Does terrorism destroy lives? Yes. Does terrorism need to be stopped? Yes. Is terrorism a global geopolitical nightmare that’s only getting worse with each passing news cycle? It seems so.
But the question no one is really asking is: Does terrorism work?
To even pose this question today is beyond the pale.
So far the debate on this question has been not only limited, but also deeply flawed by amnesia and by a tendency for parties to talk over and past each other. Our instinct is to respond to a group like ISIS — or Hezbollah, or Hamas, or Al Qaeda — as if this was an entirely new and unrecognizable kind of terrorism (which, of course, it is not). The result is that we focus too much on how far any current group’s violence might work, without learning from previous waves of terrorist actors.
Terrorism is, in fact, nothing new. The First World War was sparked by a terroristic assassination in 1914, while the terrorist attacks of 9/11 ushered us into a new era and dramatically altered international politics. What happens if we both elongate the time frame of terrorist events and also interrogate whether or not it is effective?
Terrorism is by definition a violent attempt to produce political or social change. If we begin to ask whether or not it actually is effective in doing so, we also may start to understand if some types of political cause are more likely to generate effective terrorism than others, as well as what kind of responses may or may not effectively pre-empt or prevent future terrorist acts. Considering what we mean by success is an essential foundation of asking these questions.
The first kind of terrorist “success” might be considered strategic success: a terrorist group sets out a central, primary goal, and its violent act succeeds in achieving it. Historically (and reassuringly), this process is actually pretty rare. One might argue that Jewish terrorists of the 1940s seeking the establishment of a Jewish state succeeded in that their violence lead to the establishment of Israel, or even that the anti-British violence of the American Revolution fitted many definitions of terrorism and generated its desired outcome.
Far more often, however, terrorist groups end their violent campaigns without securing their headline goals. From the West German Baader-Meinhof Group to the Peruvian Shining Path, history is full of terrorist strategic failures.
But that doesn’t necessarily equate to failure: there can also be partial strategic success. This partial success might include achieving a diluted version of the group’s primary goals. You might want a fully independent nation, but only achieve partial autonomy for part of your territory. The early-twentieth-century Irish Republican Army (IRA), for example, could be said to have achieved partial independence for much of their country; another might be the Greek Cypriot organization EOKA, a self-proclaimed “anti-colonial” guerrilla terrorist group who targeted the British military for “the liberation of Cyprus from the British yoke.” Cyprus would finally gain independence from Britain in 1960; unity with Greece and the unification of the island were not secured.
Partial strategic success could mean achieving secondary goals. The PLO or Hamas might not achieve the destruction of Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian state covering their desired territory, but they might secure the secondary goal of revenge against Israelis — or of sustaining Palestinian resistance into the future.
Partial strategic success might also involve impacting the national or international conversation — so that your cause, your issue, your violence dominates those politics. Al Qaeda’s central strategic goals seem to me not to have been achieved, neither in driving US military presence from Muslim countries nor overthrowing the Muslim regimes of which al-Qaida disapproved. But there is no doubt that 9/11 ensured far greater attention from America and its allies to jihadist politics, agendas, and demands than ever before.
There can also be tactical terrorist success. A terrorist might fail to achieve primary or even secondary strategic goals, but they might succeed in particular operations. The Basque separatists ETA successfully conducted a spectacular assassination in December of 1973, killing the Spanish Prime Minister Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco in Madrid. Their self-stated central goal of an independent Basque state eluded them, but extraordinary operational success was achieved at a tactical level. Likewise, the Provisional IRA of the late twentieth century failed to achieve an independent and united Irish republic, but they did succeed in many tactical operational actions, such as the August 1979 killing of the Queen’s cousin Lord Mountbatten — again, a spectacular tactical success. In this regard, 9/11 was perhaps the most successful terrorist event ever.
Tactical successes could also involve the securing of extensive publicity for your cause. This is without a doubt one of the most commonly seen outcomes of terrorist violence, from the Black September attack at the 1972 Munich Olympics to the recent, eye-catching violence associated with ISIS in France, for example. Tactical success could also see terrorism as “working” in terms of undermining one’s opponents; in terms of securing interim concessions (the release of prisoners, for instance, or the paying of ransom for hostages); or in terms of maintaining control over a population through violence.
Finally, there can also be success in terms of what I would call terrorism’s inherent rewards. Al Qaeda might not destroy the power of America or drive them from Muslim countries, but they might succeed in producing violence which is psychologically rewarding for those who carry it out. The West German Baader-Meinhof Group did not destroy either their own state or the wider capitalist or imperialist system, but it is clear that they appreciated the small-group comradeship, adventure, the money, and even the self-righteousness associated with their campaign.
Again and again we see this pattern in the long history of terrorism. Yes, there can be terrible costs for joining a terrorist group: prison, torture, death. But there can also be rewards: the apotheosis of martyrdom, the achievement of fame, powerful status, tightly knit bonds in a group of like-minded individuals, and so on.
What does this mean for how we respond to something like the wave of violence sweeping the world with ISIS? It probably suggests we should concentrate less on what ISIS claims they want to achieve and probably won’t, and more on the areas where their actions are actually effective: tactical operations, publicity, inherent rewards, revenge.
The fact is, if terrorism didn’t work on some level, it simply wouldn’t happen. So if we can’t ask the clear-eyed question of whether, how, and when it works, we’ll never really understand why it’s happening.
Richard English is Director of the Handa Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St Andrews. His book Does Terrorism Work? A History is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.
