other countries, diverting the security forces of Western countries away from their external defence role within NATO…’

David Miller wrote to Wilkinson to ask if he had, ‘any evidence of either political or military assistance being given by any Warsaw Pact country either directly or indirectly to the IRA.’ Wilkinson replied citing one example of an alleged shipment he said was intercepted in October 1971. Otherwise he stated that Czech secret service had provided weapons to Libya, which were then supplied to the IRA. As evidence of whether the IRA were the intended recipients of the weapons, Wilkinson stated that ‘the Czech secret service and their KGB controllers knew full well of kind of group Gadaffi was sponsoring or assisting. It is worth noting,’ he added, ‘that there was a substantial compliment of Soviet Military advisors in Libya during the whole period of Gadaffi’s most active assistance to the IRA…’

Types of terror

in his first book on the topic (Political Terrorism, 1974) Wilkinson shows the contradictory approach taken throughout his academic career: that of attempting to sound reasonable and liberal - an adherent of 'liberal democracy' - accompanied by the pursuit of a dogmatic line of authoritarian response to 'terrorism' - which in practice he defines as violence committed against the West and its friends. This is illustrated by contrasting the beginning and the end of the book. On page 11 Wilkinson defines 'political terror' as encompassing 'coercive intimidation by revolutionary movements, regimes, or individuals for political motives'. By the end the definition is narrower encompassing only a 'theory of revolutionary terror'(p. 129). 'This is no accident' writes one critic since the book ends 'as a piece of tactical advice to the rulers of the liberal democratic capitalist state' and thus the idea of state terror - especially by liberal democratic states is out of the question.

Definitions of Terrorism

This difficulty affects all of Wilkinson's work including most obviously his definition of what terrorism is and his treatment of 'state terror', which will be examined in turn. In his Terrorism and the Liberal State (1977 2nd Ed 1986) he defines terrorism as the 'systematic use of murder and destruction, and the threat of murder and destruction, to terrorise individuals, groups, communities or governments into conceding to the terrorists' political aims'

This definition is quite serviceable and although as George noted 'many refinements and improvements are of course possible', it can with a moments thought be seen to apply to both states and non states. Wilkinson would not deny this, but would object to it being applied to 'liberal democratic' states. The word 'would' is important here because in all his voluminous writings Wilkinson appears never to have explicitly stated that it cannot or should not be applied to the US, UK or Israel. He simply assumes it.

Wilkinson uses the standard western apologists' definition of terrorism such that it excludes Western states and is inconsistently applied to retail 'terror' groups. In the introduction to his 2007 edited collection Wilkinson states that terrorism 'inherently' involves attacks on 'random or symbolic' targets 'including civilians' Almost all writers are agreed that 'terrorism' is the 'systematic' use of 'murder' or other physical violence for political ends. In particular, there is substantial agreement that 'terrorist' violence is either 'indiscriminate' or mostly targets civilians or both. Were we to use the killing of civilians as a criterion and apply it literally to the Northern Ireland conflict, we would be unable to label the IRA unequivocally as 'terrorist' since a minority (37.4%) of victims of the IRA between 1969 and June 1989 were civilians. On the other hand, the Army and the police in Northern Ireland would be categorised as 'terrorists' since a majority of the people they have killed were civilians (54.4%). Of course, the 'security forces' would claim that they do not kill civilians deliberately, but then so would the IRA. Indeed the IRA routinely apologised when it did kill civilians 'by mistake'.

The degree of discrimination in targets is not, however, a reliable guide to the organisations described as 'terrorist' in the writings of 'counterinsurgency' theorists. Writers such as Wilkinson do not apply their definitions with any rigour. The IRA are referred to as 'terrorist' not according to their targets, but whatever they do. The obverse also applies. They never refer to the British government as terrorist or engaging in acts of terrorism (see below). Counterinsurgency theorists have already made up their minds about the groups they think of as 'terrorist'. They then manage to define 'terrorism' so that it fits with their own preconceptions. For example, Paul Wilkinson writes that:

Terrorism can be briefly defined as coercive intimidation or more fully as the systematic use of murder, injury, and destruction or threat of same to create a climate of terror, to publicise a cause, and to coerce a wider target into submitting to its aims .

In principle this could fit any form of political violence, including state violence. To take the example of the conflict in Northern Ireland on which Wilkins has often pronounced, it is clear that matters are not so simple as Wilkinson might imply.

