The founding fathers of the United States declared independence because the government under which they were living was depriving them of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The events of September 11 reinforced our knowledge about modern governments that terrorize their populations far more thoroughly than did the British crown in 1776. Many of today's governments do not secure life, but instead threaten it. There are no democracies among the Arab countries of the Middle East and no free press; hence, there is little liberty. The Taliban quite evidently does not believe in the pursuit of happiness; nor do many other dictatorial or fanatical governments that differ from the Taliban mainly in degree.

Governments facilitate the pursuit of happiness by establishing policies under which the population has access to education, health care, an ever-improving standard of living, and some confidence that opportunities for attaining these objectives will be greater for their children than for them. No government is perfect in pursuing happiness for all, but a successful government must have this as its objective. Many governments do not try; they seem to believe in the pursuit of misery. Others try, but only partially, and fail. These failures have consequences, internally of course, but globally as well. That is the main point of this essay, that all of us pay a price for policy failures in distant lands.

The Arab countries, for the most part, have given priority to political issues, such as the destruction of Israel and the maintenance in power of authoritarian and dictatorial regimes. The end result has been the failure to achieve sustained economic growth. The desire of small cliques to obtain and retain power in many countries in Africa has also resulted in poor economic performance. Latin American leaders, for many years, even as they pursued misguided economic policies, had a tendency to blame others for their poor economic performance. Introspection about homegrown mistakes, which should be a necessary component in shaping economic policy, was neglected in the process. The Taliban, because of its zealous religious strictures, could never have delivered economic progress to the majority of its population.

If governments wish to achieve economic growth, there is no substitute for policies that give priority to this outcome. This does not mean that wise policies will always lead to satisfactory growth rates, but rather that inattention to policies to foster development will lead to low growth. By "growth policies" I have in mind those that deal with the well-being of the majority. Growth will be hampered if official corruption becomes a way of life. Isolation from world commerce and culture is a sure-fire way to fail economically. North Korea is the best example of this.

These thoughts come to me as I ponder the goals of Osama bin Laden and those who support him. Their goal is destruction-of the United States, of cultures different from their own-which, if successful, provides nothing for their own people. Argentina is on the verge of economic collapse, which has been caused in part by the inability of its political system to reach consensus over many decades on the key elements of economic growth. Robert Mugabe is tearing Zimbabwe apart in the name of holding on to political power. The Indonesian leaders gave priority to self-enrichment so that, when the financial bubble burst, they had little ability to overcome the economic crisis.

By contrast, after Mao departed the scene, the Chinese leaders gave priority to economic growth, and the accomplishments have been impressive. Mexico, under Ernesto Zedillo, gave policy priority to economics rather than partisan politics and the result was both high growth and greater democracy. Chile in recent years placed its emphasis on economic accomplishment and outpaced the rest of the hemisphere in its growth rate.

The argument being made here is about the importance of policy and not that economics is more important than politics. However, if the politics are about destruction or self-aggrandizement, then economic outcomes almost surely will be unsatisfactory. If economic policy is designed to benefit the few rather than the majority, the politics are unlikely to be durable.

These are not abstract musings for their own sake, but rather are intended to examine one of the reasons for the great turmoil that exists in the world today. There has been much discussion about the causes of terrorism in the world, particularly after the attacks of September 11. These are not easy to pinpoint because not all terrorists are created from the same cloth. Al Qaeda, for example, grew out of religious zealotry, Sendero Luminoso in Peru out of a sense of injustice, and the Tamil insurgency against the government of Sri Lanka over the lack of self-determination.

However, there are some common threads among these and other cases. These are the inadequacy of economic opportunity for the population of the countries involved (Afghanistan and the Arab countries, especially Egypt and Saudi Arabia, with respect to Al Qaeda), the absence of democracy (of liberty in the U.S. historical sense), and oppression of the many by the few who control the country. Most terrorism, as Kofi Annan emphasized in his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, is directed internally, but the causes are probably the same when directed at outsiders. His theme, as I understand it, is that outside indifference to these internal injustices in the name of respecting sovereignty can no longer be tolerated.

When the ambitions of a restless population for economic and political opportunity are frustrated, there is a tendency to lash out, sometimes against the oppressors at home or those seen as oppressors in foreign countries. There is no foreign country that makes as good a target as the United States, the most powerful country in the world economically and militarily. The anger is sometimes cloaked in terms of U.S. interference, sometimes as cultural incompatibility. There may be a legitimate grievance-such as U.S. support of oppressive dictators-or there may not be, only internal seething and the need to lash out at someone.

The world pays a heavy price when priorities of failed and unjust states boil over in the search for scapegoats. We are witnessing the results of this phenomenon in Afghanistan. The failure of Arab countries to emphasize either economic growth or democracy has brought a heavy toll in destruction. The struggle for personal power in many African countries has worldwide repercussions. No one explanation fits all cases of terrorism, which can be practiced even when economic opportunity and political choice are not neglected-as is evident in Northern Ireland and in the Basque region of Spain-but much of the horror the world is witnessing today stems from misguided priorities.

There is no easy way for outsiders to alter failed policies, but there are some things that can be done. Economic assistance can be withheld from countries that do not give priority to economic growth on the grounds that outside resources can serve no useful purpose. The U.S. government can speak out forcefully when democracy is suppressed, as now appears to be happening in Zimbabwe. It is evident that if the U.S. government walks away from reconstruction in Afghanistan, the economic-political situation would revert to chaos. We should not fail to intervene in the future, presumably through the United Nations, to stop tribal slaughter, as we failed in Burundi. Kofi Annan's theme that the world community cannot stand by and tolerate internal injustice merits serious consideration in the United Nations.

The double policy lesson we should have learned from the events of September 11 is that misguided priorities in strange countries not normally on our radar screen can affect us in horrible and unpredictable ways; and that our own global policies must take this reality into account.

Issues in International Political Economy is published by the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary.

CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author.

© 2001 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.