Terrorism by the State
We have noted that the term “terrorism” was coined in the nineteenth century
to describe acts conducted by the French Republic. More than a century later,
some of the most devastating episodes of terrorism continue to be committed
by or sponsored under the authority of sovereign nations. Among the most
brutal examples are the following:
The Khmer Rouge killing of nearly two million Cambodians under the dictatorship
of Pol Pot in the late 1970s
The Baathist Army gassing of thousands of Kurds in Northern Iraq by Saddam
Hussein in 1988
The Serbian killing of several thousand Muslims in Bosnia under Slobodan Milo-
sevic in the 1990s
These three are all examples of state-sponsored acts of terrorism that were
ordered directly and monitored closely by the leaders who sanctioned them.
In other instances, the acts are carried out more along the lines of patronage
or assistance than direct control. Iranian support for Hezbollah, the Popu-
lar Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and terrorist activities in Iraq and
elsewhere throughout the Middle East and other parts of the world all exem-
plify the patronage model of state-sponsored terrorism. Cuba is also known
to have supported terrorist activities in South America and Spain, and Pak-
istan is known to have supported such activities in Kashmir. Support of a
prolonged insurgency against communists by the United States and Britain
during the Cold War also qualifies. The support can range from ideological
encouragement and indoctrination to training and assistance in insurgency,
intelligence, operational support in the form of providing false documents
and safe havens, and financial rewards to the families of suicide bombers.
9
The Nature of Terrorism
These various forms of support may have any one or a combination of several
aims:
To destabilize a state to gain greater influence in the region
To create international visibility for a persistent problem, such as that of Palestine
To retaliate against a target state in the region perceived as an enemy
To undermine the influence of a larger power operating in the region
Although acts of state-sponsored terrorism are well known – both those
involving direct initiation and control and those involving patronage and
indirect support – few sovereign nations officially acknowledge involvement
in or support of these activities. Today, terrorism is widely thought to orig-
inate with groups like al Qaeda, operating outside the official auspices of
the state. Constitutional democracies have taken particularly strong stands
against terrorist attacks on noncombatants, especially in the post-Cold War
era. Leaders of nondemocratic nations generally express opposition to ter-
rorist activities as well, especially when the targets of those activities are
people who are friends of the state or when the activities are aimed directly
against the state and its resources. Although some nations provide covert sup-
port to terrorist groups and activities, typically indirectly through intermedi-
aries to obfuscate their involvement, none officially acknowledge support of
terrorism.
Connection to Larger Networks and the Extent
of Internal Organization
Terrorist groups and individuals are, at one extreme, operatives of larger
terrorist networks, much like business franchises. Some are only loosely affil-
iated – al Qaeda is the best known of such loosely associated networks. At
the other extreme, terrorists act as independent lone-wolf operatives, such as
“Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski, Austrian letter bomber Franz Fuchs, and abor-
tion clinic and Atlanta Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph. Larger, more
connected groups can benefit by taking advantage of teamwork, division of
labor, and power in numbers, but they tend to be subject to a greater risk of
detection because their exposure is increased with each additional individual
involved. Of course, even individuals must plan their attacks if they wish to
enhance the prospects for success, but the need for planning and coordinating
activities increases as the operations become more complex and the number
of individuals needed to carry out the act or acts increases. The effectiveness
of the group can be enhanced through practice, preparation, and secrecy, as
in the cases of 9/11 and the London subway attack of 2005, but any group
is generally only as effective as the competence of its weakest member.
10
The Nature of Terrorism
Terrorism by Militant Religious Extremists
Much terrorism is conducted in the name of a religious mission. With the 9/11
attack, Islamic jihadism1 became the most prominent example of terrorism
motivated by religious extremists, but by no means the only example of
terrorist acts done in the name of religion. Millions of innocent people were
slaughtered as infidels by Christian Crusaders for some 200 years beginning
in 1099, as were countless others by militant extremist factions of all the
major religions over the years. Examples are discussed in some detail in
Chapters 2 and 4.
Ethnic Terrorism
Ethnicity is typically associated with unique combinations of genetics, cul-
ture, language, religion, and common heritage, and ethnic terrorism is ter-
rorism involving an ethnic group. It occurs typically following long-standing
ethnic or tribal rivalries and is accompanied by slogans, such as the following:
you are not one of us, you interfere with our well-being and thus threaten
us, and we must defend ourselves against you and your kind. Ethnic terror-
ism usually follows acts of persecution, with the persecutor and persecuted
often switching roles in episodes of mutual retaliation. When a government
supports one side in an ethnic dispute, the other side often engages in acts of
terrorism against the government.
Ethnic terrorism ranges from the local level of the clan or tribe to the level
of the nation and beyond, as when an ethnic group has migrated to various
points throughout the world in diaspora. At the smallest level, warring clans
and tribes generally share a common ethnic heritage within a region, yet they
often feud over territorial or property disputes, acts of disrespect, or petty
matters involving unresolved grievances. A prominent example of terrorist
acts between clans in the United States is the decades-long feud between the
Hatfields and McCoys of Eastern Kentucky. Toward the other end of the
scale, the disputes become questions of national identity, such as whether
two warring ethnic groups are better as a single nation or as separate ones.
Daniel Byman (2007) observes that ethnic terrorism is often the product
of government interventions against ethnic minorities. He identifies several
common characteristics of such interventions. When a government acts with
force to stifle the dissent of an ethnic minority against government rule, the
actions tend to polarize the opposition and induce a stronger-than-anticipated
reaction. Such acts of force often induce other countries and institutions that
are unfriendly to the government to provide support to the ethnic minority.
The government often underestimates the advantages that local insurgents
have against an invading army, the principal one being the opportunity to
outlast the invaders and wear them down through acts of insurgency, as
11
The Nature of Terrorism
the American colonialists did to the British military in the late eighteenth
century. In the end, overly aggressive government action tends to escalate
ethnic terrorism.
Every continent has its history of ethnic rivalries that simmer and then
boil over into acts of terrorism, some not involving government intervention.
Although each of these histories has its own unique elements, they tend
to share many attributes: small differences become greatly magnified while
large commonalities and shared values are ignored; intermarriage between
individuals of opposing clans or tribes become taboo, and the identities of
the children of such marriages become confused; extremists on both sides put
moderates under pressure to choose sides and give up conciliatory or neutral
positions; and government interventions tend to be alternately inept and
needlessly brutal, with both sorts of reactions having the eventual effect of
energizing the opposition. In Chapter 3, I discuss several major examples of
ethnic terrorism in which there have been decades and sometimes centuries
of fighting: between Kurds and Turks in Turkey, Sunnis and Kurds in Iraq,
Sunnis and Shi’a in Iraq, Russians and Chechens in the Trans-Caucuses,
Basques and Spanish nationalists in Spain, Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda,
English Protestants and Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland, and the Tamils
and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka.