Internment/torture Shoot to kill

All of these are dismissed as understanaable though they each meet his definition of terrorism. The fact is that the nationalist community in the Norther was for a sustained period (between 1970 and 1998) terrorised by the British state and its proxies. Amongst it s proxies as now seems to be undeniably the case were the loyalist paralmilitaries. Now, for Wilkinson these are 'terrorists' or at least 'extremists' and thus have nothing to do with the British state - which is fully demoicratic (quote on this)

Since 2001 Wilkinson's views on the IRA seem to have softened. They now seem to be included in a category of terrorists who are said to be 'corrigible' where 'there is a real possibility of finding a political/diplomatic pathway' out of conflict by addressing its 'underlying causes'. We can note here that Wilkinson has spent almost his entire career denouncing these groups and arguing for authortarian responses to them, in opposition to those who argued that terroism and political violence had underlying causes. Now, he suddenly finds that the main enemy of the West is Islamism and as a result introduces the whololy new category of 'incorrigible' terrorists in order to be able to apply it to Al Qaeda. Typically Wilkinson offers no evidence for this distinction offering only his preferred response to Al Qaeda as a definition of why they are incorrigible:

the movement/group has such absolutist and maximalist aims and poses such a major threat to the lives and well-being of civilian communities that the only recourse is to use all possible measures to suppress the group before it can wraek more mayhem.

The distinction that Wilkinson makes is elaborated in terms of the alleged scale of 'ruthlessness and lethality', the 'brutal language', the 'remorseless use of mass terror' and 'brutal mass killing' One gets the feeling that Wilkinson's distinction is based lartegly on the number of adjectives he can use to describe the new enemy of the West. It is not enough to state that the followers of Bin Laden 'believe' they will prevail because 'allah is on their side', Wilkinson writes instead that they 'fanatically believe'. This shows more of the hallmarks of tabloid headline writing than academic analysis.

State Terrorism

This contradiction runs all the way through Wilkinson's work. In Political Terrorism, he posits three types of terrorism. He proceeds by first excluding 'criminal terrorism' and 'war terrorism', thus leaving out the major forms of state terror, a move which also has the advantage that resistance to a war fighting invading power - such as in Iraq - can be seen as terrorism. The three categories he notes are:

1. Revolutionary Terrorism
2. Sub-Revolutionary Terrorism
3. Repressive Terrorism

The typology is evidently - even in its own terms - problematic as he cites the french revolution as the prototype of revolutionary terror, failing to note that the 'Terror' was carried out by the state - the revolutionary government. But, having outlined three types of terror, Wilkinson promptly forgets about the third type - repressive terror. The next chapter of the book (taking up 80 pages of the 150 page book) focuses only on the first two categories. The succeeding chapter thus makes the shift to considering 'counter-measures' to the non state terror. He has nothing whatever to say about the relevance of repressive terror supported or carried out by the liberal state. This position was untenable when the book was published in 1974. The huge expansion in the apparatus of coercion and repression brought in by Thatcher in the 1980s and then by Blair/Brown as part of the alleged 'war on terror' make it all the more fanciful.

By early 2001 Wilkinson's typology of terrorism has expanded noticeably to encompass five types:

1. Nationalist
2. Ideological
3. Religiopolitical
4. Single-issue
5. State-sponsored and state-supported

Although the types of terrorism have expanded, the central problem of his treatment of state terrorism remains. There is more specificity in the category 'State-sponsored and state-supported' terrorism than in the previous 'repressive' terror and this might evade the issue that repressive terrorism could encompass actual state terrorism. Now states apparently only support or sponsor terrorism rather than carrying it out themselves.

In the second Edition of Terrorism and the Liberal State, published in 1986 the states listed as involved in terorism is confined not just to those states that are Western enemies, but even more ideologically to those which were the current enemies of the US government, as one writer noted:

Paul Wilkinson's list of terrorist states, for example, explicitly refers to Iran, Libya, Syria, North Korea, South Yemen, and implicitly refers to Cuba and Nicaragua (pp 276-80), rather neatly corresponding to President Reagan's 1985 list of Iran, Libya, North Korea, cuba and Nicaragua.

In Terrorism Versus Democracy (2001) there is some discussion about state sponsored terrorism where it remains clear that only states of which Wilkinson does not approve can be described as sponsoring terrorism. He writes that states use terror 'both as a tool of domestic and foreign policy' This is true, but could as easily apply to the UK, US and Israel as to the preferred examples of Iran and North Korea. Moving on Wilkinson notes that the end of the cold war has 'removed in one fell swoop' the Warsaw Pact's 'substantial network of sponsorship and support for a whole variety of terrorist groups'. But Wilkinson does not pause to consider how the ending of this alleged role might have harmed the activities of the terrorists. He concludes instead by listing those states who are 'still heavily involved' including Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya and the Taliban.

