The works of two Dartmouth professors were found amongst the personal belongings of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, according to a partial list of texts released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on May 20.
Bin Laden’s texts -— seized following the May 2011 attack on Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan — included the book “International Relations Theory and the Asia-Pacific,” co-edited by dean of faculty Michael Mastanduno and Princeton University professor G. John Ikenberry and the article “Did France Cause the Great Depression?” by economics professor Douglas Irwin.
“It’s sort of a joke and a funny story,” Irwin said. “I guess it’s sort of an amusing thing in some sense, so I hate to be associated with him in any way.”
Irwin’s article deals with the impact of France’s hoarding of gold prior to the Great Depression which, Irwin said, lead to deflationary pressures on the international economy, eventually crippling it.
Irwin said his article may have been part of Bin Laden’s collection due to the former al Qaeda leader’s evident infatuation with France. Of the several hundred titles released, almost 20 dealt with France, particularly regarding the country’s economy.
The documents ranged from a “list of French shipping companies” to a scholarly journal detailing France’s management of radioactive waste.
“It turns out that Bin Laden seems to have had an unusually large number of articles about France, and a number of analysts have interpreted this as representing an interest or a fascination he had with France,” government professor Jeff Friedman, whose expertise includes foreign policy and national security, said.
Mastanduno’s book was one of 39 English language books Bin Laden evidently had in his collection. Many of the books deal with U.S. foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East.
“It’s kind of a mystery to me, honestly, but I don’t fault anyone for being a good general reader of international relations,” Mastanduno said.
The book deals with the international relations of East Asian countries, Mastanduno said.
Friedman said that Bin Laden was likely trying to stay informed on international politics and economics.
“I think there you see a full-time policy leader, for better or for worse, trying to be an intelligent consumer of the state of affairs,” he said.
There was substantial evidence released in Bin Laden’s documents, Friedman said, that indicate that even while in hiding, he was still leading Al Qaeda in some operational capacity, including directing the management of funds and dealing with operations and attacks.
“There were many people who thought that, by this point, Bin Laden had become more of a general figurehead,” Friedman said, noting the belief has now been effectively disproved.
The series of documents are mostly letters to and from subordinates. Bin Laden seemed to be attempting to exercise some degree of control over the day-to-day operations of the terrorist group, Friedman said.
“These may have been the only documents indicating Bin Laden’s influence on tactical issues, but I think a reasonable inference from them is that he was still working to organize attacks, and to organize attacks specifically against the United States and its embassies,” he said.
Both Irwin and Mastanduno said they were unlikely to change their research or academic pursuits based on the finding. Irwin said that he was generally amused by the development, while Mastanduno expressed confusion at the inclusion of his book on Bin Laden’s reading list.
“When you publish something that goes out to the whole world, you don’t control who buys it, who reads it, who has it on their shelf,” he said. “I guess the only thing that would actually change my opinion on that would be if someone actually found that the book was annotated in some way, and I could figure out what he had said in it, then that would be interesting to me.”
Friedman said Bin Laden’s collection included both scholarly articles, numerous conspiracy theories and “crazy anti-Semitic rants.”
While roughly around 250 documents have already been released, Friedman said he expects there are “thousands” more that are yet to be declassified.
“I think it’s always interesting to see who comes to the attention of any foreign leaders, be they friendly or hostile,” Friedman said. “So in some sense it’s a compliment to see that you’ve appeared on the radar of people in positions of power.”
While neither Mastanduno nor Irwin expressed distress at their inclusion in Bin Laden’s library and both said they do not believe their works could have notably furthered his political aims, they did not express excitement at the idea of the association.
“I think this reinforces the idea that when academics and scholars write, put their ideas on paper, people listen, and those shape the views of people in power,” Friedmand said. “I think Bin Laden was clearly reading some crazy stuff, but he was also reading some things that academics read, and it shows that these worlds of academia and practice were pretty related.”