C. Critical Distinctions: Terrorism, Aggression,
Crime, and War
Terrorism is an extreme form of both crime and aggression. The social costs
and consequences of terrorism tend to be vastly greater than are customarily
associated even with serious acts of street crime and of violent aggression,
because of the scale of both the immediate harms caused by the acts and
the widespread fear produced by the acts and the consequences of that fear.
That terrorism is extreme, however, does not mean that it is fundamentally
different from those other acts: many of the sources of crime and aggression
are common to terrorism. Terrorism is in some ways more similar to war
than to crime, but it differs from war in important respects as well, despite the
use of war metaphors to garner political support for aggressive interventions
against terrorism. Box 1.2 highlights distinctions among several overlapping
concepts: aggression, crime, guerrilla action, insurgency, terrorism, and war.
Aggression is common to the other five concepts in the box, except for
crimes that do not involve force or threats of force.2 The primary distinctions
among the concepts have to do with the targets and motives of the aggression
involved. Each manifestation of aggression is similar to the others in several
ways, but is distinct in at least one way. Acts of insurgency are similar
to guerrilla acts, except that they include targets other than military or law
enforcement agents. Insurgents often use the tools of terrorism, and they may
12
The Nature of Terrorism
Box 1.2. Critical Distinctions: Terrorism, Aggression,
Crime, and War
Aggression: any act or threat of force by an individual or group against
another
Crime: the intentional violation of a criminal statute by an individual acting
either alone or with others
Guerrilla action: an act of aggression by an individual or group against a
state’s military or law enforcement authority
Insurgency: the systematic use of subversion and aggression against a con-
stituted government by an organized group of individuals opposed to the
government and acting outside of formal sovereign authority; insurgents
who succeed become heroic revolutionaries, whereas those who fail are
known as criminals
Terrorism: the premeditated and unlawful use or threatenedTerrorism by the State
We have noted that the term “terrorism” was coined in the nineteenth century
to describe acts conducted by the French Republic. More than a century later,
some of the most devastating episodes of terrorism continue to be committed
by or sponsored under the authority of sovereign nations. Among the most
brutal examples are the following:
The Khmer Rouge killing of nearly two million Cambodians under the dictatorship
of Pol Pot in the late 1970s
The Baathist Army gassing of thousands of Kurds in Northern Iraq by Saddam
Hussein in 1988
The Serbian killing of several thousand Muslims in Bosnia under Slobodan Milo-
sevic in the 1990s
These three are all examples of state-sponsored acts of terrorism that were
ordered directly and monitored closely by the leaders who sanctioned them.
In other instances, the acts are carried out more along the lines of patronage
or assistance than direct control. Iranian support for Hezbollah, the Popu-
lar Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and terrorist activities in Iraq and
elsewhere throughout the Middle East and other parts of the world all exem-
plify the patronage model of state-sponsored terrorism. Cuba is also known
to have supported terrorist activities in South America and Spain, and Pak-
istan is known to have supported such activities in Kashmir. Support of a
prolonged insurgency against communists by the United States and Britain
during the Cold War also qualifies. The support can range from ideological
encouragement and indoctrination to training and assistance in insurgency,
intelligence, operational support in the form of providing false documents
and safe havens, and financial rewards to the families of suicide bombers.
9
The Nature of Terrorism
These various forms of support may have any one or a combination of several
aims:
To destabilize a state to gain greater influence in the region
To create international visibility for a persistent problem, such as that of Palestine
To retaliate against a target state in the region perceived as an enemy
To undermine the influence of a larger power operating in the region
Although acts of state-sponsored terrorism are well known – both those
involving direct initiation and control and those involving patronage and
indirect support – few sovereign nations officially acknowledge involvement
in or support of these activities. Today, terrorism is widely thought to orig-
inate with groups like al Qaeda, operating outside the official auspices of
the state. Constitutional democracies have taken particularly strong stands
against terrorist attacks on noncombatants, especially in the post-Cold War
era. Leaders of nondemocratic nations generally express opposition to ter-
rorist activities as well, especially when the targets of those activities are
people who are friends of the state or when the activities are aimed directly
against the state and its resources. Although some nations provide covert sup-
port to terrorist groups and activities, typically indirectly through intermedi-
aries to obfuscate their involvement, none officially acknowledge support of
terrorism.
Connection to Larger Networks and the Extent
of Internal Organization
Terrorist groups and individuals are, at one extreme, operatives of larger
terrorist networks, much like business franchises. Some are only loosely affil-
iated – al Qaeda is the best known of such loosely associated networks. At
the other extreme, terrorists act as independent lone-wolf operatives, such as
“Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski, Austrian letter bomber Franz Fuchs, and abor-
tion clinic and Atlanta Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph. Larger, more
connected groups can benefit by taking advantage of teamwork, division of
labor, and power in numbers, but they tend to be subject to a greater risk of
detection because their exposure is increased with each additional individual
involved. Of course, even individuals must plan their attacks if they wish to
enhance the prospects for success, but the need for planning and coordinating
activities increases as the operations become more complex and the number
of individuals needed to carry out the act or acts increases. The effectiveness
of the group can be enhanced through practice, preparation, and secrecy, as
in the cases of 9/11 and the London subway attack of 2005, but any group
is generally only as effective as the competence of its weakest member.
10
The Nature of Terrorism
Terrorism by Militant Religious Extremists
Much terrorism is conducted in the name of a religious mission. With the 9/11
attack, Islamic jihadism1 became the most prominent example of terrorism
motivated by religious extremists, but by no means the only example of
terrorist acts done in the name of religion. Millions of innocent people were
slaughtered as infidels by Christian Crusaders for some 200 years beginning
in 1099, as were countless others by militant extremist factions of all the
major religions over the years. Examples are discussed in some detail in
Chapters 2 and 4.
Ethnic Terrorism
Ethnicity is typically associated with unique combinations of genetics, cul-
ture, language, religion, and common heritage, and ethnic terrorism is ter-
rorism involving an ethnic group. It occurs typically following long-standing
ethnic or tribal rivalries and is accompanied by slogans, such as the following:
you are not one of us, you interfere with our well-being and thus threaten
us, and we must defend ourselves against you and your kind. Ethnic terror-
ism usually follows acts of persecution, with the persecutor and persecuted
often switching roles in episodes of mutual retaliation. When a government
supports one side in an ethnic dispute, the other side often engages in acts of
terrorism against the government.