Advance publicity for a new book by Wilkinson to be published in May 2009 explicitly dealing with state terrorism suggest that there is no movement in his position. It is said to focus on the 'major types of response to state terror since the Cold War', which already suggests that Western state terror will not be part of the analysis. Of the nine chapters in the book the chapter headings of the main case studies confirm this analysis:

• Chapter 5 The Case of Saddam Hussein's terror against the Kurds and the International Response
• Chapter 6 Indonesian Terror against East Timor Separatists and the International Response
• Chapter 7 The Use of State Terror in the former Yugoslavia and the International Response
• Chapter 8 Terror in Rwanda in 1994 and the Failure of International Response

Disappointingly, but not surprisingly there is no sign of any attempt to deal with either western support for or Western planning and execution of terrorism. No chapters on the major use of terror by the US, UK and Israeli state.

Liberal democracy vs Communism, Fascism and terrorism

Wilkinson never misses a chance to praise Western governments or to excuse any of their misconduct as a product of rotten apples, mistakes, rogue agents etc and to engage in propagandistic smears against states and organisation not in the western orbit. The argument underlying this is the rigid distinction that he draws between liberal demnocracy and those forces challengin it. In the latter camp he includes the Communist bloc, fascism, terrorists and also left critics of capitalism and indeed his fellow academics.

Fascism vs conservatism

The distinction between liberal democracy and fascism is extended in Wilkinson's work on fascism. In it he makes a reasonable claim that 'we must be strict and consistent in our use of the term'. He goes on to say that 'it is plainly an abuse of the term' to apply it to conservative and Christian Democrat parties in western Europe because:

The Conservative is an admirer and upholder of traditions, he is patriotic and a believer in the values oof authority, discipline and order. But this does not make him a fascist.

The 'crucial distinction' is that 'modern' conservatives in the western democracies are 'totally committed to the principles and procedures of parliamentary democracy' Alas, in practice matters are not so simple. Indeed it is well known and well documented that some of those in and associated with the conservative party in the 1970s and indeed the 1980s were not 'totally' committed to parliamentary democracy. All the talk of the possibility of a military government to counter the alleged threat of the unions and the left is testament to that. But we can make a stronger point, which is that Brian Crozier and the Institute for the Study of Conflict was heavily involved in this milieux and thus Wilkinson himself was connected to the very networks which at least considered the direct subversion of parliamentary democracy. Wilkinson himself always seems ambivalent about the means necessary to protect democracy. Almost always favouring measures which constrain and constrict democratic freedoms, but failing to recognise that this is what they do.

For example, In his first book on terrorism Wilkinson writes that 'if the government is provoked into introducing emergency powers, suspending habeas corpus, or invoking martial law, it confronts the paradox of suspending democracy to save it'.

As an early critic put it 'his entire approach is based on the assumption that where forms of liberal democracy exist, repression necessarily does not. For him repression is identified purely and simply with a military mobilisation in defence of the established order.' For Wilkinson, of course, the liberal democratic state only responds to provocation and thus may make poor decisions or misjudgements, never initiate repression to pursue sectional interests. An alternative view which makes rather more sense of the relationship between the state and elite interests both then and even more so now stresses the role of the state as an agency of repression. The role of the state is 'related to the class relations which it acts to maintain and reproduce'. With only a rigid binary between 'democracy' and its enemies Wilkinson cannot conceive that the state might itself pursue interests. In the 1970s it was argued that 'developments within the state towards overt repression are not simply expressions of concern to safgeguard democracy, but also more fundamentally, action taken in defence of the structure of underlying capitalist relations'

Admiration for the British State

On Northern Ireland Wilkinson writes:

the British Army has achieved a truly impressive record in countering revolutionary war and major terrorist outbreaks around the workld since 1945. British soldiers have shown enormous skill, courage and patience in carrying out these tasks, and their loyalty in carrying out instructions from the civil government has never been put in question. The army is steeped in the democratic state.

