What Terrorism Is
…and What it Isn’t
Terrorism has dominated our security agenda since 9/11. Groups and individuals who harness terror project a shadow far larger than themselves. Meanwhile, the countermeasures we deploy against it have changed our relationship to our governments. All manner of people, groups and states have been branded as terrorists, giving extraordinary power to those doing the branding.
It is precisely because of the power terrorism holds, both as a tool and a word, that makes it vital to know exactly what it is and isn’t.
When the UN adopted the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings, they struggled to agree on any useful definition of ‘terrorism’. A key problem was that while most world leaders agreed that a strong stance against terrorism was needed, they disagreed on who the terrorists were and what terrorism entailed. Seems like the adage ‘one person’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter’ holds true in politics after all.
Most definitions find common ground around the use or threat of violence against people or property to coerce the public or government to accede to political demands. Frankly, this is a lousy definition because any form of violence can be labelled ‘terrorist’ at a polemical whim. In a similar vein, leaving terrorism as a matter of interpretation allows those who perpetrate it to evade the label by pointing fingers and playing linguistic gymnastics with the real atrocities they commit.
If you strip away the politics, as much as one can with a politically charged topic, it is fairly easy to define terrorism.
It is a tactic, and a very distinct tactic at that.
In most forms of aggression, an attacker uses or threatens violence against a target to achieve an objective. For example, an airstrike on a military position is a straightforward military action. A rebel group ambushing a military convoy is likewise a typical insurgency tactic.
What makes terrorism different is what Merrick Yamamoto calls ‘victim-target differentiation’. An attacker uses violence against victims — not as an end, but a means to an end — to coerce third party targets and achieve political objectives.
Because terrorism is a tactic, it can be used by a wide range of actors be they individuals or groups, non-state or state and for objectives that run the gambit of the political spectrum.
Modern terrorism started to come into its own in the 1960s and 1970s. Left-wing groups like the Italian Red Brigade or nationalists like the Provisional Irish Republican Army used terrorism to pursue their political agendas. But there has been a considerable change in the conduct of terrorism since then. Targeting was more precise and mass civilian casualties were rare. For example, it was commonplace for terrorists to warn authorities of a bomb being placed in public areas, spreading panic with less body bags.
In the 1980s, we start to see the groundwork emerge for the ‘war on terror’ in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. During the brutal and bloody Iran-Iraq War, Ayatollah Khomeini granted martyrdom to suicide brigades, a theological revision would have important consequences of for modern terrorism. Meanwhile, the US-backed Mujahedeen insurgency against the USSR in Afghanistan planted the seeds for the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Many mistakenly identify terrorism as being unique to Islamic extremism, if not equate it with Islam itself. A report by the Center of Strategic and International Studies found that only 3.78% of terrorist attacks in Europe were carried out by Islamic extremists between 2000 and 2017. However, this small percentage of attacks caused 71.15% of total fatalities. The devastation and high media profile of Jihadist groups have led to the synonymising of Islam with terror.
Since significant attention is paid to Jihadist terrorism, let’s look at of some of the overlooked users and uses of terror for a fresh take on the topic.
We often think of ‘terrorist organisations’ when we think about terrorism. But individuals have proven very effective purveyors of terror. The ‘lone wolf’ terrorist Anders Breivik killed 77 in two attacks before being apprehended. How is his action different from a school shooting? The aim was not to simply destroy life and property, but to publicise his extreme right-wing ideology and manifesto — 2083: A European Declaration of Independence.
Organised crime and gangs also use terror. When a criminal organisation takes over a neighbourhood, they might burn down the shop of a resistant business owner. The purpose is not to simply punish the shopkeeper, but to make an example so that the other shops fall into line.
There is another and more controversial type of terrorism — state terrorism. Many people deny that this is even a possibility. After all, states have the legitimate right to use force if done in line with international law. Meanwhile, others are quick to mislabel conventional military operations as terrorist because of civilian casualties or they disagree with a war.
Because terrorism is tactic, states can and do use it — often with more devastating effect.
During WWII, Allies’ changed strategy from bombing military targets to urban was to demoralise the enemy into surrender, a tactic Churchill called ‘terror bombing’. Firebombing Tokyo and dropping two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki coerced the Japanese government to surrender unconditionally.
State-sponsored terrorism is common and very dangerous. The most famous example is Iran’s support for Hezbollah to establish a political and military foothold in Lebanon and launch proxy attacks on Israel. The current flare in tensions between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India is also the result of state-sponsored terrorism.
States can use terror against their own people as an instrument of control. The highly publicised show trials and executions carried out by Kim Jong-un’s regime in North Korea are not simply a matter of removing political rivals, but to coerce compliance and deter dissention among the broader population.
As we can see, understanding terrorism as a tactic helps us to know it when we see it, no matter who is using it. This is important for main reasons.
First, the hundreds of young men and women who left Europe to join ISIS show how susceptible people can be drawn into radical groups who masquerade their atrocities in the double-speak if left open to he-said-she-said interpretation.
Second, with this issue ranking high in the international security agenda, governments are given extraordinary power to go above and beyond both domestic and international laws to fight it. In cases like the dictatorship in Uzbekistan, the war on terror has been used to quell peaceful political dissidents who have been branded as terrorists and brutally oppressed with all the powers afforded by this word.
So, we have a double responsibility to call a spade a spade, both to combat those who use terror and dispel rhetoric of those seeking to abuse the extraordinary power given to fight it.