Ethnic terrorism ranges from the local level of the clan or tribe to the level
of the nation and beyond, as when an ethnic group has migrated to various
points throughout the world in diaspora. At the smallest level, warring clans
and tribes generally share a common ethnic heritage within a region, yet they
often feud over territorial or property disputes, acts of disrespect, or petty
matters involving unresolved grievances. A prominent example of terrorist
acts between clans in the United States is the decades-long feud between the
Hatfields and McCoys of Eastern Kentucky. Toward the other end of the
scale, the disputes become questions of national identity, such as whether
two warring ethnic groups are better as a single nation or as separate ones.
Daniel Byman (2007) observes that ethnic terrorism is often the product
of government interventions against ethnic minorities. He identifies several
common characteristics of such interventions. When a government acts with
force to stifle the dissent of an ethnic minority against government rule, the
actions tend to polarize the opposition and induce a stronger-than-anticipated
reaction. Such acts of force often induce other countries and institutions that
are unfriendly to the government to provide support to the ethnic minority.
The government often underestimates the advantages that local insurgents
have against an invading army, the principal one being the opportunity to
outlast the invaders and wear them down through acts of insurgency, as
11
The Nature of Terrorism
the American colonialists did to the British military in the late eighteenth
century. In the end, overly aggressive government action tends to escalate
ethnic terrorism.
Every continent has its history of ethnic rivalries that simmer and then
boil over into acts of terrorism, some not involving government intervention.
Although each of these histories has its own unique elements, they tend
to share many attributes: small differences become greatly magnified while
large commonalities and shared values are ignored; intermarriage between
individuals of opposing clans or tribes become taboo, and the identities of
the children of such marriages become confused; extremists on both sides put
moderates under pressure to choose sides and give up conciliatory or neutral
positions; and government interventions tend to be alternately inept and
needlessly brutal, with both sorts of reactions having the eventual effect of
energizing the opposition. In Chapter 3, I discuss several major examples of
ethnic terrorism in which there have been decades and sometimes centuries
of fighting: between Kurds and Turks in Turkey, Sunnis and Kurds in Iraq,
Sunnis and Shi’a in Iraq, Russians and Chechens in the Trans-Caucuses,
Basques and Spanish nationalists in Spain, Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda,
English Protestants and Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland, and the Tamils
and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka.
C. Critical Distinctions: Terrorism, Aggression,
Crime, and War
Terrorism is an extreme form of both crime and aggression. The social costs
and consequences of terrorism tend to be vastly greater than are customarily
associated even with serious acts of street crime and of violent aggression,
because of the scale of both the immediate harms caused by the acts and
the widespread fear produced by the acts and the consequences of that fear.
That terrorism is extreme, however, does not mean that it is fundamentally
different from those other acts: many of the sources of crime and aggression
are common to terrorism. Terrorism is in some ways more similar to war
than to crime, but it differs from war in important respects as well, despite the
use of war metaphors to garner political support for aggressive interventions
against terrorism. Box 1.2 highlights distinctions among several overlapping
concepts: aggression, crime, guerrilla action, insurgency, terrorism, and war.
Aggression is common to the other five concepts in the box, except for
crimes that do not involve force or threats of force.2 The primary distinctions
among the concepts have to do with the targets and motives of the aggression
involved. Each manifestation of aggression is similar to the others in several
ways, but is distinct in at least one way. Acts of insurgency are similar
to guerrilla acts, except that they include targets other than military or law
enforcement agents. Insurgents often use the tools of terrorism, and they may
12
The Nature of Terrorism
Box 1.2. Critical Distinctions: Terrorism, Aggression,
Crime, and War
Aggression: any act or threat of force by an individual or group against
another
Crime: the intentional violation of a criminal statute by an individual acting
either alone or with others
Guerrilla action: an act of aggression by an individual or group against a
state’s military or law enforcement authority
Insurgency: the systematic use of subversion and aggression against a con-
stituted government by an organized group of individuals opposed to the
government and acting outside of formal sovereign authority; insurgents
who succeed become heroic revolutionaries, whereas those who fail are
known as criminals
Terrorism: the premeditated and unlawful use or threatenedTerrorism by the State
We have noted that the term “terrorism” was coined in the nineteenth century
to describe acts conducted by the French Republic. More than a century later,
some of the most devastating episodes of terrorism continue to be committed
by or sponsored under the authority of sovereign nations. Among the most
brutal examples are the following:
The Khmer Rouge killing of nearly two million Cambodians under the dictatorship
of Pol Pot in the late 1970s
The Baathist Army gassing of thousands of Kurds in Northern Iraq by Saddam
Hussein in 1988
The Serbian killing of several thousand Muslims in Bosnia under Slobodan Milo-
sevic in the 1990s
These three are all examples of state-sponsored acts of terrorism that were
ordered directly and monitored closely by the leaders who sanctioned them.
In other instances, the acts are carried out more along the lines of patronage
or assistance than direct control. Iranian support for Hezbollah, the Popu-
lar Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and terrorist activities in Iraq and
elsewhere throughout the Middle East and other parts of the world all exem-
plify the patronage model of state-sponsored terrorism. Cuba is also known
to have supported terrorist activities in South America and Spain, and Pak-
istan is known to have supported such activities in Kashmir. Support of a
prolonged insurgency against communists by the United States and Britain
during the Cold War also qualifies. The support can range from ideological
encouragement and indoctrination to training and assistance in insurgency,
intelligence, operational support in the form of providing false documents
and safe havens, and financial rewards to the families of suicide bombers.
9
The Nature of Terrorism
These various forms of support may have any one or a combination of several
aims:
To destabilize a state to gain greater influence in the region
To create international visibility for a persistent problem, such as that of Palestine
To retaliate against a target state in the region perceived as an enemy
To undermine the influence of a larger power operating in the region
Although acts of state-sponsored terrorism are well known – both those
involving direct initiation and control and those involving patronage and
indirect support – few sovereign nations officially acknowledge involvement
in or support of these activities. Today, terrorism is widely thought to orig-
inate with groups like al Qaeda, operating outside the official auspices of
the state. Constitutional democracies have taken particularly strong stands
against terrorist attacks on noncombatants, especially in the post-Cold War
era. Leaders of nondemocratic nations generally express opposition to ter-
rorist activities as well, especially when the targets of those activities are
people who are friends of the state or when the activities are aimed directly
against the state and its resources. Although some nations provide covert sup-
port to terrorist groups and activities, typically indirectly through intermedi-
aries to obfuscate their involvement, none officially acknowledge support of
terrorism.
