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Terrorism Essay for Students and Teacher

500+ words essay on terrorism essay.

Terrorism is an act, which aims to create fear among ordinary people by illegal means. It is a threat to humanity. It includes person or group spreading violence, riots, burglaries, rapes, kidnappings, fighting, bombings, etc. Terrorism is an act of cowardice. Also, terrorism has nothing to do with religion. A terrorist is only a terrorist, not a Hindu or a Muslim.

Types of Terrorism

Terrorism is of two kinds, one is political terrorism which creates panic on a large scale and another one is criminal terrorism which deals in kidnapping to take ransom money. Political terrorism is much more crucial than criminal terrorism because it is done by well-trained persons. It thus becomes difficult for law enforcing agencies to arrest them in time.

Terrorism spread at the national level as well as at international level.  Regional terrorism is the most violent among all. Because the terrorists think that dying as a terrorist is sacred and holy, and thus they are willing to do anything. All these terrorist groups are made with different purposes.

Causes of Terrorism

There are some main causes of terrorism development  or production of large quantities of machine guns, atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs, nuclear weapons, missiles, etc. rapid population growth,  Politics, Social, Economic  problems, dissatisfaction of people with the country’s system, lack of education, corruption, racism, economic inequality, linguistic differences, all these are the major  elements of terrorism, and terrorism flourishes after them. People use terrorism as a weapon to prove and justify their point of view.  The riots among Hindus and Muslims are the most famous but there is a difference between caste and terrorism.

The Effects Of Terrorism

Terrorism spreads fear in people, people living in the country feel insecure because of terrorism. Due to terrorist attacks, millions of goods are destroyed, the lives of thousands of innocent people are lost, animals are also killed. Disbelief in humanity raises after seeing a terrorist activity, this gives birth to another terrorist. There exist different types of terrorism in different parts of the country and abroad.

Today, terrorism is not only the problem of India, but in our neighboring country also, and governments across the world are making a lot of effort to deal with it. Attack on world trade center on September 11, 2001, is considered the largest terrorist attack in the world. Osama bin Laden attacked the tallest building in the world’s most powerful country, causing millions of casualties and death of thousands of people.

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Terrorist Attacks in India

India has suffered several terrorist attacks which created fear among the public and caused huge destruction. Here are some of the major terrorist attacks that hit India in the last few years: 1991 – Punjab Killings, 1993 – Bombay Bomb Blasts, RSS Bombing in Chennai, 2000 – Church Bombing, Red Fort Terrorist Attack,2001- Indian Parliament Attack, 2002 – Mumbai Bus Bombing, Attack on Akshardham Temple, 2003 – Mumbai Bombing, 2004 – Dhemaji School Bombing in Assam,2005 – Delhi Bombings, Indian Institute of Science Shooting, 2006 – Varanasi Bombings, Mumbai Train Bombings, Malegaon Bombings, 2007 – Samjhauta Express Bombings, Mecca Masjid Bombing, Hyderabad Bombing, Ajmer Dargah Bombing, 2008 – Jaipur Bombings, Bangalore Serial Blasts, Ahmedabad Bombings, Delhi Bombings, Mumbai Attacks, 2010 – Pune Bombing, Varanasi Bombing.

The recent ones include 2011 – Mumbai Bombing, Delhi Bombing, 2012 – Pune Bombing, 2013 – Hyderabad Blasts, Srinagar Attack, Bodh Gaya Bombings, Patna Bombings, 2014 – Chhattisgarh Attack, Jharkhand Blast, Chennai Train Bombing, Assam Violence, Church Street Bomb Blast, Bangalore, 2015 –  Jammu Attack, Gurdaspur Attack, Pathankot Attack, 2016 – Uri Attack, Baramulla Attack, 2017 – Bhopal Ujjain Passenger Train Bombing, Amarnath Yatra Attack, 2018 Sukma Attack, 2019- Pulwama attack.

Agencies fighting Terrorism in India

Many police, intelligence and military organizations in India have formed special agencies to fight terrorism in the country. Major agencies which fight against terrorism in India are Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), National Investigation Agency (NIA).

Terrorism has become a global threat which needs to be controlled from the initial level. Terrorism cannot be controlled by the law enforcing agencies alone. The people in the world will also have to unite in order to face this growing threat of terrorism.

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• Terrorism Essay

Essay on Terrorism

Terrorism is a blunder committed by the terrible individuals around us. To demonstrate their strength, a group of people attempts to govern a specific arena. Terrorism has a negative impact on both society and personal life. As a result of their acts, a large number of families are destroyed. Regrettably, the number of crimes in India is increasing on a daily basis. Ancient India was ruled by a monarchy, and the ruling was a source of pride for the king. However, India later accepted democracy, and everyone is treated equally under the Indian constitution. Even so, some cowards try to keep their power over the impoverished and weak.

Terrorism represents the foolish act done by the cruel people around us. The bunch of groups tries to rule the certain arena to show their power. Terrorism had a adverse effect on the society as well as a personal life. Their number of families gets destroyed due to their actions. In India, it's sad to say, but the number of crimes is increasing day by day. Ancient India was in Monarchy where ruling was a pride to the king, but later on India accepted democracy and everyone is treated the same under the Indian constituent. Still some cowards try to maintain their dominance over poor and helpless people.

Who could forget the date 26th November, better known as 26/11! Where 10 terrorists entered the country and attacked the economic city in India. Bringing grenades, pistols, automated rifles and other destructive weapons they almost destroyed the city and shocked the Indians in the midnight. The people are helpless, weaponless and in their own world of enjoyment at the railway station, hotels and in the drives on the roads, and suddenly a danger happens in their lives, which they did not expect. 

Osama Bin Laden was the greatest terrorist in the world! People are still afraid of hearing his name. He had destroyed a building named ‘world-trade center’ with the help of an airplane. It has also been stated in the reports that frequently Osama had been amorphous with him. Even the police themselves got confused and captured the wrong one. After his death there was lots of time still required to recognize the originality of him.

Lying in court is an offense. Frequently the needy and poor people lie in court for the sake of a certain amount of money. But, this money would be a help to criminals outside the world. Even, we purchased CDs and DVDs at an economic rate. To save a certain amount of money, we help piracy. These pirates invest this money in the armonony and indirectly we are sponsoring a bullet in every war which would be used against us only. 

The origin of terrorism starts with a little things. The first pen stolen from a friend could even lead to mortal works. Everything has a start and if left unmanaged, they can leave the astray and lose the right path. In the school, if the adverse effects of being bad are explained properly with illustrations to some real life examples, the students may get aware about all the facts and take an initiative to stop the spread of crime. Instead of making criminals with heroic roles in the television serials, the more heroic movie super cops are to be made. Instead of writing biographies of terrorism supporters, write articles about terrorism demonization. The start of this cleaning starts from home, if you have a child, teach them the ways to be a great person in good habits rather than supporting him when he starts stealing something. Terrorism has an end, if we are united the terrorism can be thrown is out of the windows! 

Various Forms Of Terrorism

Political terrorism, which raises mass concern, and criminal terrorism, which involves abduction for ransom money, are the two sorts of terrorism. Political terrorism is significantly more essential than criminal terrorism since it is carried out by well-trained personnel. As a result, apprehending them in a timely way becomes increasingly challenging for law enforcement agencies.

Terrorism has spread across the country and around the world. Regional terrorism is the most dangerous type of terrorism. Terrorists feel that dying as a terrorist is a priceless and sacred experience, and they will go to any extent to attain it. Each of these terrorist groups was founded for a different motive.

Who can forget November 26th, often known as "26/11"? Ten terrorists infiltrated the country and assaulted India's economic centre. They nearly devastated the city and astonished the Indians by bringing explosives, pistols, automatic rifles, and other lethal weapons. People are defenceless, without weapons, and engrossed in their own realms of pleasure at the railway station, motels, and on the highways when an unanticipated menace enters their life.

The Origins of Terrorism

The invention or manufacture of vast quantities of machine guns, atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs, nuclear weapons, missiles, and other weapons fuels terrorism. Rapid population expansion, political, social, and economic issues, public dissatisfaction with the country's system, a lack of education, corruption, racism, economic disparities, and language disparities are all key factors in the development of terrorism. Terrorism is sometimes used to establish and maintain one's stance. Despite the contrast between caste and terrorism, the most well-known riots have taken place between Hindus and Muslims.

Consequences of Terrorism

Individuals are filled with fear as a result of terrorism, and people of the country feel vulnerable as a result. Millions of goods have been destroyed, thousands of people have died, and animals have been slaughtered as a result of terrorist assaults. People lose trust in humanity after seeing a terrorist attack, which fosters more terrorists. Terrorism comes in many forms and manifests itself in different parts of the country and outside.

Terrorism is becoming a problem not just in India, but also in our neighbouring countries, and governments throughout the world are battling it. The World Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001, is considered the world's worst terrorist strike. Osama bin Laden launched an attack on the world's tallest tower, resulting in millions of injuries and thousands of deaths.

FAQs on Terrorism Essay

1. Who was Osama bin Laden?

Osama Bin Laden was the world's greatest terrorist! Hearing his name still makes people fearful. With the help of an aeroplane, he had destroyed the 'world-trade centre.' According to the rumours, Osama had been amorphous with him on several occasions. Even the cops got mixed up and arrested the wrong person. There was still a lot of time required after his death to acknowledge his uniqueness.

2. Identify the countries that are the most impacted by terrorism.

Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Syria were the countries most hit in 2014, with the highest number of terrorist incidents. This year has been dubbed "Terrorism Year." Furthermore, it has been reported that these five countries were the primary targets of 78 per cent of all attacks last year. Apart from them, there are 39 countries that endured the most attacks, and their index rating is based on the severity and frequency of attacks they experienced.

3. What is the true cause of terrorism?

Terrorism is defined as the use of violence for a specific purpose. This motivation could stem from a sense of social and political injustice, or just a belief that violence can bring about change. The main cause of terrorism is usually perceived unfairness or rage against specific societal conditions. Many people join terrorist groups out of desperation or to exact personal vengeance on powerful authorities. Terrorism is also a result of strong feelings of injustice. Millions of young people aspire to make a difference by utilising violence as a tool for social upheaval. As a result, in order to combat these extremists, we must provide them with alternatives to violence that can be useful to them.

4. What is the best way to combat terrorism?

The reduction of terrorism threats and the safeguarding of the state, its interests, and citizens against all types of terrorist activity are two of the State Security Service's top priorities in the battle against terrorism. It is critical to detect and suppress operations carried out by international terrorist groups and anyone linked to them. It is necessary to conduct an active search for persons linked to terrorist organisations. Enhancing the capacity of readiness and reaction to terrorist threats should receive special focus.

5. Give an overview of the history of terrorism.

The term "terrorist" was coined by François-Nol Babeuf, a French philosopher, in 1794. As a result of his denunciation of Robespierre's regime as a dictatorship, the Brunswick Manifesto threatened Paris with military punishment and complete devastation. This threat, however, only fueled the Revolution's determination to overthrow the monarchy. Tyranny, according to ancient philosophers, was the greatest political threat to Greco-Roman civilization prior to the French Revolution. Philosophers in the Middle Ages were also preoccupied with the concept of tyranny.

6. Explain the historical background of terrorism.

The word "terrorist" was first used in 1794 by François-Noël Babeuf who was a French philosopher. He denounced Robespierre's regime as a dictatorship therefore Brunswick Manifesto threatened Paris that the city would be subjected to military punishment and total destruction. But this threat only increased the Revolution's will to abolish the monarchy.

Prior to the French Revolution, ancient philosophers wrote tyranny as the greatest political threat to Greco-Roman civilization. Medieval philosophers were similarly occupied with the concept of tyranny.

7. How to fight against terrorism?

One of the main priorities of the State Security Service in fighting against terrorism is the reduction of the risks of terrorism and the protection of the state, its interests and citizens against all forms of terrorist activities. The detection and suppression of activities carried out by international terrorist organizations and persons related to them is important. Active search of individuals connected with terrorist organizations needs to be conducted. Considerable attention should be paid in enhancing the capabilities of readiness and responses to terrorist threats.

8. What is the real reason behind terrorism?

Terrorism is the use of violence for a certain cause. This cause may be due to the perceived social and political injustice or simply a belief that violence can lead  to change.

Usually perceived injustice or anger against a certain social conditions is the main cause  that foster terrorism. Many people join terrorist groups because of poverty or to take their personal revenge from the powerful authority. Strong feelings of injustice also results in terrorism. There are millions of young people who want to create change by using fight as the tools for social upheaval. So, in order to counter these extremists we need to give them alternatives to violence which can prove beneficial for them.

9. Name the countries which are most affected by terrorism.

Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Pakistan and Syria are the most affected countries which suffered the largest number of terrorist attacks in 2014. This year is called the year of terrorism.

