Thirty Years Later: Still Playing Catch-Up with the Terrorists

Abstract:     
A vastly different international landscape greats the thirtieth volume of the Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce than the one that greeted the first volume in 1972. But remarkably, in light of recent developments, there is a fascinating - but chilling - link with that first volume. The Syracuse University College of Law and its international law journal have come to be inextricably linked with the modern phenomena of terrorism based upon aircraft hijackings, bombings, and attacks, in a continuum that stretches from the time of first volume's debut thirty years ago until today.

Briefly, the first volume contained a symposium on the then-current threat of aircraft hijackings. During that phase, hijackers typically diverted passenger aircraft from their intended routes to make political points, and neither the deaths of passengers nor mass destruction were the terrorists' goals. But that changed over the skies of Lockerbie in 1988. Syracuse then lost thirty-five students in the Pam Am Flight 103 bombing. Next came September 11, 2001, in which Syracuse lost thirty alumni among the many killed.

This essay first looks at the often prescient comments made in that first Journal issue thirty years ago. It then briefly examines what I describe as the four phases of aircraft-based terrorism: conventional hijackings with little or no death to innocents; the Lockerbie bombing with destruction of many innocent persons; 9/11 and the use of passenger aircraft as weapons of mass destruction; and, finally, the potential for attacks on civilian aircraft with hand-held ground to air missiles. Finally, it concludes with a less-than-optimistic look at the future.

Keywords: terrorism, terrorists, 9/11, Lockerbie

JEL Classifications: K33, K39

Working Paper Series