As Alexander George notes - quoting the examples of torture in which the British army engaged after Internment was introduced in August 1971

Herman and O'Sullivan argue that given Wilkinson's state and corporate connections

it is perhaps understandable that his writings express effusive admiration for the British armed forces, wherever they may be and whatever they may be doing. They always strive to bring "stability" and "order" under difficult conditions, and they consistently display an amazing humanity and restraint under severe provocation. Any abuses by the British armed forces are a result of "clumsiness," "mistakes," "errors of judgment," or "over-reaction." Elsewhere he asserts that the media "must expose the propaganda of atrocities, defamations, and myths of the terrorists. They must call a murder a murder, not an 'act of revolutionary execution.'" But for his own side, a murder may be called a "mistake" or "error in judgment".

Disdain for critics

Wilkinson is disdainful of all critics of his position and of critics of liberal democracy in theory or practice. He is so disdainful that he rarely if ever refers to work critical of his position. He has certainly never published any extended discussion of the work of critics and does not even admit directly to its existence. In his three authored books on terrorism (1974, 1977 (2nd ed, 1986), 2001 (2nd ed, 2006)) he never once includes a reference to critics such as Schlesinger, Herman, Chomsky, George or any others referred to on this page. Nor does he ever refer to the work of critics of Western power. Not a mention in any of his books for work on the activities of the CIA or British intelligence, nothing on British or American propaganda, nothing on state killings in Ireland, Guatemala, Nicaragua etc etc. No mention of Blum's huge volume on US imperial abuses.

This is odd because if Wilkinson is an academic - as opposed to a propagandist - it is usual practice in parts of academia to at least refer to the existence of critics directly.

In the single case where he has an extended discussion of critical or radical views in his 1977 book Terrorism and the Liberal State it is to accuse critics - specifically Herbert Marcuse and Jean-Paul Sartre - of being terrorist fellow travellers. This is the extent to which critics are admitted to exist - as dangerous polluter of young minds, as proto-terrorists as - not as academics at all but as agents of terrorism. In all his subsequent books on terrorism he refers back to this analysis and it informs his account in each successive book or edition.

Elsewhere he is simply contemptuous. Thus Wilkinson, has suggested that debate about the meaning and use of the term 'terrorism' may simply be a device to obstruct 'anti-terrorist' policies:

The problems of establishing a degree of common understanding of the concept of terrorism have been vastly exaggerated. Indeed, I suspect that some have tried to deny that any common usage exists as a device for obstructing co-operation in policies to combat terrorism.

As Miller notes:

For such writers the only worthwhile argument concerns how to increase the effectiveness of 'anti-terrorist' policies. Should we choose to question the assumptions in such an approach, the ideological policing of the counterinsurgents will label us as fellow travellers of the 'terrorists'. But in truth there is no universal agreement on the causes of the Northern Ireland conflict and the term 'terrorism' is not unambiguous in its meaning and use.

The obscenities and stones hurled agains liberal democratic institutions at the height of the student revolt of the late 1960s by the spoiled children of Western affluence and privilege dramatically shattered the illusion that the sole forces remaining to challenge liberal democracy in the West were fascism and communism.

The problem for Wilkinson seems to have been an excess of democracy and of education. He writes 'much of the politically motivated terrorism in liberal democracies for the past decade has been committed by the spoilt children of affluence... from comfortably off middle class homes with the "advantages" of higher education'

Wilkinson fears that higher education itself could be one source of terrorism. He suspects his academic colleagues - or as he puts it:

a veritable zoo of conflicting sects and factions covering the whole spectrum of neo=Marxists and Third world revolutionism and anarchism [which] sprang up in the heart of Western Academia. And although these groups commonly identified with Third World revolutionary heroes such as Mao, Ho Chi-Minh and Guevara, their tru intellectual mentors were figures such as Herbert Marcuse and Jean-Paul Sartre, embittered and ageing iconoclasts of the left who would never have been able to enjoy their freedom to spin fresh revolutionary doctrines and myths anywhere else but within the liberal societies they so profoundly despised.

This brings us full circle and back to Wilkinson's role as a propagandist. His role with the Institute for the Study of conflict, which seems to have been reasoanably close from at least 1976 to the mide to late 1980s, is of relevance since it was one of the right wing propaganda operations engaged in smearing allegedly left academics. Indeed an ISC report in 1977 gained some notoriety and has been described as "the closest British academic life got to a McCarthy-ite witch-hunt of radicals".

Resources

Spinprofiles Resources

• Paul Wilkinson, extract from The "Terrorism" Industry
• Paul Wilkinson: Publications

External Resources

• "Terror expert" promotes "clash of civilisations" at Edinburgh media conference, 1 June 2006.

Publications

For a full list of publications see: Paul Wilkinson: Publications