Also it has been recorded that these five countries were the major victims of 78% of all attacks that happened last year. Apart from these countries there are 39 countries which saw the greatest number of attacks, and their index ranking is calculated against severity and frequency of attacks they experienced.

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• School Education /

Essay on Terrorism in 500+ Words in English for School Students

• Updated on  
• Mar 29, 2024

Essay on Terrorism: The horrific events of 9/11 at the World Trade Centre and the terrorist strikes on the Taj Hotel in Mumbai on June 26, 2011, come to mind when we discuss terrorism. Terrorism is an act of violence to achieve political or ideological gains. Terrorism is a threat to life. Killing innocent people in the name of religion or politics shows that it’s an act of a coward. The motive for terror activities is to create fear inside people. Terrorist activities include different types of violent activities, communal fighting, riots, kidnappings, rapes, robbery, assault, and the list is endless. Barrack Obama once said ‘No religion is responsible for terrorism. People are responsible for Terrorism and Violence.’

Table of Contents

• 1.1 Types of Terrorism
• 2 Consequences of Terrorism
• 3 How to Fight Terrorism?
• 4 Top 10 Quotes On Terrorism

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Factors That Contribute to Terrorism

Terrorism is not born overnight. Several factors are responsible for giving birth to terrorism. Political grievances and religious extremism are the two main factors causing terrorism. 

It happens quite often when a certain group or individuals feel marginalized, oppressed, or disenfranchised by their government or ruling authority. In situations like these, they try to resort to terrorism as a means of expressing their grievances and seeking change. Corrupt government, authoritarianism, lack of political representation, human rights abuses, and discrimination, are the major factors causing political grievances.

Religious extremists are also responsible for terrorism. These people brainwash younger people against other communities and wage religious war against them. Extremist ideologies distort religious teachings to promote hatred, intolerance, and the justification of violence against perceived enemies.

Apart from these two factors, socioeconomic situations and geopolitical rivalries can also provoke people against others; resulting in terrorist activities. Poors and the unemployed are the most vulnerable as terrorist or extremist organisations try to offer them financial incentives or a sense of purpose. 

Types of Terrorism

Terrorism is not just about holding an assault rifle and shooting at innocent people. Terrorism is of two types: Political Terrorism and Criminal Terrorism . Both these harm the credible image of a country or a region and affect in a nation’s daily political and economic activities.

Consequences of Terrorism

The consequences of terrorism are worse than a 7.7 magnitude earthquake or any other natural disaster. This man-made disaster not only kills innocent but creates fear, which is everlasting. 

Terrorist activities hamper the economic and political development of a country. In a state where terrorism exists, people are always in fear of death or any mishap. Thanks to terrorism countries like Pakistan, Syria, Afghanistan, etc. are not able to develop.

The consequences of terrorism are loss of life, physical injuries, psychological trauma, economic damage and social disruption. It can also lead to increased security measures, erosion of civil liberties, and heightened ethnic or religious tensions.

How to Fight Terrorism?

Anti-terrorism is a fight between justice and evil, civilisation and savagery. To fight terrorism, we need international cooperation and a multi-faceted approach. Addressing the root cause of terrorism can be the first step in fighting terrorism. When we understand the cause of a problem, we can come up with better and more comprehensive solutions.

Strengthening law enforcement capabilities can help in the prevention and investigation of terrorist activities. It can also improve intelligence gathering and analysis to disrupt terrorist networks. 

India, for a long, has been accusing some countries of state-sponsored terrorism. But, it was only after 9/11 that India received global cooperation. Today, global powers are determined to eradicate terrorism from its root. 

Building trust and cooperation between communities is very important. It can help law enforcement agencies to prevent radicalization and promote early intervention.

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Top 10 Quotes On Terrorism

Here are 10 quotes on terrorism. 

‘Terrorism has no nationality or religion.’ – Vladimir Putin

‘Terrorism is the tactic of demanding the impossible, and demanding it at gunpoint.’ – Christopher Hitchens

‘The only way to deal with terrorism is to understand why it happens.’ – Arundhati Roy

‘Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich.’ – Peter Ustinov

‘Terrorism is the price of empire. If you do not wish to pay the price, you must give up the empire.’ – Pat Buchanan

‘One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.’ – Gerald Seymour

‘Terrorism is a psychological warfare. Terrorists try to manipulate us and change our behaviour by creating fear, uncertainty, and division in society.’ – Patrick J. Kennedy

‘The greatest threat to our way of life isn’t terrorism, it’s the response to terrorism.’ – Simon Jenkins

‘The object of terrorism is terrorism. The object of oppression is oppression. The object of torture is torture. The object of murder is murder. The object of power is power.’ – George Orwell

‘Terrorism is the war of today, and war is the terrorism of yesterday.’ – Howard Zinn

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Ans: Terrorism is an act of violence to achieve political or ideological gains. Terrorism is a threat to life. Killing innocent people in the name of religion or politics shows that it’s an act of a coward, a monster. The motive for terror activities is to create fear inside people. Terrorist activities include different types of violent activities, communal fighting, riots, kidnappings, rapes, robbery, assault, and the list is endless.

Ans: Political Grievances, religious extremism, ethnic or nationalist conflicts, socioeconomic factors and geopolitical relations are the primary causes of terrorism.

Ans: ‘No religion is responsible for terrorism. People are responsible for Terrorism and Violence.’ – Barrack Obama (Former US President)

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Terrorism High School Questions

Help students understand domestic and international terrorism through these essay and discussion questions.

Introduction

• What makes terrorism different from other forms of violence?  
• Why is cutting off funding for terrorism so important? Why is it so difficult?  
• What factors contribute to radicalization and violent extremism in the United States and other parts of the world?  
• How are domestic terrorism and international terrorism defined differently in U.S. law?  
• Has the threat from terrorism increased, decreased, or remained steady? Why do you say so? 
• How is media coverage part of terrorists’ strategy? Should the media cover terrorists as much as they do—or, indeed, at all? Why or why not?
• To what extent is terrorism an effective means for groups or individuals to achieve political objectives, and why?  
• Do you agree that counterterrorism policies that infringe on civil liberties are necessary and justifiable? Why or why not?  
• Evaluate the definitions of terrorism put forward by various departments of the U.S. government. Is there one that you think is better than the others? Why or why not? 

Confronting Terror

• What is the difference between counterterrorism tactics and counterterrorism strategy?  
• How successful has the United States been at combating terrorism since 9/11?  

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Article contents

Terrorism as a global wave phenomenon: an overview.

• David C. Rapoport David C. Rapoport Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.299
• Published online: 26 September 2017

Global terror began in the 1880s, but it took a century before a few scholars began to understand its peculiar dynamic. One reason for the difficulty was that many scholars and government officials had “historical amnesia.” When they saw it disappear, they assumed it had become part of history and no longer had contemporary relevance. But global terror disappears and then reappears. Another reason they failed to understand the pattern is that the concept of generation was rarely used to describe politics, a concept that requires one to recognize the importance of life cycles. Modern global terror comes in the form of waves precipitated by major political events that have important global significance. A wave consists of a variety of groups with similar tactics and purposes that alter the domestic and international scenes. Four very different waves have materialized: the Anarchist, the Anti-Colonial, the New Left, and the Religious. The first three have been completed and lasted around 40 years; the fourth is now in its third decade, and if it follows the rhythm of its predecessors, it should be over in the mid-2020s, but a fifth wave may emerge thereafter.

• historical amnesia
• empirical international relations theory
• Paris commune
• global organizations
• over-reactions
• First Wave Anarchist
• Second Wave Anticolonial
• Third Wave New Left
• Fourth Wave Religious

Introduction

Terrorism is violence for political purposes that goes beyond the legal rules established to regulate violence. Consequently, governments have difficulty treating captured terrorists as prisoners of war or criminals, a problem that affects different governments in various ways. 1 Terrorism confined to particular states has been an intermittent feature of history for a very long time. At times, terror took an international dimension that included only two states. Irish immigrants in the United States, for example, created the Fenians who, after the American Civil War, struck Canadian targets hoping to create a war between the United States and the United Kingdom, which would enable efforts in Ireland to create an independent state. When that failed, the American Fenians bombed targets in England with the same purpose and futile end (Steward & McGowan, 2013 ). Only Irish groups participated. The global international form of terrorism developed later. It involves efforts to change the entire world or transform regions involving more than two states. These activities generate cooperation between foreign terrorists and populations in a variety of states.

Although global terror began in the 1880s, a century elapsed before a few scholars began to understand its peculiar dynamic. One reason for the difficulty was that many scholars and government officials had “historical amnesia.” When they saw terrorism begin to disappear, they assumed it had become part of history and no longer had contemporary relevance. But global terror disappears and then reappears. Another reason they failed to understand the pattern is that the concept of generation was rarely used to describe politics, a concept that requires one to recognize the importance of life cycles. Global terror comes in the form of waves that are precipitated by major political events that have important global significance. A wave consists of a variety of groups with similar tactics and purposes that alter the domestic and international scenes. Four very different waves have materialized: the Anarchist, Anti colonial, New Left, and Religious. The first three have been completed and lasted around 40 years; the fourth is now in its third decade. If it follows the rhythm of its predecessors it should be over in the mid-2020s, and a fifth wave may emerge thereafter.

Historical Amnesia

It took considerable time to understand that global terrorism appeared first in the 1880s and has remained since (Rapoport & Alexander, 1989 ). One reason for the problem was that global terrorism has a special rhythm that makes it seem to disappear often. Note how the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences treated the subject. In the first edition ( 1930 ), J.B.S. Hardman’s interesting terrorism article argued that “revolutionary terrorism” began in the 1880s and reached its high point two decades later. No group ever attained success, and terrorism would soon disappear completely because modern technology made the world so complex that only classes and masses mattered! The second edition ( 1966 ) had no terrorism article. Did the Hardman article persuade the new editors one was not needed even though some successful campaigns materialized after World War II in overseas European empires, or did the editors believe that because those empires had disappeared, terrorism did, too?

Other differences between the two editions suggest that another matter may have shaped the decision. The first edition contained interesting pieces on violence, assassination, and praetorianism that were eliminated in the second edition. 2 The election and succession articles in the first edition emphasized that the processes often produced violence. But the second edition’s election article ignores the fact elections sometimes breed violence (Rapoport & Weinberg, 2001 ). There was no article on succession, perhaps because one could not be written without emphasizing that in some systems violence frequently determines who the successor will be. Why did the “best social scientists” in successive generations understand violence so differently?

For the long span from about 1938 to the mid-1960s . . . the internal life of the country was unusually free of violent episodes. The 1930s generation found it easy to forget how violent “their forebears had been and so it is not simply that historians have found a way of shrugging off the unhappy memories of our past; our amnesia is also a response to the experience of a whole generation.” (Hofstadter, 1970 , pp. 3–4)

The National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence established after the 1968 assassinations of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and Senator Robert Kennedy also emphasized the idea that the United States suffered from “historical amnesia.”

Ironically, while the first edition of the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences stated that terrorism had disappeared, when the second edition was published, terrorist activity had become an important element in the Cold War, dominating the international scene, an upsurge that ended in the 1990s after the Soviet Union’s dramatic, unexpected collapse. Historical amnesia then reappeared; this time it was reflected in the U.S. government’s belief that global terrorism no longer existed. The government never seemed to understand that it had been very significant decades before the Soviet Union was even established. Just as Hardman ignored the fact that a new kind of terrorism emerged after World War I, the U.S. government seemed oblivious to the conspicuous fact that various religions in the 1980s produced terrorist groups without Soviet aid that were still functioning. Believing that “terrorism was over, the State Department abolished my office,” wrote Scott Stewart, a Security Service Special Agent (Stewart, 2012 , p. 2). Government subsidies for the Rand Corporation’s useful terrorism research program evaporated and the program disappeared. In 1999 , the Crowe Commission Report Confronting Terrorist Threats examined attacks on U.S. embassies and blamed the government for greatly reducing its intelligence resources. Then the disastrous attacks of September 11, 2011 , occurred. Ironically, the 9/11 Commission Report found that the same indifference made 9/11 easier to perpetrate.

Terrorism studies generally ignore history, an odd fact when we remember how much history obsessed Clausewitz, who founded the “science” of war:

Examples from history make everything clear, and furnish the best description of proof in the empirical sciences. This applies with more force to the Art of War than to any other. If we wish to learn from history we must realize that what happened once can happen again.” (Clausewitz, 1991 , p. 231) 3

Clausewitz’s view of the pertinence of military history still resonates because states retain their armies even though there may be long periods between wars. But many still regard terrorism differently.

After 9/11, President George W. Bush’s “Address to the Joint Session of Congress and the American People” declared that terrorism would be eliminated. “Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists and every government which supports them. Our war . . . will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated” (Bush, 2001 , p. 68).