Connection to Larger Networks and the Extent
of Internal Organization
Terrorist groups and individuals are, at one extreme, operatives of larger
terrorist networks, much like business franchises. Some are only loosely affil-
iated – al Qaeda is the best known of such loosely associated networks. At
the other extreme, terrorists act as independent lone-wolf operatives, such as
“Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski, Austrian letter bomber Franz Fuchs, and abor-
tion clinic and Atlanta Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph. Larger, more
connected groups can benefit by taking advantage of teamwork, division of
labor, and power in numbers, but they tend to be subject to a greater risk of
detection because their exposure is increased with each additional individual
involved. Of course, even individuals must plan their attacks if they wish to
enhance the prospects for success, but the need for planning and coordinating
activities increases as the operations become more complex and the number
of individuals needed to carry out the act or acts increases. The effectiveness
of the group can be enhanced through practice, preparation, and secrecy, as
in the cases of 9/11 and the London subway attack of 2005, but any group
is generally only as effective as the competence of its weakest member.
10
The Nature of Terrorism
Terrorism by Militant Religious Extremists
Much terrorism is conducted in the name of a religious mission. With the 9/11
attack, Islamic jihadism1 became the most prominent example of terrorism
motivated by religious extremists, but by no means the only example of
terrorist acts done in the name of religion. Millions of innocent people were
slaughtered as infidels by Christian Crusaders for some 200 years beginning
in 1099, as were countless others by militant extremist factions of all the
major religions over the years. Examples are discussed in some detail in
Chapters 2 and 4.
Ethnic Terrorism
Ethnicity is typically associated with unique combinations of genetics, cul-
ture, language, religion, and common heritage, and ethnic terrorism is ter-
rorism involving an ethnic group. It occurs typically following long-standing
ethnic or tribal rivalries and is accompanied by slogans, such as the following:
you are not one of us, you interfere with our well-being and thus threaten
us, and we must defend ourselves against you and your kind. Ethnic terror-
ism usually follows acts of persecution, with the persecutor and persecuted
often switching roles in episodes of mutual retaliation. When a government
supports one side in an ethnic dispute, the other side often engages in acts of
terrorism against the government.
Ethnic terrorism ranges from the local level of the clan or tribe to the level
of the nation and beyond, as when an ethnic group has migrated to various
points throughout the world in diaspora. At the smallest level, warring clans
and tribes generally share a common ethnic heritage within a region, yet they
often feud over territorial or property disputes, acts of disrespect, or petty
matters involving unresolved grievances. A prominent example of terrorist
acts between clans in the United States is the decades-long feud between the
Hatfields and McCoys of Eastern Kentucky. Toward the other end of the
scale, the disputes become questions of national identity, such as whether
two warring ethnic groups are better as a single nation or as separate ones.
Daniel Byman (2007) observes that ethnic terrorism is often the product
of government interventions against ethnic minorities. He identifies several
common characteristics of such interventions. When a government acts with
force to stifle the dissent of an ethnic minority against government rule, the
actions tend to polarize the opposition and induce a stronger-than-anticipated
reaction. Such acts of force often induce other countries and institutions that
are unfriendly to the government to provide support to the ethnic minority.
The government often underestimates the advantages that local insurgents
have against an invading army, the principal one being the opportunity to
outlast the invaders and wear them down through acts of insurgency, as
11
The Nature of Terrorism
the American colonialists did to the British military in the late eighteenth
century. In the end, overly aggressive government action tends to escalate
ethnic terrorism.
Every continent has its history of ethnic rivalries that simmer and then
boil over into acts of terrorism, some not involving government intervention.
Although each of these histories has its own unique elements, they tend
to share many attributes: small differences become greatly magnified while
large commonalities and shared values are ignored; intermarriage between
individuals of opposing clans or tribes become taboo, and the identities of
the children of such marriages become confused; extremists on both sides put
moderates under pressure to choose sides and give up conciliatory or neutral
positions; and government interventions tend to be alternately inept and
needlessly brutal, with both sorts of reactions having the eventual effect of
energizing the opposition. In Chapter 3, I discuss several major examples of
ethnic terrorism in which there have been decades and sometimes centuries
of fighting: between Kurds and Turks in Turkey, Sunnis and Kurds in Iraq,
Sunnis and Shi’a in Iraq, Russians and Chechens in the Trans-Caucuses,
Basques and Spanish nationalists in Spain, Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda,
English Protestants and Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland, and the Tamils
and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka.
C. Critical Distinctions: Terrorism, Aggression,
Crime, and War
Terrorism is an extreme form of both crime and aggression. The social costs
and consequences of terrorism tend to be vastly greater than are customarily
associated even with serious acts of street crime and of violent aggression,
because of the scale of both the immediate harms caused by the acts and
the widespread fear produced by the acts and the consequences of that fear.
That terrorism is extreme, however, does not mean that it is fundamentally
different from those other acts: many of the sources of crime and aggression
are common to terrorism. Terrorism is in some ways more similar to war
than to crime, but it differs from war in important respects as well, despite the
use of war metaphors to garner political support for aggressive interventions
against terrorism. Box 1.2 highlights distinctions among several overlapping
concepts: aggression, crime, guerrilla action, insurgency, terrorism, and war.
Aggression is common to the other five concepts in the box, except for
crimes that do not involve force or threats of force.2 The primary distinctions
among the concepts have to do with the targets and motives of the aggression
involved. Each manifestation of aggression is similar to the others in several
ways, but is distinct in at least one way. Acts of insurgency are similar
to guerrilla acts, except that they include targets other than military or law
enforcement agents. Insurgents often use the tools of terrorism, and they may
12
The Nature of Terrorism
Box 1.2. Critical Distinctions: Terrorism, Aggression,
Crime, and War
Aggression: any act or threat of force by an individual or group against
another
Crime: the intentional violation of a criminal statute by an individual acting
either alone or with others
Guerrilla action: an act of aggression by an individual or group against a
state’s military or law enforcement authority
Insurgency: the systematic use of subversion and aggression against a con-
stituted government by an organized group of individuals opposed to the
government and acting outside of formal sovereign authority; insurgents
who succeed become heroic revolutionaries, whereas those who fail are
known as criminals
Terrorism: the premeditated and unlawful use or threatened
We have noted that the term “terrorism” was coined in the nineteenth century
to describe acts conducted by the French Republic. More than a century later,
some of the most devastating episodes of terrorism continue to be committed
by or sponsored under the authority of sovereign nations. Among the most
brutal examples are the following:
The Khmer Rouge killing of nearly two million Cambodians under the dictatorship
of Pol Pot in the late 1970s
The Baathist Army gassing of thousands of Kurds in Northern Iraq by Saddam
Hussein in 1988
The Serbian killing of several thousand Muslims in Bosnia under Slobodan Milo-
sevic in the 1990s
These three are all examples of state-sponsored acts of terrorism that were
ordered directly and monitored closely by the leaders who sanctioned them.
