5
theoretical accounting. None of these shifts are transformative of international relations -- in fact,
assertions regarding the decline of the state overemphasize how powerful traditional state actors
remain -- but do further emphasize how the paradigm of international security is changeable.
Flowing out of 9/11, for example, has been an unprecedented global war between a state and a
fluid non-state actor that is still playing itself out in struggles to stop al-Qaeda’s amoeba-like
spread. Implied by this is a very different model of international security than assumed in
dominant state-centric models. A non-state actor without a fixed territorial base is now a primary
pole in defining an important element in international political interactions, rather than a mere
secondary factor. High-level analysts close to the Bush Administration describe this pole as the
element defining a new world war.
11
This may be controversial and is certainly hyperbolic, but
does give an empirical barometer of the U.S.’s conceptualization of how fundamental the war
with al-Qaeda is to the world’s sole superpower. Whether or not a “world war” is apt
terminology, both a U.N. Security Council chapter VII resolution and the U.S. Congress’
September 2001 resolution authorized the use of force against al-Qaeda. There is little reason to
doubt, therefore, that an international armed conflict exists with the U.S. and al-Qaeda its main
combatants. At this level, al-Qaeda cannot be marginalized as an international relations actor by
being termed important but secondary; its role as one pole in an international struggle makes it a
primary actor defining an important facet of global politics.
This is an unprecedented escalation of the level of participation in international relations
by a non-state actor. With al-Qaeda we are well beyond trying to track if, for example, NGOs
are able to frame issues on an international level or other such questions that have been key to
11
James Woolsey, “World War IV Begins Here,” Boston Herald, April 6, 2003. Bush Administration official
Richard Falkenrath comments that the “defining pole” of the Bush Administration’s policy-making is the fight
against al-Qaeda. Richard Falkenrath, public talk, Occidental College, Feb 12
th
, 2003.
Convention