Political Terrorism Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Terrorism involves calculated outrage. It represents the power to hurt in its purest form, to use the classic description of Nobel laureate Thomas Schelling. The concept refers generally to the use or threat of violence to achieve political ends, but terror ism is meant not simply to destroy. It also communicates a message to a watching audience through the shock value of its transmission. The individual victims and physical targets of terror ism are representatives or symbols of larger collectivities—states, nations, communities, social classes, or other categories. The victims are usually defenseless and caught by surprise. They may be ordinary people in public places—shopping at a market, eating in a restaurant, riding a bus, or attending religious services—or they may be national or local leaders singled out for assassination by virtue of their positions. Harming the victims warns all who can see themselves in the victims’ place. Most victims of terrorism are civilians, although the line between combatants and noncombatants is often blurry, especially in intense civil conflicts. Potential victims may know that they are at risk because of the community of people they belong to or the entity they represent, but they cannot know when or where the attack will occur or who the perpetrator will be.

The type of violence employed is deliberately shocking. Since the invention of dynamite in the late nineteenth century, terrorists have relied heavily on explosive devices, which have ranged from crude, short-range bombs to airplanes flown into buildings in the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. In the 1980s, the practice of suicide bombing, and thus suicide terrorism, developed as governments became more adept at preventing terrorists from leaving bombs in public places. Nevertheless, the bombing of Pan Am 103 in 1988 and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, the most deadly attacks against U.S. citizens before 9/11, involved bombs placed in an airplane luggage compartment or left in a vehicle. Bombings are shocking because of their indiscriminate nature and because of the horrible carnage and dramatic visual effects they produce. Bombs have the potential to cause massive casualties, as the 9/11 attacks showed, and many experts fear that terrorism could become catastrophic should its users obtain nuclear, chemical, biological, or radiological materials to explode or disperse.

Terrorism can also involve seizing hostages in order to bargain with governments. In the late 1960s, skyjacking; kidnapping diplomats, business executives, and reporters; and taking over public buildings such as embassies became almost commonplace. Terrorists typically demanded the release of prisoners and sometimes ransom or publicity for their cause.

Terrorism is usually associated with nonstate actors—small groups who oppose the authority of the state. It is classically referred to as a “weapon of the weak,” for those who lack the military forces or supporters to compel their adversaries to comply with their wishes. However, not everyone would exclude states as actors, and states have intervened directly through their own agents (e.g., Libya and Pan Am 103) or have assisted proxies (e.g., Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon). Whether instigated by nonstates or states, the organization of terrorism is clandestine. The perpetrators conceal themselves and try to remain anonymous. The secrecy of the planning contrasts sharply with the spectacular resulting violence. The invisible becomes visible in one shocking moment.

Most terrorism is domestic, involving perpetrators, victims, and targets (i.e., those whom the act is designed to influence rather than harm directly) from the same country. Its users can include revolutionaries struggling to overthrow governments, nationalists, or ethnic minorities who want independence or secession, single-issue groups, or right-wing defenders of the status quo. In the 1980s, the term religious terrorism gained prominence in the aftermath of the Iranian revolution and the establishment of Hezbollah in Lebanon. With the emergence of al-Qaida and associated jihadist movements during the Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan, religious terrorism came to be associated with Sunni Islam, although there have been violent offshoots of all major religions. The desire to replace a secular regime with a religious one may be a variant of the same revolutionary drive that leads the followers of political ideologies to want to create a new constitutional order along the lines of principles they see as just.

International terrorism was recognized as a distinct type of terrorism in the 1970s.Victims, targets, and perpetrators were of different nationalities, or the act was committed outside the boundaries of the territory in dispute. The attack at the 1972 Munich Olympics, when the Palestinian Black September organization assaulted Israeli athletes in Germany, represents this type of terrorism. In the 1970s and 1980s, Western governments, particularly that of the United States, were often targeted abroad through hijackings and kidnappings. Thus, for many years, the U.S. Department of State and the Rand Corporation tracked incidents of international, not domestic, terrorism.

Causes Of Terrorism

The causes of terrorism lie at the individual, group, and environmental levels. Most students of terrorism would agree that a group or organization is the key agent behind campaigns of terrorism.

The idea that there are specific personality traits that determine or even predict an individual’s propensity to engage in terrorism has largely been abandoned, along with the proposition that there is a terrorist psychopathology. Most “terrorists,” even suicide terrorists who regard themselves as martyrs to a cause, seem to be distressingly normal. Instead, attention focuses on the social psychology of group dynamics. Identification with the group and the cause, the cohesiveness produced by danger and stress, conformity and peer pressure, and the small size of most groups influence individual and group behavior. Through belonging to the group, individuals overcome moral inhibitions against violence. Over time, groups may come to exist primarily in order to maintain themselves, rather than to accomplish a remote and elusive political objective.