In other instances, the acts are carried out more along the lines of patronage
or assistance than direct control. Iranian support for Hezbollah, the Popu-
lar Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and terrorist activities in Iraq and
elsewhere throughout the Middle East and other parts of the world all exem-
plify the patronage model of state-sponsored terrorism. Cuba is also known
to have supported terrorist activities in South America and Spain, and Pak-
istan is known to have supported such activities in Kashmir. Support of a
prolonged insurgency against communists by the United States and Britain
during the Cold War also qualifies. The support can range from ideological
encouragement and indoctrination to training and assistance in insurgency,
intelligence, operational support in the form of providing false documents
and safe havens, and financial rewards to the families of suicide bombers.
9
The Nature of Terrorism
These various forms of support may have any one or a combination of several
aims:
To destabilize a state to gain greater influence in the region
To create international visibility for a persistent problem, such as that of Palestine
To retaliate against a target state in the region perceived as an enemy
To undermine the influence of a larger power operating in the region
Although acts of state-sponsored terrorism are well known – both those
involving direct initiation and control and those involving patronage and
indirect support – few sovereign nations officially acknowledge involvement
in or support of these activities. Today, terrorism is widely thought to orig-
inate with groups like al Qaeda, operating outside the official auspices of
the state. Constitutional democracies have taken particularly strong stands
against terrorist attacks on noncombatants, especially in the post-Cold War
era. Leaders of nondemocratic nations generally express opposition to ter-
rorist activities as well, especially when the targets of those activities are
people who are friends of the state or when the activities are aimed directly
against the state and its resources. Although some nations provide covert sup-
port to terrorist groups and activities, typically indirectly through intermedi-
aries to obfuscate their involvement, none officially acknowledge support of
terrorism.
Connection to Larger Networks and the Extent
of Internal Organization
Terrorist groups and individuals are, at one extreme, operatives of larger
terrorist networks, much like business franchises. Some are only loosely affil-
iated – al Qaeda is the best known of such loosely associated networks. At
the other extreme, terrorists act as independent lone-wolf operatives, such as
“Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski, Austrian letter bomber Franz Fuchs, and abor-
tion clinic and Atlanta Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph. Larger, more
connected groups can benefit by taking advantage of teamwork, division of
labor, and power in numbers, but they tend to be subject to a greater risk of
detection because their exposure is increased with each additional individual
involved. Of course, even individuals must plan their attacks if they wish to
enhance the prospects for success, but the need for planning and coordinating
activities increases as the operations become more complex and the number
of individuals needed to carry out the act or acts increases. The effectiveness
of the group can be enhanced through practice, preparation, and secrecy, as
in the cases of 9/11 and the London subway attack of 2005, but any group
is generally only as effective as the competence of its weakest member.
10
The Nature of Terrorism
Terrorism by Militant Religious Extremists
Much terrorism is conducted in the name of a religious mission. With the 9/11
attack, Islamic jihadism1 became the most prominent example of terrorism
motivated by religious extremists, but by no means the only example of
terrorist acts done in the name of religion. Millions of innocent people were
slaughtered as infidels by Christian Crusaders for some 200 years beginning
in 1099, as were countless others by militant extremist factions of all the
major religions over the years. Examples are discussed in some detail in
Chapters 2 and 4.
Ethnic Terrorism
Ethnicity is typically associated with unique combinations of genetics, cul-
ture, language, religion, and common heritage, and ethnic terrorism is ter-
rorism involving an ethnic group. It occurs typically following long-standing
ethnic or tribal rivalries and is accompanied by slogans, such as the following:
you are not one of us, you interfere with our well-being and thus threaten
us, and we must defend ourselves against you and your kind. Ethnic terror-
ism usually follows acts of persecution, with the persecutor and persecuted
often switching roles in episodes of mutual retaliation. When a government
supports one side in an ethnic dispute, the other side often engages in acts of
terrorism against the government.
Ethnic terrorism ranges from the local level of the clan or tribe to the level
of the nation and beyond, as when an ethnic group has migrated to various
points throughout the world in diaspora. At the smallest level, warring clans
and tribes generally share a common ethnic heritage within a region, yet they
often feud over territorial or property disputes, acts of disrespect, or petty
matters involving unresolved grievances. A prominent example of terrorist
acts between clans in the United States is the decades-long feud between the
Hatfields and McCoys of Eastern Kentucky. Toward the other end of the
scale, the disputes become questions of national identity, such as whether
two warring ethnic groups are better as a single nation or as separate ones.
Daniel Byman (2007) observes that ethnic terrorism is often the product
of government interventions against ethnic minorities. He identifies several
common characteristics of such interventions. When a government acts with
force to stifle the dissent of an ethnic minority against government rule, the
actions tend to polarize the opposition and induce a stronger-than-anticipated
reaction. Such acts of force often induce other countries and institutions that
are unfriendly to the government to provide support to the ethnic minority.
The government often underestimates the advantages that local insurgents
have against an invading army, the principal one being the opportunity to
outlast the invaders and wear them down through acts of insurgency, as
11
The Nature of Terrorism
the American colonialists did to the British military in the late eighteenth
century. In the end, overly aggressive government action tends to escalate
ethnic terrorism.
Every continent has its history of ethnic rivalries that simmer and then
boil over into acts of terrorism, some not involving government intervention.
Although each of these histories has its own unique elements, they tend
to share many attributes: small differences become greatly magnified while
large commonalities and shared values are ignored; intermarriage between
individuals of opposing clans or tribes become taboo, and the identities of
the children of such marriages become confused; extremists on both sides put
moderates under pressure to choose sides and give up conciliatory or neutral
positions; and government interventions tend to be alternately inept and
needlessly brutal, with both sorts of reactions having the eventual effect of
energizing the opposition. In Chapter 3, I discuss several major examples of
ethnic terrorism in which there have been decades and sometimes centuries
of fighting: between Kurds and Turks in Turkey, Sunnis and Kurds in Iraq,
Sunnis and Shi’a in Iraq, Russians and Chechens in the Trans-Caucuses,
Basques and Spanish nationalists in Spain, Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda,
English Protestants and Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland, and the Tamils
and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka.