Although 9/11 was unique, President Bush’s declaration had a largely forgotten predecessor a century before. On September 6, 1901 , after an anarchist assassinated President William McKinley, his successor, Theodore Roosevelt, called for all states to participate in a “crusade” to exterminate anarchist terrorism everywhere, and Congress passed the Anarchist Exclusion Act of 1903 to reduce immigrant numbers who came from countries where many Anarchists lived (Jensen, 2001 ). But four years later, the United States withdrew from the first and only other global counterterrorist campaign.

Generations

Our historical amnesia is partly due to the inadequacy of our analytical tools. Using the concept of generation as a key analytic concept compels one to recognize that as a generation gets older, its energy dissipates. Generation is very different from the more commonly used concepts like class, interest, ethnic identity, etc. Energies inspiring those entities may dissipate in time, too, but that process is not associated with specified short periods. Because very few analysts use the idea of generation to explain important social scenes, it is not surprising that when the activity they are describing dissipates, they believe it has disappeared. 4

The striking differences between generations in the 1960s finally stimulated some academics to use generation to explain change (Rapoport, 1970 ). 5 In 1986 , Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., published the first systematic detailed study of generations in his illuminating The Cycles of American History . He used Alexis de Tocqueville’s argument that in democracies “each generation is a new people” to analyze American politics from the 18th century to the present day as a process of successive 40-year cycles. The initial generation was consumed with “political activism and social egalitarianism,” which was then followed by a 40-year period of “quiet conservatism and personal acquisition.” 6

Each new phase flows out of the conditions and contradictions of the phase before and then itself prepares the way for the next recurrence. A true cycle . . . is self-generating. It cannot be determined short of catastrophe by external events. Wars, depressions, inflations may heighten or complicate moods, but the cycle itself rolls on, self-contained, self-sufficient and autonomous. (Schlesinger, 1986 , p. 27) 7

Wave Concept

While linking generations to cycles is useful for studying democratic politics, global terrorism must be viewed differently. Profound, dramatic, unexpected international political events stimulated global terror, inspiring new generations with hope that the world could be transformed. But one cannot assume precipitating events of the same magnitude will always recur and at the same time. While a period lasted roughly 40 years, the rhythm or development process of each period, was different. Wave, rather than cycle, clearly is the appropriate term to describe those periods.

A wave consists of organizations with similar tactics and objectives. Organizations normally do not survive as long as the wave that gave them birth does, though a few organizations are likely to be active when their wave disappears. In those special cases, the organization sometimes incorporates features of the new wave. Surprise attacks are essential because small groups must find ways to publicize their actions to get attention and generate recruits. Surprise attacks sometimes produce overreaction, which terrorists know they can profit from. Each wave has experienced some dramatic overreactions with enormous international consequences. In the First Wave, World War I was precipitated when the Austrian-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated and their government claimed without evidence that Serbia was involved. The anxiety produced by 9/11 made the U.S. government think that Al-Qaeda would use weapons of mass destruction if they could get them, and the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 to prevent that from happening. But no evidence was available that Iraq had those weapons, and the invasion intensified Islamic hostility to the United States and also alienated many U.S. allies. Several other important overreactions in global terror history are discussed below.

The need to secure information to prevent surprise leads governments to employ unusual interrogation techniques that are not used to deal with criminals. Thus, in the First Wave, torture, which had disappeared in Europe, became common everywhere and it has remained a feature of every subsequent wave. Government agents frequently infiltrate groups, a process that induces those agents sometimes to provoke terrorist actions that may not occur otherwise. Another problem in dealing with terrorists comes from the fact that there are no accepted rules for dealing with them. On the one hand, governments generally claim they should be treated as criminals, but rules that designate appropriate responses to criminal deeds are never found to be fully appropriate. Terrorists, on the other hand, usually claim they should be treated as enemy soldiers, but they do not follow the accepted rules of war.

Each wave is driven by a distinctive purpose. The First or Anarchist Wave was committed to equality. Nationalism or the self-determination principle inspired the Second or Anticolonial Wave after World War I; then in the 1960s, more radical aspirations become conspicuous again in the Third or New Left Wave. In 1979 , religion replaced secular principles of legitimacy, and the Fourth or Religious Wave began, which should dissipate in the 21st-century ’s third decade. If history repeats itself, a Fifth Wave will appear with a new purpose, one unlikely to be known ahead of time. In each wave, groups often emerge dedicated to single issue like the Earth Liberation Front, or to support the government, like the Ulster Volunteer Force. Because those groups do not aim to transform the domestic and/or international systems, they are not examined here as part of the wave.

Important unanticipated political events were crucial in generating each wave. The Paris Commune catastrophe ( 1871 ) inspired the belief that a new method of insurrection was necessary and helped ignite the First Wave. The Anticolonial Wave was linked to the Versailles Treaty after World War I, which demonstrated how much the international world had become committed to the principle of self-determination. In Europe, the empires of the defeated powers like Austro-Hungary were divided into sovereign nation states. The overseas empires of defeated states largely became League of Nations mandates administered by one of the victorious states until the mandate’s population was deemed able to govern itself. But terrorist uprisings occurred in those territories against the mandate governments and uprisings also occurred in the victors’ overseas empires. The New Left Wave was fueled by Castro’s revolution in Cuba and the U.S. disaster in Vietnam. The Religious Wave was the outcome of four events in 1979 . The Iranian Revolution was the first and most important; it transformed a secular state into a religious one, a state that promoted religious terror. Other events demonstrated the weakness of secular elements in pushing popular international political agendas within the Middle East, such as the Soviet Union's military efforts in Afghanistan to protect a Marxist government.

While waves survive for similar periods, the rhythms of each may be very different. It took some time for the Paris Commune to have its effect. While the end of World War I produced several uprisings quickly, only one was successful. A second major political event, the Atlantic Charter in 1941 , defined the intentions of the Allies toward all imperial territories, making it much easier to generate successful terrorist campaigns after World War II. Indeed, the end of the Second Wave occurred when the energy of governments to resist, not the energy of terrorists to keep fighting, dissipated. The principal event producing Third Wave was the Vietnam War but it lasted 9 years, and not until its fourth year, in 1968 , did the wave get going. The Fourth Wave emerged immediately in 1979 .

Some tactics are used in every wave, but each wave introduces and emphasizes different ones. The First Wave was committed to assassination; the Second Wave aimed to eliminate the police; the Third Wave was consumed with hostage taking; and the Fourth Wave introduced self-martyrdom or suicide bombing. Although the geographic center of each wave is different, Western states have always been a principal target, and they were a major source for terror in the First and Third waves.

A wave contains many individual groups, but the number varies in each wave. Each wave has groups with different purposes. In the First Wave, the populists claimed to represent the masses alienated from a government controlled by an out-of-touch closed elite; the populists had socialist aspirations. Anarchists were the second group aiming to eliminate the state and all forms of inequality. The Anarchist Wave is so named because anarchists seemed to be active everywhere and to produce the most provocative acts, which led the public influenced by the media to make the terms terrorist and Anarchist interchangeable (Jaszi, 1930 ). The third type were the Nationalists, who aimed to create separate states. Nationalists remained present in every wave, though their tactics and rationale varied depending on the wave they were associated with. All Second Wave groups were nationalist, but they had either right-wing or left-wing programs for the states they intended to establish.

The Third or New Left Wave produced two major forms: revolutionaries and separatists. There were two kinds of revolutionaries, the transnational and the national. The transnationals were very small groups that emerged in the developed world of Western Europe and North America and saw themselves as Third World agents. Their internationalism was reflected in their targets and in their commitment to cooperate with foreign groups. But they were the wave’s least durable groups. The priorities of both the national revolutionaries and the separatists were to remake their own states immediately. National revolutionaries sought a state based on radical equality, while the separatists wanted to create a new state from an ethnic base that often transcended state boundaries and thus could create serious tensions with neighboring states. Separatists were present everywhere except Latin America, where all groups were national revolutionaries, a unique quality that is discussed in the analysis of the Third Wave.

Secular causes inspired the first three waves, but religious ingredients were sometimes important because they were connected with ethnic and national identities, as the Irish, Armenian, Macedonian, Cypriot, Quebec, Israeli, and Palestinian examples illustrate (Tololyan, 1992 ). But these earlier groups did not seek to eliminate secular influences by recreating religious regimes within their original boundaries, a process that would uproot the existing international system, an aim that would be a crucial feature for the Fourth Wave.

Fourth or Religious Wave groups are classified by the respective religions that inspired them. Islam initiated the wave. Iran was a secular state that became a religious one; it committed the first terrorist act and was deeply involved throughout the wave in supporting global terrorist activity, a pattern not seen before. Iran originally aimed to bring the Shia and Sunni, the two principal Islamic sects, together, but instead it produced a variety of serious deadly conflicts between those sects that had not been experienced for centuries. One of the conflicts was the Iran–Iraq War ( 1980–1988 ), the 20th century ’s longest conventional war. 8 The wave’s most important durable groups were Islamic, and they devised the wave’s distinctive tactic, self-martyrdom (i.e., “suicide bombing”), which made the wave the most indiscriminate and destructive one. The 9/11 attacks were the deadliest and most spectacular suicide bombing events in history, killing 2,996 people and injuring more than 6,000 others, thus producing more casualties than the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which brought the United States into World War II.

A few Islamic groups like Hamas aim to create a national religious state. But many want to transform the international world by eliminating the system of independent states where each has sovereignty over its territory and equal standing in international law, an arrangement the Treaty of Westphalia created in 1648 . Al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) aim to establish a caliphate that all Muslims, no matter where they live in the world, are obliged to obey. The Islamic diaspora intensified the wave’s global character; immigrants occasionally made attacks in their new homes and some went back to join groups in Islamic territories. The First Wave also produced a similar pattern, though the two waves seem very different otherwise.

Other Fourth Wave religions have produced groups with more limited territorial aspirations and therefore pose no threat to the international system as a whole. Sikhs aimed to secede from India and re-establish the religious state of Khalistan (Land of the Pure), which the British made part of India in 1849 . The Tamils of Sri Lanka also aimed to secede. Although it was not a religious group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) used the tactic of suicide bombing to fight against Buddhist efforts to make Sri Lanka a religious state. Sikh and Tamil diasporas in the West were significant supporters and provided much of the finances needed. Religious Jews in Israel want to transform the country into a religious state that would regain all its ancient Biblical territories. Some Christian groups in the United States fought to make it a religious state. Jews and Christians produced far fewer casualties than other groups in the wave, but the apocalypse is a theme in Jewish and Christian groups and could under certain circumstances produce catastrophic experiences.

The number of groups varies in each wave, and that number dissipates when no new ones emerge to replace those destroyed. Waves overlap each other in time and space. A few Second Wave groups in Africa were still alive in the 1970s, and some Third Wave groups aided them in their struggles for independence. The Fourth Wave emerged in the middle of the Third Wave. That induced some Third and Fourth Wave groups to fight each other bitterly, especially in the Middle East, something that never happened before.

Creation of the Global Political and Technological Contexts

The wave phenomenon cannot be understood fully without seeing it as a byproduct of the French Revolution. The first three waves embraced some key aspirations of the Revolution, while the Fourth explicitly rejected the Revolution’s ideals altogether, especially its hostility to religion.

After Napoleon was crushed, the relationship between domestic and international politics in Europe became transformed. Many insurrections occurred, inspired by desires to achieve the French Revolution’s unfulfilled promises, particularly with respect to new state boundaries, republicanism, secularism, and egalitarianism. In 1820 , 1830 , 1848 , and 1871 , uprisings in one European state generated comparable ones elsewhere. Europeans crossed borders easily (as no passports were needed) and became deeply involved in revolts elsewhere. The French Revolution abolished the practice of extraditing individuals for political reasons, and most European states continued this practice afterwards, intensifying the uprisings’ international character (Bassiouni, 1974 ). A new type of person emerged, described by de Tocqueville as the “professional revolutionary” (Richter, 1967 ), an intellectual devoting all his time to revolutions, moving from one country to another to foster them (e.g., Filippo Buonarroti, Mikhail Bakunin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, and Peter Kropotkin). 9

Uprisings created Belgium, and helped produce Italy and Germany, but there were so many failures that many after 1848 sought a more radical revolutionary model. In 1864 , the First Internationale, claiming 8 million members, emerged to unite socialist, communist, and anarchist groups with trade unions for the impending class struggle. When France was defeated in the Franco-Prussian War ( 1871 ), radicals established the Paris Commune, abolishing private property. The French response was devastating. Some 20,000 communards and sympathizers were killed, more than the Franco-Prussian War casualty numbers, and more than 7,500 were either jailed or deported to distant places overseas. Thousands fled to Belgium, England, Italy, Spain, and the United States. Radicals became convinced that the support of standing armies for their governments made mass uprisings unrealistic. A new method was necessary—small groups employing terror.