It is extremely difficult to link terrorism directly to environmental conditions such as poverty, lack of democracy, or the pressures and frustrations associated with globalization. For one thing, those who engage in terrorism are few, while those who experience such conditions are many. In addition, the evidence is contradictory. Repression of nonviolent political dissent would logically cause terrorism, but democracies may attract terrorism because they do not exercise the level of social surveillance that would prohibit the formation of conspiracies, are target rich, and have a high media presence that guarantees publicity. Democracies provide opportunity, while repressive regimes provide motivation. In terms of links between economic conditions and terrorism, most members of terrorist organizations, especially the leaders, are not from the most disadvantaged sectors of their societies, although they often claim to act in the name of the dispossessed and may be genuinely committed to them.

A focus on groups as the primary unit of analysis usually assumes that terrorist organizations interact strategically with friends and adversaries. For groups seeking political change, the government is typically their main opponent, but they also engage in rivalries with other like-minded groups and hostilities with opposing groups (e.g., for revolutionary groups, paramilitaries supporting the government). They also seek popular support for their cause. Thus, terrorism is a deliberate means to an end. It may intend to provoke a government into overreacting, coerce it into agreeing to concessions, arouse popular enthusiasm and demonstrate power, “spoil” peace processes, or simply attract international attention to local grievances that would otherwise be ignored. Terrorism does not require much in the way of material resources, nor does it necessitate the mobilization of large numbers of people, so it is a relatively economical choice. It may also be a way groups operating in a competitive environment distinguish themselves from their rivals.

Concentrating on the group raises questions about the possibility of establishing a typology of terrorist organizations. Most typologies classify groups in terms of their ideological orientation: left-wing, right-wing, nationalist, religious, or mixed. Overlapping categories muddy distinctions. The Palestinian Hamas, for example, could be defined as both nationalist and religious. It is also difficult to say which other traits or characteristics might be correlated with differences among goals. Religious terrorism may be more lethal and more indiscriminate than secular terrorism. Apocalyptic ends may encourage disdain for the number of casualties or degree of precision in targeting because pleasing an earthly constituency is perhaps irrelevant.

After the 9/11 attacks, some claimed that terrorism had been radically and fundamentally changed, that a new terrorism replaced the terrorism of the past. The so-called old terrorists, such as the Irish Republican Army, were presumed to be rational calculators with whom governments could bargain, whereas the new religious terrorists, such as al-Qaida, sought only destruction. But secular terrorists may not necessarily be more reasonable or casualty averse.

Another dimension to consider is the structure of the organization, in particular whether it is hierarchical or flatly networked. The development of al-Qaida after 9/11 may indicate that the classical centralized-cell structures of underground movements have been replaced by decentralized, even disconnected, and diffuse networks composed largely of local volunteers. The bombings in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005 by small groups who appeared to be al-Qaida sympathizers may indicate such a development. If this is the case, individual motivations may become more important to terrorism, and studies of radicalization and deradicalization processes, especially in Western European Muslim diasporas, are critical. However, many groups, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, remain centralized and hierarchical with social service wings. Such welfare activities are most often associated with religiously oriented groups. A certain paradox emerges: Religious groups may be the most lethal to their adversaries and the most humanitarian to their constituents.

Ending Terrorism

Interest in the aspect of terrorism ending is much more recent than inquiry into its causes. How governments respond to terrorism is only part of the picture. The use of military force, actually rare, rarely succeeds in defeating terrorism; military force is too blunt an instrument for such a shadowy, adaptive, and versatile adversary. More fine-tuned police and intelligence work is usually the key to arresting or killing enough members of an organization to cripple its operations. However, if terrorist organizations can continue to replenish their ranks through recruitment, then violence may not end. If the government’s response to terrorism only creates more incentives for resistance, then it can be self-defeating. Furthermore, terror ism that crosses national boundaries cannot be contained exclusively through local security initiatives. Dealing with extended terrorist networks like al-Qaida and its cohort requires extensive international cooperation and coordination of security measures.

In some circumstances, groups abandon terrorism to enter the political process as legitimate players. The organization remains intact and viable, but its strategy shifts. This option may be associated with new, not necessarily immediately taken, opportunities for participation or resolution of civil conflicts in negotiated settlements that promote power sharing. The Irish Republican Army took many years to agree to enter politics through the implementation of the 1998 Good Friday accords. In Spain, Basque Fatherland and Liberty increased its violence when Spain transitioned to democracy in the 1970s. In Colombia in the 1980s, government overtures led April 19 Movement to become a political party, but the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia continued its violent opposition and became extensively involved with the drug trade.

Suppressing terrorism through the judicious use of security countermeasures and opening political alternatives are not incompatible government responses. In fact, both may be necessary. The first policy makes terrorism too costly to continue, while the second heightens the rewards of participation. If terrorist organizations are instrumental, they will weigh costs and benefits accordingly.