C. Critical Distinctions: Terrorism, Aggression,
Crime, and War
Terrorism is an extreme form of both crime and aggression. The social costs
and consequences of terrorism tend to be vastly greater than are customarily
associated even with serious acts of street crime and of violent aggression,
because of the scale of both the immediate harms caused by the acts and
the widespread fear produced by the acts and the consequences of that fear.
That terrorism is extreme, however, does not mean that it is fundamentally
different from those other acts: many of the sources of crime and aggression
are common to terrorism. Terrorism is in some ways more similar to war
than to crime, but it differs from war in important respects as well, despite the
use of war metaphors to garner political support for aggressive interventions
against terrorism. Box 1.2 highlights distinctions among several overlapping
concepts: aggression, crime, guerrilla action, insurgency, terrorism, and war.
Aggression is common to the other five concepts in the box, except for
crimes that do not involve force or threats of force.2 The primary distinctions
among the concepts have to do with the targets and motives of the aggression
involved. Each manifestation of aggression is similar to the others in several
ways, but is distinct in at least one way. Acts of insurgency are similar
to guerrilla acts, except that they include targets other than military or law
enforcement agents. Insurgents often use the tools of terrorism, and they may
12
The Nature of Terrorism
Box 1.2. Critical Distinctions: Terrorism, Aggression,
Crime, and War
Aggression: any act or threat of force by an individual or group against
another
Crime: the intentional violation of a criminal statute by an individual acting
either alone or with others
Guerrilla action: an act of aggression by an individual or group against a
state’s military or law enforcement authority
Insurgency: the systematic use of subversion and aggression against a con-
stituted government by an organized group of individuals opposed to the
government and acting outside of formal sovereign authority; insurgents
who succeed become heroic revolutionaries, whereas those who fail are
known as criminals
Terrorism: the premeditated and unlawful use or threatenedTerrorism by the State
We have noted that the term “terrorism” was coined in the nineteenth century
to describe acts conducted by the French Republic. More than a century later,
some of the most devastating episodes of terrorism continue to be committed
by or sponsored under the authority of sovereign nations. Among the most
brutal examples are the following:
The Khmer Rouge killing of nearly two million Cambodians under the dictatorship
of Pol Pot in the late 1970s
The Baathist Army gassing of thousands of Kurds in Northern Iraq by Saddam
Hussein in 1988
The Serbian killing of several thousand Muslims in Bosnia under Slobodan Milo-
sevic in the 1990s
These three are all examples of state-sponsored acts of terrorism that were
ordered directly and monitored closely by the leaders who sanctioned them.
In other instances, the acts are carried out more along the lines of patronage
or assistance than direct control. Iranian support for Hezbollah, the Popu-
lar Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and terrorist activities in Iraq and
elsewhere throughout the Middle East and other parts of the world all exem-
plify the patronage model of state-sponsored terrorism. Cuba is also known
to have supported terrorist activities in South America and Spain, and Pak-
istan is known to have supported such activities in Kashmir. Support of a
prolonged insurgency against communists by the United States and Britain
during the Cold War also qualifies. The support can range from ideological
encouragement and indoctrination to training and assistance in insurgency,
intelligence, operational support in the form of providing false documents
and safe havens, and financial rewards to the families of suicide bombers.
9
The Nature of Terrorism
These various forms of support may have any one or a combination of several
aims:
To destabilize a state to gain greater influence in the region
To create international visibility for a persistent problem, such as that of Palestine
To retaliate against a target state in the region perceived as an enemy
To undermine the influence of a larger power operating in the region
Although acts of state-sponsored terrorism are well known – both those
involving direct initiation and control and those involving patronage and
indirect support – few sovereign nations officially acknowledge involvement
in or support of these activities. Today, terrorism is widely thought to orig-
inate with groups like al Qaeda, operating outside the official auspices of
the state. Constitutional democracies have taken particularly strong stands
against terrorist attacks on noncombatants, especially in the post-Cold War
era. Leaders of nondemocratic nations generally express opposition to ter-
rorist activities as well, especially when the targets of those activities are
people who are friends of the state or when the activities are aimed directly
against the state and its resources. Although some nations provide covert sup-
port to terrorist groups and activities, typically indirectly through intermedi-
aries to obfuscate their involvement, none officially acknowledge support of
terrorism.
Connection to Larger Networks and the Extent
of Internal Organization
Terrorist groups and individuals are, at one extreme, operatives of larger
terrorist networks, much like business franchises. Some are only loosely affil-
iated – al Qaeda is the best known of such loosely associated networks. At
the other extreme, terrorists act as independent lone-wolf operatives, such as
“Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski, Austrian letter bomber Franz Fuchs, and abor-
tion clinic and Atlanta Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph. Larger, more
connected groups can benefit by taking advantage of teamwork, division of
labor, and power in numbers, but they tend to be subject to a greater risk of
detection because their exposure is increased with each additional individual
involved. Of course, even individuals must plan their attacks if they wish to
enhance the prospects for success, but the need for planning and coordinating
activities increases as the operations become more complex and the number
of individuals needed to carry out the act or acts increases. The effectiveness
of the group can be enhanced through practice, preparation, and secrecy, as
in the cases of 9/11 and the London subway attack of 2005, but any group
is generally only as effective as the competence of its weakest member.
10
The Nature of Terrorism
Terrorism by Militant Religious Extremists
Much terrorism is conducted in the name of a religious mission. With the 9/11
attack, Islamic jihadism1 became the most prominent example of terrorism
motivated by religious extremists, but by no means the only example of
terrorist acts done in the name of religion. Millions of innocent people were
slaughtered as infidels by Christian Crusaders for some 200 years beginning
in 1099, as were countless others by militant extremist factions of all the
major religions over the years. Examples are discussed in some detail in
Chapters 2 and 4.
Ethnic Terrorism
Ethnicity is typically associated with unique combinations of genetics, cul-
ture, language, religion, and common heritage, and ethnic terrorism is ter-
rorism involving an ethnic group. It occurs typically following long-standing
ethnic or tribal rivalries and is accompanied by slogans, such as the following:
you are not one of us, you interfere with our well-being and thus threaten
us, and we must defend ourselves against you and your kind. Ethnic terror-
ism usually follows acts of persecution, with the persecutor and persecuted
often switching roles in episodes of mutual retaliation. When a government
supports one side in an ethnic dispute, the other side often engages in acts of
terrorism against the government.