Important technological changes contributed to terrorism’s global character. In the First Wave, the telegraph enabled one to transmit information immediately across the world, enabling daily mass newspapers to describe incidents and plans quickly to very large numbers of people. The railroad and the steamship made international travel easy, quick, and inexpensive. Each successive wave was associated with communication and transportation innovations that intensified its global dimension, making it possible to bring global elements even closer together. The telephone and the radio were important in the Second Wave, television and airplanes were crucial in the Third, and the Internet shapes the Fourth.

In 1867 , Alfred Nobel patented dynamite for mining purposes. But soon it was used to make a new type of bomb, much easier to construct, conceal, and move than previous bombs; it could be detonated by a timer, enabling attackers to escape before the explosion. The bomb became the major weapon for terrorists, a major reason Nobel gave his fortune to establish the annual Nobel Prizes, especially the one devoted to peace! 10 The bomb is still the terrorist’s principal weapon, and it is likely to remain so, though many analysts have argued that terrorists will soon use weapons of mass destruction.

Before the 1880s, terrorism was confined to group activities in a particular territory, activity that had no specific impact elsewhere, lasted for different time periods, and therefore had no relationship to the concept of generations. The Zealots and Siccari who led the Jewish uprising against Rome in the 1st century were active for 25 years (Rapoport, 1984 ), the Assassins of the late 11th century survived for three centuries in the Muslim world, the Sons of Liberty who helped stimulate the American Revolution were active for a decade, and the Ku Klux Klan fought a successful 5-year campaign uprooting Reconstruction policies after the American Civil War (Rapoport, 2008 ). But global terror groups interact with each other, states, foreign social entities, and international organizations, and in a generation, the wave appears in most or all inhabited continents and then dissipates.

The First Wave began in Russia and quickly spread throughout Europe. Within a decade, it appeared in North and South America, and in the 20th century , in Asia, Australia, and Africa. Foreign personalities sometimes founded domestic groups (e.g., the Russian Mikhail Bakunin in Spain). Immigrants and diaspora communities became critical elements. Some states gave terrorists aid and sanctuaries. Events in one state often had significant impact elsewhere. Prominent nationalist struggles created serious potential threats to international peace. Armenians and Macedonian militants aimed to provoke major European states to invade the Ottoman Empire. Those European states knew intervention could produce a great war, putting major European powers on different sides, and avoided the situation several times. But somehow that lesson was forgotten in 1914 when the Ottoman Empire was not involved.

A century passed before a scholar recognized that one could not understand global terrorism without putting it in the context of international waves. In 1986 , Zeev Ivianski wrote

The terrorist wave is the work of a generation . . . as a result of some profound historical shock. . . . The generation of the terror destroys itself, has no direct continuation, yet the tradition renews itself in later waves of violence, (Ivianski, 1986 ) 11

The four global waves are discussed in detail in additional articles: the Anarchist, Anti-Colonial, New Left and Religious.

• Anderson, B. (2005). Under three flags: Anarchism and the anti-colonial imagination . New York: Verso.
• Bassiouni, M. (1974). International extradition law and world public order . Amsterdam: Luitingh-Sijthoff.
• Bush, George W. (2001). Available at https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/bushrecord
• Clausewitz, C. (1991) On war . In A. Rapoport (Ed.), Clausewitz on war . Dorchester, U.K.:Dorset Press.
• Eppright, C. (1997). Counterterrorism and conventional military force: The relationship between political effect and utility. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism , 20 (4), 333–344.
• Hofstadter, R. (1970). Reflections on violence in the United States. In R. Hofstadter & M. Wallace (Eds.), American violence: A documentary history . New York: Alfred E. Knopf.
• Ivianski, I. (1986). Lechi’s share in the struggle for Israel’s liberation. In E. Tavin & Y. Alexander (Eds.), Terrorists or freedom fighters . Fairfax, VA: Hero Books.
• Jaszi, O. (1930). Anarchism. Encyclopaedia of the social sciences . New York: Macmillan.
• Jensen, R. (1981). The International Anti-Anarchist Conference of 1898 and the origins of Interpol. Journal of Contemporary History , 6 (2), 323–347.
• Jensen, R. B. (2001). The United States, international policing, and the war against anarchist terrorism. Terrorism and Political Violence , 13 (1), 15–46.
• Passell, P. (1996, September 5). Economic scene. New York Times .
• Pennock, R. (1967). Revolution . New York: Atherton.
• Rapoport, D. C. (1970). Generations in America. In B. Crick & W. Robinson (Eds.), Protest and discontent . London: Penguin.
• Rapoport, D. C. (1982). The moral issue: Some aspects of individual terror. In D. C. Rapoport & Y. Alexander (Eds.), The morality of terrorism: Religious and secular justifications . Oxford: Pergamon.
• Rapoport, D. C. (1984). Fear and trembling: Terrorism in three religious traditions. American Political Science Review , 78 (3), 658–677.
• Rapoport, D. C. (2008). Before the bombs there were the mobs: American experiences with terror. Terrorism and Political Violence , 20 (2), 167–194.
• Rapoport, D. C. , & Alexander, Y. (1989). The orality of terrorism (2d ed., revised). New York: Columbia University Press.
• Rapoport, D. C. , & Weinberg, L. (2001). Elections and violence. In D. C. Rapoport & L. Weinberg (Eds.), The democratic experience and violence . Portland, OR: Frank Cass.
• Richter, M. (1967). Tocqueville’s contribution to the theory of revolution. In C. J. Friedrich & R. Pennock (Eds.), Revolution . New York: Atherton Press.
• Schlesinger, R., Jr. (1986). The cycles of American history . New York: Houghton Mifflin.
• Steward, P. , & McGowan, B. (2013). The Fenians: Irish rebellion in the North Atlantic World, 1858–1876 . Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
• Stewart, S. (2012). The myth of the end of terrorism. Stratford Security Weekly , February 23.
• Tololyan, K. (1992). Terrorism in modern Armenian culture. Terrorism and Political Violence , 4 (2).
• Strauss, W. , & Howe, N. (1991). Generations: The history of America’s future, 1584 to 2069 . New York: Morrow.
• Strauss, W. , & Howe, N. (1997). The fourth turning . New York: Three Rivers Press.

1. In the French Revolution, the government created the Reign of Terror, in which the rules governing criminal acts were ignored; individuals were punished not for their acts but because their character was deemed inappropriate for the new world being created. Our subject in this essay is rebel terror. State terror is discussed briefly in the essay on the First or Anarchist Wave.

2. The absence of assassination is odd. Three years before the 2nd edition was published, President Kennedy became the fourth American president assassinated. Six other presidents were attacked before Kennedy’s tragedy. No major state had as many heads of states and/or prime ministers killed in that 100 year period. Many more efforts were made after the 2nd edition was published; eight presidents were targeted, and Ronald Reagan was wounded.

3. For an interesting discussion of the relevance of Clausewitz for terrorist studies, see Eppright ( 1997 ).

4. The importance of generation has an unusual and often forgotten history. Plato discussed the transformation of governments from one political form to another as a generational process. But his successors thought social status, class, and ethnicity were much more useful to explain change. The concept of generation as essential for understanding political change was revived in the 19th century when democracy became a significant feature of political life. Alexis de Tocqueville’s classic study of American politics stated major changes occurred only when a new generation emerg1ed. “Among democratic nations each generation is a new people” that provokes a “struggle between public and private concerns.” Two other prominent figures in Tocqueville’s generation made similar points. Auguste Comte emphasized that generations had an important role in determining “the velocity of human evolution,” and John Stuart Mill refined Comte’s concept, arguing that in each successive age the “principal phenomena” of society are different only when a “new set” of individuals reaches maturity and takes possession of society. Important early 20th-century scholars also became committed to the notion. Karl Mannheim published his “The Problem of Generations” in 1927 and his contemporary Ortega y Gasset contended that generation is “the pivot responsible for the movements of historical evolution”.

5. In popular U.S. discourse, references to generations appeared before the 1960s and were linked to political events. “Baby Boomers” were born after World War II and became wealthy and “optimistic and produced a striking increase in birth rates. The “Lost Generation” fought in World War I and the “Greatest Generation” fought in World War II!

6. Schlesinger developed the concept of generation in Chapter 2. The Oxford English Dictionary indicates that generation usually means 30 years, but sometimes it can mean 40 years.

7. Generation as a tool for analyzing American political history was also employed in two books by Strauss and Howe ( 1991 and 1997 ). They use the term cycle , too.

8. Iran did not start the war, but Iraq was fearful that it would make great inroads in Iraq’s Shia population and decided to attack when Iran had hardly completed its own revolution.

9. Bakunin and Kropotkin were Russian anarchists, Buonarroti was an Italian utopian socialist, and Proudhon a French anarchist.

10. In 1888, Alfred’s Nobel’s brother Ludvig died while visiting France and a French newspaper erroneously thought Alfred had died and published Alfred’s obituary! “The merchant of death is dead . . . who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before.” Furious with this description, Alfred became very concerned with how he would be remembered. He had no wife or children, and gave his fortune to establish the annual Nobel Prizes. See Lallanilla, M. , The Dark Side of the Nobel Prizes (2013). Four persons described as terrorists received the Nobel Peace Prize when they made significant efforts to create peaceful solutions: Menachem Begin (1978), Anwar Sadat (1978), Nelson Mandela (1993), and Yasser Arafat (1994). Ironically, four American presidents also got the prize: Theodore Roosevelt (1905), Woodrow Wilson (1919), Jimmy Carter (2002), and Barak Obama (2009).

11. In this article, Ivianski discussed only the First Wave, but in a later piece, he discussed the Second Wave, in which he participated.

Related Articles

• Waves of Political Terrorism
• Military Defection and the Arab Spring
• Women and Terrorism
• Civil War and Terrorism: A Call for Further Theory Building
• Terrorism as a Global Wave Phenomenon: Anarchist Wave
• Terrorism as a Global Wave Phenomenon: Anticolonial Wave
• Terrorism as a Global Wave Phenomenon: New Left Wave
• Terrorism as a Global Wave Phenomenon: Religious Wave
• Suicide Terrorism Theories

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A Department of Homeland Security Emeritus Center of Excellence led by the University of Maryland

A consortium of researchers dedicated to improving the understanding of the human causes and consequences of terrorism

Explaining terrorism: causes, processes and consequences.

This volume comprises some of the key essays by Professor Crenshaw, from 1972 to the present-day, on the causes, processes and consequences of terrorism.

Since the early 1970s, scholars and practitioners have tried to explain terrorism and to assess the effectiveness of government responses to the threat. From its beginnings in a small handful of analytical studies, the research field has expanded to thousands of entries, with an enormous spike following the 9/11 attacks. The field of terrorism studies is now impressive in terms of quantity, scope, and variety. Professor Crenshaw had studied terrorism since the late 1960s, well before it was topical, and this selection of her work represents the development of her thought over time in four areas:

• defining terrorism and identifying its causes
• the different methods used to explain terrorism, including strategic, organisational and psychological approaches
• how campaigns of terrorism end
• how governments can effectively contribute to the ending of terrorism.

This collection of essays by one of the pioneering thinkers in the field of terrorism studies will be essential reading for all students of political violence and terrorism, security studies and IR/politics in general.

Publication Information

Crenshaw, Martha. 2011. Explaining Terrorism: Causes, Processes and Consequences. London and New York: Routledge.

Additional Info

528 Terrorism Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

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Current-day problems, from global warming to human rights, continue to be a topical subject, urging students to address acute issues.

However, this relatability means that you, as an essay writer, may find yourself faced with conflicting facts and circumstances, which your inherent bias may affect.

Thus, a terrorism essay becomes not merely an academic endeavor, but an attempt to immerse yourself in contemporary issues with a multitude of opinions.