Another path for terrorism’s decline lies in the potential for groups to self-destruct or implode on their own. Sometimes the ideas they espouse have so little popular appeal that the cause dies with the group’s members. This may be most characteristic of very small groups. An organization’s activities may also alienate the constituency whose allegiance they seek. For example, the Red Brigade’s 1978 kidnapping and murder of Italy’s Christian Democratic Party leader Aldo Moro marked the beginning of their decline. As noted earlier, internal dissolution may proceed in tandem with government suppression.

Some government efforts to end terrorism stress the decisions of the individual rather than those of the group. Governments can offer amnesty and social reinsertion. Policies such as Italy’s pentiti, or repentance, initiative, which offered shorter prison terms to members of violent organizations who confessed, seemed effective in drawing members away from their groups. Post-9/11 deradicalization programs aimed at individual disengagement operate in Muslim countries such as Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia.

9/11 And The Consequences Of Terrorism

Before September 11, 20 01, terrorism was generally not considered a serious enough threat to war rant inclusion on the national or international security agenda. Certainly since the 1960s terrorism had troubled domestic order in many states, including Western liberal democracies, but it was typically an internal problem that did not threaten the stability or integrity of the state. The suffering and destruction caused by sporadic terrorist incidents was painful but minor in the grand scheme of casualty-producing events. After the Aum Shinrikyo sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subways in 1995, concern mounted over the prospect of weapons of mass destruction, but terrorism was still not a priority. Israel’s intense experience with terrorism after the 1967 war and its consequent permanent war footing were exceptions. No other state felt as vulnerable or reacted as strongly to terrorism. For Israel, military retaliation became almost a requirement of counterterrorist policy.

Just as terrorism was not a major concern for most governments, it was not deemed significant to the study of international relations and foreign policy even after the cold war ended. Terrorism by small nonstate actors seemed peripheral to the structure of the international system and the big issues of war and peace among nations. Genocide, civil war, and humanitarian intervention seemed much more important than terrorism.

It is impossible to exaggerate the worldwide effects of a-lQaida’s 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Terrorism sprang to the top of the national agenda of the world’s remaining superpower; the United States immediately declared a global war on terror. In its pursuit, the United States invaded and occupied Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. Intelligence and domestic security institutions were revamped, old agencies were merged, and new agencies were created in the most radical bureaucratic restructuring since the end of World War II (1939–1945).

America’s allies supported the invasion of Afghanistan. Before the 9/11 attacks, the Taliban regime had refused to turn over al-Qaida despite increasing international pressure, and it remained obdurate even after 9/11. Most of the world, however, including the United Nations, did not approve of the invasion of Iraq, which the United States claimed was necessary because Saddam Hussein was close to acquiring nuclear weapons that he might pass on to al-Qaida. By invading Iraq, the United States sacrificed much of the sympathy and good will it had gained in the aftermath of 9/11. The transformation of U.S. goals for the global war on terror from eradicating terrorism to spreading democracy and ending tyranny around the world seemed to many to be an example of hubris and overreaching, although President George W. Bush claimed that U.S. policy was idealistic in its ends and realist in its means. The Obama administration took a more moderate approach to counterterrorism policy but continued the struggle to destroy al-Qaida.

The 9/11 attacks and subsequent al-Qaida–linked events around the world also focused scholarly attention on al-Qaida, its allies, subsidiaries, and the cause they espouse—the expulsion of “crusaders and Jews” from Muslim countries and the establishment of a pure form of Islamic law in these states. Analysis of jihadi or Salafist (puritanical) thought and practice has surged.

Bibliography:

Art, Robert J., and Louise Richardson, eds. Democracy and Counterterrorism: Lessons from the Past. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 2007.
Byman, Daniel. Deadly Connections: States that Sponsor Terrorism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Crenshaw, Martha, ed. Terrorism in Context. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995.
Cronin, Audrey Kurth. How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009.
Gambetta, Diego, ed. Making Sense of Suicide Missions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Hoffman, Bruce. Inside Terrorism. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.
Juergensmeyer, Mark. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
Keefer, Phillip, and Norman Loayza, eds. Terrorism, Economic Development, and Political Openness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Krueger, Alan B., and Jitka Maleckova. “Education, Poverty, and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection?” Journal of Economic Perspectives 17, no. 4 (2003).
Lawrence, Bruce, ed. Messages to the World:The Statements of Osama Bin Laden. London: Verso, 2005.
Moghadam, Assaf. The Globalization of Martyrdom: Al Qaeda, Salafi Jihad, and the Diffusion of Suicide Attacks. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.
Rapoport, David.“The Four Waves of Modern Terrorism.” In Attacking Terrorism: Elements of a Grand Strategy, edited by Audrey Kurth Cronin and James M. Ludes. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2004.
Wilkinson, Paul. Terrorism versus Democracy: The Liberal State Response. London: Routledge, 2006.

This example Political Terrorism Essay is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.