Ethnic terrorism ranges from the local level of the clan or tribe to the level
of the nation and beyond, as when an ethnic group has migrated to various
points throughout the world in diaspora. At the smallest level, warring clans
and tribes generally share a common ethnic heritage within a region, yet they
often feud over territorial or property disputes, acts of disrespect, or petty
matters involving unresolved grievances. A prominent example of terrorist
acts between clans in the United States is the decades-long feud between the
Hatfields and McCoys of Eastern Kentucky. Toward the other end of the
scale, the disputes become questions of national identity, such as whether
two warring ethnic groups are better as a single nation or as separate ones.
Daniel Byman (2007) observes that ethnic terrorism is often the product
of government interventions against ethnic minorities. He identifies several
common characteristics of such interventions. When a government acts with
force to stifle the dissent of an ethnic minority against government rule, the
actions tend to polarize the opposition and induce a stronger-than-anticipated
reaction. Such acts of force often induce other countries and institutions that
are unfriendly to the government to provide support to the ethnic minority.
The government often underestimates the advantages that local insurgents
have against an invading army, the principal one being the opportunity to
outlast the invaders and wear them down through acts of insurgency, as
11
The Nature of Terrorism
the American colonialists did to the British military in the late eighteenth
century. In the end, overly aggressive government action tends to escalate
ethnic terrorism.
Every continent has its history of ethnic rivalries that simmer and then
boil over into acts of terrorism, some not involving government intervention.
Although each of these histories has its own unique elements, they tend
to share many attributes: small differences become greatly magnified while
large commonalities and shared values are ignored; intermarriage between
individuals of opposing clans or tribes become taboo, and the identities of
the children of such marriages become confused; extremists on both sides put
moderates under pressure to choose sides and give up conciliatory or neutral
positions; and government interventions tend to be alternately inept and
needlessly brutal, with both sorts of reactions having the eventual effect of
energizing the opposition. In Chapter 3, I discuss several major examples of
ethnic terrorism in which there have been decades and sometimes centuries
of fighting: between Kurds and Turks in Turkey, Sunnis and Kurds in Iraq,
Sunnis and Shi’a in Iraq, Russians and Chechens in the Trans-Caucuses,
Basques and Spanish nationalists in Spain, Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda,
English Protestants and Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland, and the Tamils
and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka.
C. Critical Distinctions: Terrorism, Aggression,
Crime, and War
Terrorism is an extreme form of both crime and aggression. The social costs
and consequences of terrorism tend to be vastly greater than are customarily
associated even with serious acts of street crime and of violent aggression,
because of the scale of both the immediate harms caused by the acts and
the widespread fear produced by the acts and the consequences of that fear.
That terrorism is extreme, however, does not mean that it is fundamentally
different from those other acts: many of the sources of crime and aggression
are common to terrorism. Terrorism is in some ways more similar to war
than to crime, but it differs from war in important respects as well, despite the
use of war metaphors to garner political support for aggressive interventions
against terrorism. Box 1.2 highlights distinctions among several overlapping
concepts: aggression, crime, guerrilla action, insurgency, terrorism, and war.
Aggression is common to the other five concepts in the box, except for
crimes that do not involve force or threats of force.2 The primary distinctions
among the concepts have to do with the targets and motives of the aggression
involved. Each manifestation of aggression is similar to the others in several
ways, but is distinct in at least one way. Acts of insurgency are similar
to guerrilla acts, except that they include targets other than military or law
enforcement agents. Insurgents often use the tools of terrorism, and they may
12
The Nature of Terrorism
Box 1.2. Critical Distinctions: Terrorism, Aggression,
Crime, and War
Aggression: any act or threat of force by an individual or group against
another
Crime: the intentional violation of a criminal statute by an individual acting
either alone or with others
Guerrilla action: an act of aggression by an individual or group against a
state’s military or law enforcement authority
Insurgency: the systematic use of subversion and aggression against a con-
stituted government by an organized group of individuals opposed to the
government and acting outside of formal sovereign authority; insurgents
who succeed become heroic revolutionaries, whereas those who fail are
known as criminals
Terrorism: the premeditated and unlawful use or threatenedTerrorism by the State
We have noted that the term “terrorism” was coined in the nineteenth century
to describe acts conducted by the French Republic. More than a century later,
some of the most devastating episodes of terrorism continue to be committed
by or sponsored under the authority of sovereign nations. Among the most
brutal examples are the following:
The Khmer Rouge killing of nearly two million Cambodians under the dictatorship
of Pol Pot in the late 1970s
The Baathist Army gassing of thousands of Kurds in Northern Iraq by Saddam
Hussein in 1988
The Serbian killing of several thousand Muslims in Bosnia under Slobodan Milo-
sevic in the 1990s
These three are all examples of state-sponsored acts of terrorism that were
ordered directly and monitored closely by the leaders who sanctioned them.
In other instances, the acts are carried out more along the lines of patronage
or assistance than direct control. Iranian support for Hezbollah, the Popu-
lar Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and terrorist activities in Iraq and
elsewhere throughout the Middle East and other parts of the world all exem-
plify the patronage model of state-sponsored terrorism. Cuba is also known
to have supported terrorist activities in South America and Spain, and Pak-
istan is known to have supported such activities in Kashmir. Support of a
prolonged insurgency against communists by the United States and Britain
during the Cold War also qualifies. The support can range from ideological
encouragement and indoctrination to training and assistance in insurgency,
intelligence, operational support in the form of providing false documents
and safe havens, and financial rewards to the families of suicide bombers.
9
The Nature of Terrorism
These various forms of support may have any one or a combination of several
aims:
To destabilize a state to gain greater influence in the region
To create international visibility for a persistent problem, such as that of Palestine
To retaliate against a target state in the region perceived as an enemy
To undermine the influence of a larger power operating in the region
Although acts of state-sponsored terrorism are well known – both those
involving direct initiation and control and those involving patronage and
indirect support – few sovereign nations officially acknowledge involvement
in or support of these activities. Today, terrorism is widely thought to orig-
inate with groups like al Qaeda, operating outside the official auspices of
the state. Constitutional democracies have taken particularly strong stands
against terrorist attacks on noncombatants, especially in the post-Cold War
era. Leaders of nondemocratic nations generally express opposition to ter-
rorist activities as well, especially when the targets of those activities are
people who are friends of the state or when the activities are aimed directly
against the state and its resources. Although some nations provide covert sup-
port to terrorist groups and activities, typically indirectly through intermedi-
aries to obfuscate their involvement, none officially acknowledge support of
terrorism.