• Research and outline your subject beforehand. This process will not only save your time but also help you structure your thoughts and arguments coherently.
• Use tools, such as topic sentences and brainstorming techniques, in the prewriting phase of your paper. Doing so will help you understand how you would like to develop your central theme.
• Start compiling a bibliography early on. When many different viewpoints exist, creating a structured argument in favor of a particular approach may require a wide array of supporting book and journal titles.
• Give a historical overview of your issue. For example, if you are writing about global terrorism, then it is apparent that a worldwide network of violent radicals did not come into existence overnight. Acknowledge and explain the origins of your assigned issue.
• Read other’s sample essays. This action will help you gain a better understanding of what works and what does not in terrorism essay topics.
• Use terrorism essay quotations. Since this is a contemporary issue, then there are bound to be many people involved in activities to counter terrorism, survivors of attacks, and general onlookers. Utilize their perspectives and memories to give your essay a unique touch.
• Remain respectful throughout your paper. Recognize the gravity of your essay and understand the privilege you have when writing about ideas that you may not have experienced.
• Write your essay with no references. Despite watching TV coverages, listening to critics, and reading tabloids, none of us are experts on war or terrorism. Always cite the sources of your information to uphold the integrity of your work.
• Plagiarize from the work of others. While you may read essays written by your peers or those that are available online, directly copying from them is an academic offense.
• Go off point. If you are writing about the history of Al Qaeda, do not disintegrate your work into a how to stop terrorism essay. However, you may give some points in your conclusion on how the overall situation may be amended.
• Write controversial terrorism essay titles. While your title should be catchy and grab your readers’ attention, you should not resort to cheap tactics to make your headings memorable by shock value. Remember that your audience may perceive this tactic as making light of your subject, thus destroying your hard-earned credibility.
• Try to advocate for a pro-terrorist approach. While it is a sound idea to subvert some essay topics, this is not the case in such papers and your work should always be against terrorism.
• Integrate examples from unreliable sources. While readers are often less informed than the essay’s writer is, the opposite may also occur. Therefore, always check the facts, which you include in your work, to avoid embarrassment.
• Draw out your essay to stress the seriousness of the subject. Use your instructor’s specified word count as a measure for how much you should write. Your readers will not appreciate a long-winded paper, as they are hoping instead to get a quick and concise introduction to an important problem.

Want to get more inspiration on terrorism essay topics? Head over to IvyPanda!

• “To Any Would-Be Terrorists” by Naomi Shihab Nye While trying to address the extremist audience, the writer resorted to the strong methods of personification to be able to talk straight to each reading the letter. Despite the character of the text, the writer […]
• Terror in “The Dumb Waiter” Play by Harold Pinter Pinter exemplifies the existential view of the absurd and the non-existence in The Dumb Waiter in the same manner as that employed in Waiting for Godot by Beckett.
• What Makes Terrorism Different From Other Forms of Violence The purpose of this paper is to define terrorism and identify the crucial features that distinguish terrorism from different types of abuse.
• Stereotyping Comparison: All Italians Are in a Mob, All Jamaicans Smoke Weed, All Muslims Are Terrorists The premise of the argument on this stereotyping that Muslims are terrorists is that people accept this claim without challenging it.
• Michael Collins and His Terrorist Method Michael Collins has long appeared in the books of history as a brilliant, aggressive and brave member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood a group of Irishmen and women who were determined to overthrow the British […]
• Anti Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism The accomplishment of the specified goal will require the cooperation between the state government and the representatives of the UAE organizations, as well as the coordination of the latter’s actions with the ones of the […]
• Investigation Methods: Terrorism and Cyber Crime The question on whether the investigations in these areas of cyber crime and terrorism to remain incident driven or to adopt strategic approach are still is of great concern to the security agencies and the […]
• Leila Khaled: Freedom Fighter or Terrorist? This essay elaborates her intentions with the support of academic sources and her movie in order to demonstrate her cause of action as a freedom fighter for her country and not a terrorist as perceived.
• American Exceptionalism in Constructing and Conceptualizing a Terrorist The term ‘American Exceptionalism’ refers to a belief that the United States of America occupies a special position in the human history and on the global stage due to a number of characteristics unique to […]
• Analysis of a Domestic Terrorist Group and Homeland Security Policies The Boogaloo Movement is a severe menace, and the government must take all necessary measures to put a stop to it, it is concluded.
• Suspected Terrorist Interrogation and Use of Torture Regardless, torture is still popular across the globe, and it has elicited a new debate questioning whether it is immoral and unacceptable to use torture in the case of efforts to fight terror in the […]
• Terrorism, Corruption, and Climate Change as Threats Therefore, threats affecting countries around the globe include terrorism, corruption, and climate change that can be mitigated through integrated counter-terror mechanisms, severe punishment for dishonest practices, and creating awareness of safe practices.
• Problems the US Faced in the Prosecution of the International Terrorists Differentiating a potential extremist from the rest of the population has been challenging because most international criminals interact with civilians and become part of them.
• Terrorist Impact on Maritime Transportation Security Notably, the United States established the Transportation Security Administration under the Department of Transportation, which was soon transferred to the newly formed Homeland Security Department.
• International Terrorism: Waves and Countermeasures The concept of modern terrorism emerged in Russia, and after a decade, it spread to Western Europe, the Balkans, and Asia.
• The Nexus of Homeland Security and Terrorism The Department of Homeland Security is one of the several bureaucracies formed to tackle the issues of rising insecurity due to external powers and potential facilitators within the US.
• The Future and Change of Terrorism As a result, even if terrorists get their hands on these weapons, they might hesitate to use them on individuals because of the associated implications.
• The Terrorist Attack Recovery Process Terrorism response strategies and the recovery process vary according to the scope of damages and the implications of the methods used in the terror attacks.
• Preparing for a Potential Terrorist Attack The ultimate aim of preparedness is to limit exposure to adversities during and after a terrorist attack. Thus, a recommended approach to limiting the potential security hazard of terrorist attacks is assessing its attributes and […]
• Role of Terrorism in Russo-Ukrainian War Due to this factor, one of the most influential and widespread typologies of terrorism is the New Terrorism that emerged after the tragedy of 2001 in the USA.
• Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act of 2018 Therefore, the current policies are a response to existing problems, and as the problem inside the country has become smaller, the reaction has also decreased.
• Role of Media in Terrorism and Its Force Multipliers The following passages describe the role of the media in terrorism, how terrorists use laws to their advantage, the concept of asymmetrical warfare, and force multiplier as they apply to terrorism.
• Anti-Terrorism Security Complex for Civil Aviation It is expected that the increase in the number of flights in the absence of a strengthened anti-terrorist culture should also lead to an increase in the number of unintended consequences of such flights – […]
• Terrorism: Goals and Strategies Their main purpose can range from changing the direction of the politics in the state to overthrowing the exciting government and establishing control over the population.
• Religious Terrorism: Ideologies and Methods of Al Qaeda and ISIS Strict adherence to the recorded practices and sayings of the Prophet in the letter of the Koran is emphasized. It endorses the rationalization of terrorism and violence in the efforts to fight against infidels.
• Principles of Leadership and Future of Terrorism At the present time, leadership is presented in various forms; however, the primary objectives of the model generally include the improvement of organizational performance and the enhancement of the relationships between the members.
• The 2012 Tel Aviv Bus Bombing and Crisis Management Musa was the manufacturer and detonator of the bomb, which he used Mafarji to deliver inside the Tel Aviv-based commuter bus.
• The Role of the Military in Domestic Terrorism Acts The video focuses on the issue of domestic terrorism in the U.S.in light of the January 6th attack on the Capitol.
• Addressing Challenges of Religious Terrorism The various methods used in religious terrorism are spiritual scriptures to justify the violent acts and the use of apocalyptic images of destruction to justify the actions.
• Terrorism and Changes in Police Management Firstly, the police and organizations related to the population’s safety prioritized the prevention of terrorism to minimize the damage. Organizing in the police station involves the creation of organizational structure, points of authority, and responsibilities.
• Terrorists’ Minds and Radicalization Processes Moreover, the models agree that radicalization is a stepwise process in which one stage or step leads to another and eventually reaches the act of terrorism.
• The Terrorism and Oil Industry Relationship Since terrorism is a source of political instability in the world, there is expected to be a positive correlation between oil prices and terrorist attacks. The purpose of this research was to examine the relationship […]
• Understanding the Definition of WMDs and the Constraints on Terrorist Acquisition The most known WMD a nuclear weapon is limited in numbers and difficult to create. The most probable WMD for terrorists to acquire are chemical weapons.
• Online Interventions Addressing Terrorism and Radicalization The study will also identify that the Sakinah campaign can be considered a suitable example of how it is possible to address Internet terrorism and radicalization.
• A Terrorism Attack in the Middle East Countries in the Middle East are prone to terrorist attacks rendering it one of the unsafest regions in the world. The importance of this study is to understand the purpose of terrorist attacks in the […]
• Behavioral Factors of Individual Terrorists The behavior of individual terrorists is dictated by the group dynamics, their mental health, and well-being, as well as the underlying incentives for joining a terrorist organization.
• The Ways Terrorists Raise and Move Money Moreover, the government has put into action the freezing orders and blocking of united states individuals who are presumed to have a hand in terrorist activities.
• Terrorism and Transnational Organized Crime as Threats to Homeland Security The US is among the nations that have suffered some of the worst terrorist attacks worldwide and it is also a hub of international criminal activities due to its wealth of resources and powerful economic […]
• Planning for Terrorist Events: Case Study To review the response of France’s forces and evaluate its efficiency To provide several recommendations for the prevention of attacks during the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar Terrorist attacks that took place across Paris […]
• Global Impact of 9-11 Events on Terrorism Prevention Many people resorted to religion and faith, and the majority reported that they were praying more frequently. Moreover, it stimulated the intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan to fight terrorist groups.
• September 11, 2001 Attacks: What We Have Learned About Terrorism Since 9,11 The world has remembered one of the most tragic attacks in the USA in 2001, and the consequences of this event stay one of the most discussed.
• The Case of Saudi Arabia’s Soft Counter-Terrorism Strategy Therefore, this assessment is essential for government agencies, consulting organizations, and society in general, since innocent people suffer from the consequences of terrorism.
• Terrorism Prevention: Operation Geronimo Intelligence briefings had been vital in this operation, and there was sufficient evidence to show that the wanted terrorist was in the compound. In conclusion, the operation was a necessary undertaking in ensuring international peace […]
• Trump Tells Story About Killing Terrorists With Bullets Dipped in Pigs’ Blood The text reflects on Donald Trump’s recollection of the myth that terrorists were killed before the bullets used were dipped in pig blood.
• US Strategy From the Cold War to the Post-Global War on Terrorism Before the collapse of the United Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, the United State’s strategy during the Cold War era had been one of deterrence to the potential threats of the USSR and its allies […]
• Analysis of the Terrorist Organizations: “Red Brigades” and “Boko Haram” The most famous action in the organization’s history is the abduction and murder of the former Prime Minister of Italy Aldo Moro in the spring of 1978.
• Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism in the US The very first section of this act is devoted to strengthening the internal security of the population of the States in the framework of countering terrorism.
• Countering Terrorism Through Innovative Approaches The vital issue of this meeting became the issue of the technological development of international terrorism, its rapid growth in the online world, and acquaintance with the most recent technologies.
• Iran’s Involvement in Sponsoring Global Terrorism Due to the particular features of the theocratic regimes, in the case of Iran, the inclination towards terrorism can be explained by two pillars of the Islamic doctrine underlining the constitution.
• Criminalistics: Forensic Science, Crime, and Terrorism These writings can be on the second, third, and so on pages, depending on the pressure on the writing subject, that is, a pen or pencil.
• Terrorism: the Victim of Terrorism and of Mechanisms to Combat It The Concept of Terrorism: Unlawful act Broad interpretations Threatening lives Generic term of terror Caused by forces opposed to the state Sociopolitical
• Countering Terrorism and Preventive Measures Considering the events of the past century, including the first and 9/11 bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 and 2001, United States Embassy in Beirut and Kuwait bombing, and many other attacks, the […]
• Why Terrorism Is Not a Serious Threat to International and National Security We accept the existence of this threat, but we are still sure terrorism narrative as an existential threat is doing more damage to a larger amount of people than local terroristic attacks.
• An Analysis of Terrorist Activities The main terrorist attack of al Qaeda was the 9/11 Bombing of the World Trade Centers, claiming the lives of thousands of people and leading to the beginning of the War on Terror.
• Biowarfare and Bioterrorism: History and Origin According to Edmond and William, the dawn of bioterrorism dates back to the nineteenth century, when Louis Pasteur and Robert Koech studied and understood the basics of microbiology. Moreover, another application of biological weapons is […]
• Response to a Hypothetical Terrorist Event Prior to explicit action, the first thing to do in such a situation is to assess the environment depending on the location of terrorists and the type of attack and to outline the civilians that […]
• Biological Warfare and Agro-Terrorism However, the most important thing from which those infected with botulism die is paralysis of the respiratory muscles and the respiratory failure that follows. The bacteria Bacillus Anthracis, which causes anthrax, is one of the […]
• Terrorism Impacts on Policing in Belgium Nevertheless, when studying the world experience of countries facing the threat of high extremist activity and falling victim to attacks by militant fanatics at the beginning of the 21st century, the Belgian government has strengthened […]
• Researching of Morals of Terrorists Terrorism attacks are a form of violence, and the moral implication is death in the form of revenge. Realism is a form of acceptance that everyone on the battlefield is a civilian with their families.
• The Structures, Motivations, and Qualities of Terrorist Groups This implies that the structures of terrorist groups are determined by the capacity and character of the government and society where they operate.
• The Functionalism Theory Assumptions of Terrorism The functionalism theory echoes the candid assumptions of terrorism and further resonates with the evolving terrorism threat. As Barkan outlines, the functionalism perspective postulates that terrorism creates social bonding and solidarity within societies at war.
• Terrorism: Cargo and Passenger Screening To avoid such events, security systems need to be improved by the management both in the field of technological equipment and in the training of professionals.
• Motivations of Lone-Wolf Terrorists The phenomenon of lone-wolf terrorism is an interesting one because it challenges one to attempt to understand the motivation of a person to commit a violent criminal act knowing of the severe consequences.
• Public Policy Issue: Domestic Terrorism At the same time, proponents of the policy argue that the rise of domestic terrorism is due to the failure of holding accountable and confronting the perpetrators by the responsible authorities and not a case […]
• Radicalization and Terrorism in the United States The individuals or self-proclaimed bombers are one of the major threats that the USA will have to be on the lookout for most of the time.
• America: Racism, Terrorism, and Ethno-Culturalism The myth of the frontier is one of the strongest and long-lived myths of America that animates the imagination of the Americans even to this day.
• Terrorism: Domestic, Transnational, and Maritime Forms All types of terrorism are based on the forcible imposition of a worldview, ideology, morality, politics using violence, threats of murder or other forms as the primary means of achieving goals.
• “Terrorism” Is a Biased Term According to Bin Ladin, the bombing of the World Trade Center was an intimidation technique targeting the Americans due to the violence against the Islamic community.
• Terrorism and Data Mining Algorithms However, this is a necessary evil as the nation’s security has to be prioritized since these attacks lead to harm to a larger population compared to the infringements.
• Cyber-Terrorism and International Interventions Most of the cyber-attacks that have occurred involve the direction of the malware and attacks to specific critical systems and Information Technology infrastructures.
• Terrorism and Media Coverage In that regard, the issue of media coverage is specifically important to consider in situations involving hostages, as the media either covering a news report or responding to the terrorists’ demands is in a position […]
• Airfreight Security Breaches and Terrorism The majority of terrorist attacks happened after the 1990s, thereby indicating the deterioration of the security system and breaches in it.
• Terror and Religion One of the common religious terror activities has been on martyrdom, the practice of causing death to oneself on the basis of being a witness to ideological and theological perspectives and beliefs.
• Encryption, Stenography & Cyber Criminal Terrorist The internet and the ICT system as a whole are vulnerable to cyber attacks. This is the method of using to trademark to protect our images and copyright on our intellectual properties.
• Radicalization and Terrorism Phenomena A precursor to radicalization and terrorism is the lack of proper socio-political integration of certain communities in countries. Radicalization lies at the heart of terrorism and plays a central role in the propagation of ideas.
• Boko Haram Terrorist Organization: History and Facts Since the inception of the organization in 2002, the primary goal of Boko Haram has been to impose Islamic rule in Nigeria by promoting a version of the religion that forbids participation in any social […]
• Local Efforts to Counter the Terror Threat in New York City The program encompasses a series of both current and future policy efforts that are associated with the private sector security as well as counterterrorism in the state.
• Cyber-Terrorism and Healthcare Information Systems – Past, Present, and Future The cyber appliances in the health sector then again sustain correspondence amongst shareholders and service providers and as well support resources management.
• Bioterrorism Response by Healthcare Organizations Bioterrorism is a frequently used term that proves human responsibility on the development of its outcomes and effects on people and other living beings on Earth.
• Response to Terrorist Attacks: The Role of Military and Public Sector Entities Nevertheless, to understand the basis of such partnership, one has to understand the actions that the public sector takes and has taken to respond to terrorism in the United States and globally.
• Emergency Operations in Case of Radiological Terrorism An excellent example of an explosion that profoundly affected the Americans is the 9/11 attack that led to the destruction of the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.
• Command Structure of Sharing the Information About Possible Acts of Terror Following the infamous events of 9/11, the government of the United States introduced new strategies and roles that have continued to reshape the roles and involvement of law enforcers in cases of terrorism.
• Bio-Terrorism: When Microbes Become a Threat to Human Existence In general, due to the cooperation of scientists, policymakers, and public agencies across the globe, the international community has recognized the potential of biological weapons and is prepared for the majority of threats.
• How Terrorism Impacts the Human Experience From the point of view of modern definitions or attempts to define these phenomena, the difference is most often established in the globality of the character, duration of the act, and the number of actors […]
• Annotated Bibliography About Terrorism This is a book review article written by Khanna on the book “Terrorism as a war” written by Walter Laqueur and published by Continuum Books.
• Cyberterrorism, Competing Factions, and Possible Course of Action Various aspects can be analyzed concerning cyberterrorism, competing factors, and possible course of actions in corporations to show that cyberterrorism is a legitimate option for the expression of grievances by terrorists.
• Importance of Emergency Response to Terrorist Attack According to the scenario presented, it makes sense to involve the DoD since the terrorists, supposedly AWOLs, pose an extreme threat to the lives of civilians and the military.
• National Response to Terrorism & Natural Disaster The National Response Framework governs the national security and crisis response to dynamic emergencies and natural disasters that occur in the community.
• Terrorism: Definitions, Features Shared by Terrorists However, since there is no agreed-upon definition of a terrorist attack, it is possible to state that some incidents were omitted from the statistics. Terrorism is difficult to combat and requires the input of international […]
• Alienation and Solidarity: The Logic of Suicide Terrorism Pape’s “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism” discusses the growing prevalence of suicide attacks in the arsenal of terrorist movements from 1980 onward.
• Terrorists and Their Rights Under US Laws The key problems of the research are the ways in which Islamists are protected by the US legislation and society, where the threat comes from, and what the consequences might be.
• Anti-Terrorism Protocol and Counter-Terrorism Units The 1995 Tokyo sarin attack is a case in point because it proved the real possibility of such a scenario and was used as the reference for the L.A. First of all, as shown in […]