Connection to Larger Networks and the Extent
of Internal Organization
Terrorist groups and individuals are, at one extreme, operatives of larger
terrorist networks, much like business franchises. Some are only loosely affil-
iated – al Qaeda is the best known of such loosely associated networks. At
the other extreme, terrorists act as independent lone-wolf operatives, such as
“Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski, Austrian letter bomber Franz Fuchs, and abor-
tion clinic and Atlanta Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph. Larger, more
connected groups can benefit by taking advantage of teamwork, division of
labor, and power in numbers, but they tend to be subject to a greater risk of
detection because their exposure is increased with each additional individual
involved. Of course, even individuals must plan their attacks if they wish to
enhance the prospects for success, but the need for planning and coordinating
activities increases as the operations become more complex and the number
of individuals needed to carry out the act or acts increases. The effectiveness
of the group can be enhanced through practice, preparation, and secrecy, as
in the cases of 9/11 and the London subway attack of 2005, but any group
is generally only as effective as the competence of its weakest member.
10
The Nature of Terrorism
Terrorism by Militant Religious Extremists
Much terrorism is conducted in the name of a religious mission. With the 9/11
attack, Islamic jihadism1 became the most prominent example of terrorism
motivated by religious extremists, but by no means the only example of
terrorist acts done in the name of religion. Millions of innocent people were
slaughtered as infidels by Christian Crusaders for some 200 years beginning
in 1099, as were countless others by militant extremist factions of all the
major religions over the years. Examples are discussed in some detail in
Chapters 2 and 4.
Ethnic Terrorism
Ethnicity is typically associated with unique combinations of genetics, cul-
ture, language, religion, and common heritage, and ethnic terrorism is ter-
rorism involving an ethnic group. It occurs typically following long-standing
ethnic or tribal rivalries and is accompanied by slogans, such as the following:
you are not one of us, you interfere with our well-being and thus threaten
us, and we must defend ourselves against you and your kind. Ethnic terror-
ism usually follows acts of persecution, with the persecutor and persecuted
often switching roles in episodes of mutual retaliation. When a government
supports one side in an ethnic dispute, the other side often engages in acts of
terrorism against the government.
Ethnic terrorism ranges from the local level of the clan or tribe to the level
of the nation and beyond, as when an ethnic group has migrated to various
points throughout the world in diaspora. At the smallest level, warring clans
and tribes generally share a common ethnic heritage within a region, yet they
often feud over territorial or property disputes, acts of disrespect, or petty
matters involving unresolved grievances. A prominent example of terrorist
acts between clans in the United States is the decades-long feud between the
Hatfields and McCoys of Eastern Kentucky. Toward the other end of the
scale, the disputes become questions of national identity, such as whether
two warring ethnic groups are better as a single nation or as separate ones.
Daniel Byman (2007) observes that ethnic terrorism is often the product
of government interventions against ethnic minorities. He identifies several
common characteristics of such interventions. When a government acts with
force to stifle the dissent of an ethnic minority against government rule, the
actions tend to polarize the opposition and induce a stronger-than-anticipated
reaction. Such acts of force often induce other countries and institutions that
are unfriendly to the government to provide support to the ethnic minority.
The government often underestimates the advantages that local insurgents
have against an invading army, the principal one being the opportunity to
outlast the invaders and wear them down through acts of insurgency, as
11
The Nature of Terrorism
the American colonialists did to the British military in the late eighteenth
century. In the end, overly aggressive government action tends to escalate
ethnic terrorism.
Every continent has its history of ethnic rivalries that simmer and then
boil over into acts of terrorism, some not involving government intervention.
Although each of these histories has its own unique elements, they tend
to share many attributes: small differences become greatly magnified while
large commonalities and shared values are ignored; intermarriage between
individuals of opposing clans or tribes become taboo, and the identities of
the children of such marriages become confused; extremists on both sides put
moderates under pressure to choose sides and give up conciliatory or neutral
positions; and government interventions tend to be alternately inept and
needlessly brutal, with both sorts of reactions having the eventual effect of
energizing the opposition. In Chapter 3, I discuss several major examples of
ethnic terrorism in which there have been decades and sometimes centuries
of fighting: between Kurds and Turks in Turkey, Sunnis and Kurds in Iraq,
Sunnis and Shi’a in Iraq, Russians and Chechens in the Trans-Caucuses,
Basques and Spanish nationalists in Spain, Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda,
English Protestants and Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland, and the Tamils
and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka.
C. Critical Distinctions: Terrorism, Aggression,
Crime, and War
Terrorism is an extreme form of both crime and aggression. The social costs
and consequences of terrorism tend to be vastly greater than are customarily
associated even with serious acts of street crime and of violent aggression,
because of the scale of both the immediate harms caused by the acts and
the widespread fear produced by the acts and the consequences of that fear.
That terrorism is extreme, however, does not mean that it is fundamentally
different from those other acts: many of the sources of crime and aggression
are common to terrorism. Terrorism is in some ways more similar to war
than to crime, but it differs from war in important respects as well, despite the
use of war metaphors to garner political support for aggressive interventions
against terrorism. Box 1.2 highlights distinctions among several overlapping
concepts: aggression, crime, guerrilla action, insurgency, terrorism, and war.
Aggression is common to the other five concepts in the box, except for
crimes that do not involve force or threats of force.2 The primary distinctions
among the concepts have to do with the targets and motives of the aggression
involved. Each manifestation of aggression is similar to the others in several
ways, but is distinct in at least one way. Acts of insurgency are similar
to guerrilla acts, except that they include targets other than military or law
enforcement agents. Insurgents often use the tools of terrorism, and they may
12
The Nature of Terrorism
Box 1.2. Critical Distinctions: Terrorism, Aggression,
Crime, and War
Aggression: any act or threat of force by an individual or group against
another
Crime: the intentional violation of a criminal statute by an individual acting
either alone or with others
Guerrilla action: an act of aggression by an individual or group against a
state’s military or law enforcement authority
Insurgency: the systematic use of subversion and aggression against a con-
stituted government by an organized group of individuals opposed to the
government and acting outside of formal sovereign authority; insurgents
who succeed become heroic revolutionaries, whereas those who fail are
known as criminals
Terrorism: the premeditated and unlawful use or threatened
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