• Oklahoma City Bombing as Domestic Terrorist Act The federal building housed the offices of various government agencies, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, which was directly involved in the Waco debacle. The attack allowed McVeigh to send a message to […]
• Foreign Fighters and Contemporary Terrorism Finally, recruiters have received access to the vulnerable groups directly, which is demonstrated in the book In the Skin of a Jihadist written by an investigative journalist Anne Erelle.
• Terrorist Attacks: Paul Hanson vs. Patrick Crusius He made some preparations in the form of stockpiling weapons and researching the locations in which they reside. Crusius was more discrete in his information gathering, though it was still the failure of the FBI […]
• Terrorism Liaison Officer’s Responsibilities The analyst was involved in the assessment of the case and contributed to false-positive reporting regarding the journalist and other civilians being terrorists.
• Cyberterrorism: A 21st Century Threat and the Global Response Thus, it can be concluded that terrorism and cyberterrorism have become one of the many global challenges, and for this reason, they should be the object of close attention to the world community.
• Terrorism in the United States of America The group might disintegrate in the future because of its dwindling number of followers, leadership wrangles, and a lack of finances to fund its activities.
• Identifying Terrorism-Related Situations In the selected setting of Philadelphia, the general environment appears to be in control, yet further measures may need to be undertaken to prevent the instances of protests from reaching a state of havoc.
• Task Force and the Fusion Center: Terrorism Prevention Thus, it can be argued that the main task of JTTF in targeted violence prevention is crime investigation and intelligence generation.
• Fusion Centers: The Role in Terrorism Prevention Boston Globe reports that the information-sharing system currently in use is not efficient in preventing terrorism, highlighting the fact that the FBI and the CIA probes of Tamerlan Tsarnaev were unbeknown to Massachusetts counterterrorist units.
• DHS and Intelligence: Terrorism The organization of the fight against terrorism requires a comprehensive approach to the analysis of the sources and subjects of terrorist activity, a clear definition of the functions and areas of responsibility of each item […]
• The Molly Maguires as a Domestic Terrorism Group It is these origins of the Molly Maguires terrorist group that gave them their thirst for blood and led to the killing of a myriad of Irishmen until the group was exterminated in the proximities […]
• Australian Anti-Terrorism Laws In the quest to protect citizens, some governments have gone to the extend of inflicting torture on terror suspects in need to obtain some information from the suspect, which raises concern about the suspect’s civil […]
• Bioterrorism Preparedness and Public Health Response Therefore, the current state of the preparedness cannot be estimated as high or sufficient, and the approach needs to be elaborated.
• Aggressive Behavior Among the Al-Shabaab Terrorists The former are the underlying sources that propel susceptible individuals to radicalization, while the latter are the incentives that the terrorist groups offer to attract and retain recruits.
• War on Terrorism: Budget and Policy Discussion The discussion of the specific Acts and Policies directed at USA security is going to be considered with the purpose to follow the changes which occurred in the USA after 9/11 attacks.
• Criminology: Terrorism–Security Policy for Large Events This attack proved to the government the vulnerability of the state concerning external threats, especially because, prior to the attack, the customary means of attack had been the use of military force as evidenced in […]
• Causes of Terrorism Terrorism is defined as violent actions that are aimed at instilling fear to people as a means of coercing them to submit to ideologies of a certain group.
• Violent Resistance and Terrorism The following study is an attempt to establish the root causes of violent resistance, the challenges facing the world due to violent resistance, and possible remedies to the problem citing specific cases that are helpful […]
• Terror Groups – Abu Nidal Organization Abu Nidal is the Arabic meaning of ‘father of the struggle.’ The terror group was named after its leader and founder Sabri al-Banna who was born in Palestine to a land owning family. Among the […]
• Impacts of Terrorism on Police Mission in the U.S. The incidence of September 11 2001 has remarkably transformed the police force in the U.S. There is an increase in the level of monitoring of international travels and boundaries by the police force.
• Homeland Security: Digital Crime and Terrorism Activities However, the US law enforcement system is characterized by the activities of different agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigations, Department of Homeland Security, Secret Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
• Understanding the Basics of Terrorism On the other side of the rail is another man lying flat on the ground with a sniper rifle in his hands ready to wreak havoc.
• “Policing Terrorism” by Waddington He is of the argument that case-specific policing is focused on the outcome of court verdicts. He points out an incident in which the palace security was breached, and the commissioner of police reacted to […]
• Definite Paths to Terrorism: Main Dimensions This assimilation is enforced by the use of violence to instil discipline and loyalty in the participants. In conclusion, there are other dimensions of the Islamic terrorism namely Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah.
• War on Terror: Propaganda and Freedom of the Press in the US There was the launching of the “Center for Media and Democracy”, CMD, in the year 1993 in order to create what was the only public interest at that period. There was expansive use of propaganda […]
• Terrorism and U.S. National Security Thomas Jefferson was the author of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom in the year 1777 as well as the author of the famous United States Declaration of independence in the year 1776.
• Domestic Terrorism: Trends, Challenges, and Future Predictions Under the provisions of the US PATRIOT act, acts of domestic terrorism entail dangerous acts that pose a threat to human life and amount to a violation of various criminal laws of the US and/or […]
• Organizations Convincing to Become a Suicide Terrorist One of the underlying tenets taught to candidate suicide bombers is: “Islam is the answer and jihad is the way”. Pathological altruism refers to any behavior or personal tendency in which ‘the goal or motivation […]
• Bioterrorism: Term Review According to Meinhardt, “water supplies and water distribution systems represent potential target for terrorist activity in the United States because of the critical need for water in every sector of our industrialized society”.
• US & UK Human Rights While Countering Terrorism The threat of terror and the further legal reactions of the nations to the problem were considered as challenging, and it is necessary to examine differences and similarities associated with the promotion of human rights […]
• Organizational Change: Models Influencing American Terrorism This paper seeks to discuss the three models of terrorism, the effects of international terrorism locally, and the impacts of international terrorism on local cell groups.
• The Goal of a Terrorist Attack This objective is being accomplished by the mean of exposing people to the graphic accounts of terrorist acts-in-making, as was the case with the attacks of 9/11.
• Local Response to Terrorism Local response to terrorism involves using the resources and the law enforcement officers at the state and county level to detect and prevent acts of terror.
• Adjusting to Terrorism: The Issue of Detention Without Trial The country also needs to train more prosecutors and legal experts so that justice is disseminated to suspected terrorists who continue to be held at Guantanamo Bay without trial.
• Biological Terrorism: Dealing With the Threat It is therefore the responsibility of the recipient of this information to take action to secure his/her life against the potential lethality of the agent in question.
• The Maritime Terrorism Risk and Liability The research describes in detail aspects of maritime terrorism but does not clearly state the research question to be explored. However, in the summary part of the research paper there is several questions implied as […]
• Bioterrorism Preparedness in Healthcare Organizations It is also necessary to carry out a test on the public health emergencies for this would help the department to be aware of the strengths and weaknesses which are in the system.
• Adjusting to Terrorism In the US, the Department of Homeland Security is the primary body that deals with all matters of homeland security, including the prevention of terrorism. As such, the department needs to address it as a […]
• Impact of Terrorism on the Economy The premise of the essay is to evaluate the nature and the nature and the severity of the risks posed by terrorism on IFAD a United Nations specialized agency.
• A Criminal Justice Approach to Suppressing Terrorism The threat of terrorism substituted communism as the rationale which was used for justifying the state of emergency in America prior to 1990s.
• Comparison Between Organized Crime And Terrorism Organized crime refers to unlawful activities conducted by members of highly organized gangs and associations. Its defined by members and activities of a group.
• Boilover: Fire Aspects of the World Trade Center Terrorist Attacks Analysis These includes the intensity of the incident heat on the burning object, the composition of the burning fire, the ability of air that supports combustion to reach the burning fire, the mass of the burning […]
• Secure Transportation System Against Global Terror The good news is that cooperation, coordination, and new technology can be used to secure the global transportation system and halt the activities of terror groups.
• Sharing Terror Data: Criminal Analysis The FBI continuing investigation of the attacks to identify the hijackers and their sponsors, codenamed “PENTTBOM,” represents the largest investigation ever in the history of the agency.
• Torture and War Towards Terrorism An example of mental torture can be explained by the following; Y is a friend to X, they have been caught in the same crime act, Y is then taken to a separate room adjacent […]
• Women and Terrorism Relations The role of women in secular terrorist organizations has been more pronounced in history due to the conservative nature of religious terrorist movements, which often exclude women from their ranks.
• Terrorism: Assessing the Past to Forecast the Future The terrorists groups all over the world, having the knowledge of lethargic weapons held by their enemies, are engaged in the discoveries of how the rapidly growing technology may improve the lethargy of their current […]
• Terrorism Response Strategy The preliminary assessment is performed on the basis that before implementing any rescue operations, the hazards that are contained in the area must be positively identified and the resources available or necessary to deal with […]
• Homeland Security and Terrorism The important root causes of terrorism are mainly two: a perceived sense of social & political injustice such that the group seeks to right the wrong and, the view that violence is the only way […]
• Terrorism Preparedness and Response The third and most important step to take is to switch off the available electrical gadgets to prevent the spread of fire. Of importance to prevent such catastrophes is cooperation from citizens, media, and the […]
• Terrorism Mitigation and Risk In order to avert the danger of possible portable nuclear attacks, it is important to assess the possibility and impact of attacks in the first place.
• Terrorism Risk Assessment: Threat of Al Shabaab and Hezbollah to the USA Attacks such as those that happened outside the US and more are likely to occur due to what Hezbollah perceives as the US posing a threat to its ties with Iran.
• Four Priorities of Action for Combating Terrorism on Our Shores There is therefore the need to employ new pragmatic foreign policy steps that promote the national interest within the broader values of international peace and security if any gains are to be realized in the […]
• The Cyber Terrorism Plan and Counter Strategy The news of hacking the website of the Pentagon will immediately get the attention of the media and this message will spread everywhere at the speed of light.
• The Potential for State Sponsored Terrorism Also, he mainly tries to bring all the enemies of the United States together and he believes that the United States is a devilish country.
• Bioterrorism and Biosecurity The epidemiology of the infection is spread in the world evenly though in some of the parts there is only one form of Anthrax, for instance in the United States of America and therefore our […]
• Bioterrorism and Biosecurity – Aum Shinrikyo The Aum Shinrikyo began their attacks in 1994 in Matsumoto where they used the refrigerator truck to release sarin near the homes of three judges who were overseeing a lawsuit that was predicted to go […]
• Terrorism: A Definition and Analysis The Federal Bureau of Investigation defines terrorism as the perpetration of violence and force unlawfully against people or property with a sole aim of intimidating or coercing the government or the targeted population or any […]
• International Political Economy, Democratization, and Terrorism IPE describes the global power dynamics that control international trade and finance, fuel globalization, and wealth distribution across the globe. Sachs argues that globalization and the emergence of political economics have led to the increased […]
• Terrorism Definition at the National Level The development of a unified definition of terrorism at the global level is challenging because the domestic laws of several countries differ significantly.
• War and Terrorism in the Modern World They are used to frighten the public and pursue political goals, for example, to change the government in the country. For instance, acts of terrorism are meant to inflict fear and intimidation to put pressure […]
• Sociology. Terror and Violence Impacts A comparison between theory and the actual case is made in order to promote the claim that terror leads to mental health issues that will pursue the victims for the whole life, but such consequences […]
• US and Terrorism Relations Overview The US and its allies intensified attacks on ISIS bases and areas of control, assassinated ISIS leaders, reclaimed regions captured by the group, cut off their supply of funds, and imposed restrictions on travel to […]
• Agro-Terrorism: Definition and Impacts The ultimate objective for agro-terrorism is to cause economic damage and lead to loss of confidence among the population in the government. It is the responsibility of the FDA and DHS Agro division to monitor, […]
• Terrorism and Trauma in American Literature Key points that are brought up for discussion in both books are the crisis of communication, the crisis of meaning, the crisis of self-identification, and possible ways out. The letters are a part of the […]
• War on Terror: The Battle Continues The levels of political tension have skyrocketed over the past several decades, causing the instances of confrontations and the number of acts of terror to rise, hence the launch of the War on Terror in […]
• Terrorism Nowadays: Islamic State of Iraq and Syria The cases of terrorism and the transformation of the international situation over the past 20 years make people realize the global nature of the current events.
• How Terrorism Affects Airline Security Additionally, agencies that oversee aviation changed their course and became much more stringent in their enforcement of security to avoid a repeat of the incident.
• Terrorist Networks as a Threat to the United States Today
• Consequence Management and Terrorist Attacks Analysis
• Terrorist Groups’ Establishment: The Theory of Four-Wave Terroristic Groups
• Domestic & Global Terrorism and Its legal Aspects
• Crime Myths and Domestic Terrorism
• Terrorist Attacks in Paris, 13th November 2015
• Hue Newton: A Terrorist and a Thinker
• Impact on Terrorist Activities of Regional Governments
• Regional Terrorism: The Bali Bombing, Australian and Indonesian Responses
• How to End Terrorism: Diplomacy or Military Action?
• Terrorism: Methods and Weapons
• Terrorism: Analysis of Definitions
• Screening for Terrorist for Aviation Security
• The Role of Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in the Fight Against Terrorism
• Terrorist Event Countering: First Responders Risk
• Financing Terrorism: Challenges and Solutions
• Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and Terrorism
• Domestic Terrorism: A Comparative Analysis with Hate Crimes
• Al Shabaab: An Intriguing Example of Islamist Terror
• Causes and Motivations of Terrorism
• Ali Al-Timimi’s Case of Terrorism
• “The Lessons of Terror: A History of Warfare Against Civilians” by C. Carr
• Biological and Chemical Terrorism: Preparedness and Response
• Legislation Related to Bioterrorism
• Israel’s Response to Munich Terror Attack
• Bioterrorism and Its Harmful Consequences
• Domestic Terrorism in the US: Causes, Impacts, and Countermeasures
• The Evolution of Terrorism on the World Stage
• Terrorism and Liberal Democracy: What We Should Know
• Biological Weapon and Bioterrorism
• Is Terrorism Still the Most Important Security Issue for Australia?
• War on Terror and Its Effect on Individual Right
• Crimes Against the State: Terrorist Attacks and Death Penalty
• “Nuclear Terrorism: Risks, Consequences, and Response” by Jim Walsh: Stimulating Ideas, Logical Organization, Engaging Voice
• Middle-East and Africa Terrorist Movements
• The History of Ku Klux Klan: A Terrorist Organization Founded in the Southern States After the American Civil War
• The Use of Counter-Terrorism Attacks During the Algerian War of Independence From F.L.N.
• Comparison Between Secular and Religious Terror
• Political Violence and Terrorism. Crowd Behavior
• Types of Terrorism: Centers Establishment
• Sociology of Terror: Contemporary Sense
• Understanding the War on Terror in the United States
• Foreign Policy Challenges Created by the War on Terror
• Middle-Eastern and African Terrorist Movements
• Bioterrorism: Impact of Science and Technology
• Community Policing and War on Terror
• Biosecurity and Bioterrorism
• Palestinian Islamic Jihad: Radical Terrorism
• Money Laundering and Terrorist Finance
• Pakistan’s Double Game in the War on Terror
• Eradicated Terrorism in the World
• The Interrelation Between Terrorism and Technology
• War on Terror & Violation of Constitutional Rights
• Media and the War on Global Terrorism
• Is the Geneva Convention Applicable to War on Terror?
• Adjusting to Terrorism in Modern World
• Death Sentence to Muslim Terrorists: Should We Murder People Who Had Done the Same Before?
• Terrorism and Security Issues Review
• Recent Developments in the History of Terrorism
• War on Terror. 42-Day Detention: An Equitable Solution?
• Early Response to Weapons of Mass Destruction Terrorism
• Counter Terrorism Measures in the UK
• The War on Terrorism in the United States
• United States & EU Efforts to Fight Terrorism
• Global Terrorism and State Security Measures
• American Governmnet Against the Threat of Terrorism
• “Terrorism and Economic Security” by Robert L. Hutchings
• Bioterrorism and Health Care Delivery
• Terrorism: Countering and Responding to the Treat
• Crimean Crisis and Russian State Terrorism
• A Terrorist Attack on Atlanta, Georgia
• How Counselors Assist Survivors of Terrorism
• Comprehensive Terrorist-Related Screening Procedures
• Terrorism and National Security
• The Functioning of Terrorist Groups
• Terrorist Organization: Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA)
• “Terror and Democracy at the Age of Stalin” by Goldman
• Terror in the Mind of God by Mark Juergensmeyer
• Counter Terrorism and Public Awareness Plan
• Organized Terrorism Against Government Leaders
• War on Terror and Its Victory Meaning
• Terrorism Definitions by the Global Community
• Islamic Terrorism in Ridley Scott’s “Body of Lies”
• Terrorist Attack: Contemporary Social or Cultural Issues
• War on Drugs and Terror and American Promise
• Hazard Vulnerability Analysis and Terrorism
• Terrorist Participation and Its Motives
• The UAE Against Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing
• Cyberterrorism as the Greatest Risk for the US
• The Rise of Terrorist Organisations in Post-Invasion Iraq
• Factors That Motivate to Terrorism
• State-Sponsored and Non-State Terrorism
• Vietnam War vs. War on Terror in the Middle East
• Ideology and Terrorism: Rights from Wrongs?
• American War on Terror and Operational Strategies
• Local Operational Planning for Potential Terrorist Threats
• Terrorism Preventive Measures in the United States
• Aum Shinrikyo Terrorist Group’s Activity
• Bioterrorism Attacks and Nursing Countermeasures
• Terrorism Prevention on the International Level
• Violent Extremism and Suicide Terrorist Attacks
• Terror Attacks and Intelligence Community in the US
• Islamic State Global Terror Threat Countermeasures
• War on Terror in Saudi Arabia and Arab Gulf States
• Terrorist Groups: Critical Discourse Analysis
• US Intelligence to Prevent Terrorist Attacks
• Female Terrorism: Causes and Features
• Terrorism: the Evolution of ISIS
• Cyber Security’s and Counter Terrorism’ Intersection
• Digital Media Usage to Recruit and Promote Terrorism
• Stereotyping Terrorists and Mental Sanity
• Homeland Security Changes: Adjusting to Terrorism
• Coping with Terrorism in the USA
• Terrorism in the Middle East
• Countering Terrorism: The US Intelligence Community
• First Responders to Terrorist Attack
• The Westgate Terror Attack in Kenya
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terrorism summary

terrorism , Systematic use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective. It has been used throughout history by political organizations of both the left and the right, by nationalist and ethnic groups, and by revolutionaries. Although usually thought of as a means of destabilizing or overthrowing existing political institutions, terror also has been employed by governments against their own people to suppress dissent; examples include the reigns of certain Roman emperors, the French Revolution ( see Reign of Terror), Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union under Stalin, and Argentina during the “dirty war” of the 1970s. Terrorism’s impact has been magnified by the deadliness and technological sophistication of modern-day weapons and the capability of the media to disseminate news of such attacks instantaneously throughout the world. The deadliest terrorist attack ever occurred in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001 ( see September 11 attacks ), when members of al-Qaeda terrorist network hijacked four commercial airplanes and crashed two of them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center complex in New York City and one into the Pentagon building near Washington, D.C.; the fourth plane crashed near Pittsburgh, Pa. The crashes resulted in the collapse of much of the World Trade Center complex, the destruction of part of the southwest side of the Pentagon, and the deaths of some 3,000 people.

Ethics and Morality

Terrorism: what, why, and how to stop it, we will need a flexible integration of force and engagement..

Posted October 13, 2023 | Reviewed by Monica Vilhauer

The daily news seems to highlight an upsurge in terrorism, with each incident more violent than the last, leading us to ask: Why do they do this? And what is the best way for the world to respond?

Although it never really left, recent world events have thrust terrorism back into the consciousness of people around the globe. Dealing with it effectively requires understanding its tactics, ideology, and psychology.

The Nature and Purposes of Terrorism

The word terrorism derives from the Latin, terrere, which means “to frighten,” and the first modern use of the term derives from the 18th-century “Reign of Terror” associated with the French Revolution. Terrorism is as old as civilization, and as timeless as human conflict. It has existed ever since some factions discovered that they could intimidate the many by targeting the few. However, terrorism has achieved special prominence in the modern technological era, beginning in the 1970s as international terrorism, continuing through the 1980s and 1990s as domestic terrorism in the U.S. and elsewhere, and apparently coming full circle in the 21st century with mass terror attacks in nations including the United States, France, and, most recently, Israel.

Psychologically, terrorism can be viewed from several perspectives. On the one hand, almost all conventional armed conflict contains an element of terror. Why threaten war at all unless the goal is to intimidate your enemy into complying with your demands? And if they resist, your strategy is to instill as much fear as possible in order to increase the likelihood of their capitulation. Additionally, where one side’s conventional combat forces are numerically or technologically deficient, terrorism puts disproportionate psychological power into the hands of a small group of ideologues or opportunists.

Terrorist Typologies

Historically, a terrorist act is rarely an end in itself but is rather designed to stoke fear in whole populations by targeting a small, representative group. However, this may be changing with acts of mass terrorism, and the tactics may relate to the different aims of various terrorist groups. Instrumental terrorism describes acts carried out to coerce the target group into taking some action or complying with a demand. Theoretically, at least, the terror will end if and when the demands are met or a compromise is forged.

By contrast, there is little that may be done to appease the perpetrators of retributive terrorism, who are primarily interested not in influencing, but in destroying their enemies. Here, the target is hated not because of what they do, but for the very fact that they exist, so nothing less than their complete expungement will suffice. Often, instrumental- and retributive-type terrorist groups are admixed and ill-defined even amongst themselves, which further complicates effective responses to them.

Terrorist Goals and Strategies

Yet, several elements appear to be almost universal in modern terrorist activities. The first is obviously the use of extreme violence as a primary instrument of coercion or intimidation. In this sense, the true targets of the terrorist act extend far beyond those directly affected. The goal of these activities is to use threats, harassment, and violence to create an atmosphere of fear that will eventually lead to some desired behavior on the part of the larger target population or government.

Second, victims are selected for their maximum propaganda value, usually ensuring a high degree of media coverage. A great deal of thought may go into the symbolic value of the attacks, or the victims may simply be targets of opportunity. This aggressive approach may backfire if the goal is to garner wider world sympathy, especially if noninvolved innocents, including children, are killed along with the direct targets. But in a malevolent twist, if the aim is actually to inflict as much pain and panic as possible, then indiscriminate slaughter may serve only too well: The target population had better comply because these terrorists will “do anything.”

Third, unconventional military tactics are used, especially secrecy and surprise, as well as deliberately targeting noncombatants; this is the commonly cited distinction between a terrorist and a soldier. Again, if the goal is to inflict maximum horror, then it makes sense to choose locations that contain the largest number of victims from all walks of life. Everyone is a target. No one is safe. These types of glaring acts are also the most likely to keep the terrorist group and their perceived grievances in the news cycle.

Fourth, intense and absolutist loyalty to the ideologies and aims of the organization characterizes most terrorist groups. Although there are exceptions, the bulk of hard-core terrorist members are typically not part-timers or mercenaries. The willingness to commit unspeakable acts — not to mention giving one’s own life — necessitates an unshakable belief that these acts are somehow for some transcendent and worthy purpose.

Are Terrorists Mentally Ill?

It is tempting to brand atrocious behavior as "crazy," because doing so helps take some of the willfully malevolent sting out of it. For example, such explanations are routinely proffered for the etiology of serial killings and school shootings, because reducing such an outrage to an anomalous scientific curiosity — as we do with a frightening disease — inserts a psychological barrier between our knowledge of the act and the terrifying and hopeless feelings that knowledge provokes. If only we can determine the “causes” of these behavioral pathologies, maybe we can discover a “cure.” Finally, pathologizing a violent act against us delegitimizes any traces of justification we may reluctantly suspect underlies the act: Nope, we didn’t do anything wrong; they’re just a bunch of malevolent psychos.

In fact, the few studies that have directly examined the mental status of captured terrorists have failed to disclose significant signs of intellectual impairment or serious mental disorder. What these individuals do show is a heightened ability to rationalize and compartmentalize their violent motives and activities, believing that these are necessary actions in fighting for their cause: Evil transformed into nobility. But ideology is not psychopathology, so these individuals fully know what they’re doing and willfully, indeed enthusiastically, do it.

Stopping Terrorism

The standard response of antiterrorism units throughout the world has consisted of a surgical version of “shock and awe .” After a terrorist act occurs, find out who and where the perpetrators are, hit them soon, hit them hard, and thereby teach a lesson to any other miscreants who may be thinking of hatching and executing similar plots. However, systematic analysis shows that this unitary retaliatory approach to terrorism frequently not only fails to deter and discourage it but may in fact only perpetuate endless cycles of retribution.

This seeming paradox can actually be explained by an elemental principle of psychophysiology: habituation. Application of a novel, aversive stimulus typically elicits a marked response from the nervous system the first few times it occurs. Repeated application of the stimulus results in a lessening of the response: In essence, the nervous system adaptively “tones down” the impact of the event so that the individual can go about their business. An exception may occur with especially painful or damaging stimuli that threaten the life and safety of the organism; then, the nervous system may actually become more, not less, responsive to repeated application of the painful intrusion, or ones like it, a phenomenon called sensitization.

The problem with most counterterrorist tactical responses by otherwise civilized nations is that they rarely are the final suppressive measures the retaliatory forces intend them to be. In fact, such response doctrines of escalating proportionality may completely defeat the whole purpose of deterrence: What better way to bake in habituation than to administer carefully titrated doses of punishment , progressively inoculating your enemy to further retaliation, and thus emboldening him through your perceived impotence? Reluctant to be seen as barbarians themselves, the stronger side fails to wage a war of total destruction, thereby diluting the effect of whatever half-hearted efforts it applies and ends up achieving not pacification, but further rebellion.

This is the conundrum of fighting terror: demonstrating resolve without descending into the same depraved depths as your adversary. The many types of terrorists and reasons for terrorism virtually guarantee the failure of one-size-fits-all approaches. Many authorities advocate a forceful but flexible approach: an unwavering commitment to eliminating the extant threat and protecting one’s citizens, combined, where possible, with a willingness to diplomatically engage the majority nonviolent portion of the aggrieved population, wielding some measure of hope as a psychological counterforce to the sense of militant desperation fueling or speciously justifying atrocities carried out to entrench and expand the power of an evil few. The alternative is a Hobbesian “war of all against all,” which 21st-century technology must render untenable.

Note: Information provided herein is for educational purposes, and is not intended to provide individual clinical or forensic advice or opinions. For such cases, always consult with a qualified legal, medical, or mental health professional.

Miller, L. (2006). The terrorist mind: I. A psychological and political analysis. International Journal of Offender Rehabilitation and Comparative Criminology, 50, 121-138 . [Reprint available upon request]

Miller, L. (2006). The terrorist mind: II. Typologies, psychopathologies, and practical guidelines for investigation. International Journal of Offender Rehabilitation and Comparative Criminology, 50, 255-268 . [Reprint available upon request]

Miller, L. (2011). Psychological interventions for terroristic trauma: Prevention, crisis management, and clinical treatment strategies. International Journal of Emergency Mental Health, 13, 95-120.

Laurence Miller, Ph.D. , is a clinical and forensic psychologist, neuropsychologist, university professor, author, lecturer, expert witness, and frequent consultant and media commentator on the topics of neuroscience and criminal justice.

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Defining terrorism is a tedious and confusing task as there is a lack of consensus at the international level. However several efforts have been made in this regard.

Table of Contents

Defining Terrorism

An agreed, comprehensive definition of terrorism has never been created by the international community. The United Nations’ attempts to define the term during the 1970s and 1980s failed mostly because of disagreements among its members over the use of violence in conflicts over self-determination and national liberation. Due to these differences, a conclusion cannot be reached.

According to the FBI: “Terrorism is the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”

Causes of Terrorism

There are many causes such as:

Political causes

Insurgency and guerrilla warfare, a type of organized conflict, were the contexts in which terrorism was first theorized. A non-state army or organization committing political violence. Because they dislike the current system, they pick terrorism. They oppose the current social structure and wish to change it.

Religious reasons

In the 1990s, experts started to claim that a brand-new sort of terrorism propelled by religious zeal was on the increase. They cited groups like Al Qaeda, the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo, and Christian identity movements. Religious concepts like martyrdom were viewed as especially hazardous.

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Socio-Economic

According to socio-economic theories, persons who experience different types of deprivation are more likely to turn to terrorism or are more open to being recruited by groups that use terrorist tactics. Lack of political freedom, lack of access to education, and poverty are a few examples.

Types of Terrorism

The following are the various types of terrorism.

Ethno-Nationalist

According to Daniel Byman, ethnic terrorism is the premeditated use of violence by a subnational ethnic group to further its cause. Such violence typically aims at either the establishment of a separate State or elevating one ethnic group above another.

Activities by Tamil nationalist groups in Sri Lanka are an example of Ethno-Nationalist terrorism.

Hoffman claims that those who engage in terrorism who are either wholly or partially driven by religious imperative view violence as a sacramental or heavenly responsibility. Religious terrorism is more destructive because it adopts different justifications and modes of legitimization than other terrorist organizations.

Ideology oriented

Several ideologies have been used to legitimize terrorism. They include:

Left-Wing Extremism

The idea focuses on overthrowing the state through an armed struggle and establishing a communist state.

Right Wing Extremism

Right-wing organizations typically aim to preserve the status quo or go back to a scenario from the past that they believe should have been preserved.

They might compel the government to seize a piece of land or to step in to defend the rights of a minority that is being “oppressed” in a neighbouring nation.

State Sponsored

State-sponsored terrorism and proxy war are as old as organized warfare itself. According to Walter Laqueur, these customs were in place in antiquity in the Eastern Empires, Rome and Byzantium, Asia, and Europe.

Impacts of Terrorism

It seriously jeopardizes global peace and security and undercuts the fundamental principles of growth, peace, and humanity. Terrorist activities not only have a catastrophic human cost in terms of lives lost or permanently changed, but they also endanger political stability and economic and social advancement.

Often, terrorist attacks disregard international boundaries.CBRNE (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosives) materials are used in terrorist attacks that have devastating effects on infrastructure and communities.

Measures To Counter Terrorism

• The United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) is responsible for leading and coordinating the UN system’s efforts to prevent and combat terrorism and violent extremism worldwide.
• Under UNOCT, the UN Counter-Terrorism Centre (UNCCT) encourages global collaboration in the fight against terrorism and assists the Member States in putting the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy into practice.
• The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s (UNODC) Terrorism Prevention Branch (TPB) is a key player in global efforts.
• International standards are established by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) , a global organization that monitors money laundering and terrorist funding to prevent these illicit actions and the harm they do to society.

Notable incidents of 21st century

The 21st century has seen several major terrorist attacks that have had profound impacts on global politics, security policies, and international relations. Here are some of the most notable:

September 11, 2001 (9/11) – United States

• Details: Coordinated attacks by the terrorist group al-Qaeda, involving the hijacking of four commercial airplanes. Two planes were flown into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, one into the Pentagon, and the fourth crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to overpower the hijackers.
• Impact: Nearly 3,000 people were killed. The attacks led to the U.S. launching the War on Terror, including the invasion of Afghanistan and later Iraq.

2002 Bali Bombings – Indonesia

• Details: Two bombs exploded in a nightclub district in Bali, killing 202 people, most of whom were foreign tourists. Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian Islamist terrorist organization, carried out the attack.
• Impact: The bombings brought international attention to the threat of Islamist terrorism in Southeast Asia and led to a crackdown on Jemaah Islamiyah.

2004 Madrid Train Bombings (3/11) – Spain

• Details: A series of coordinated bombings on the commuter train system during the morning rush hour, killing 193 people and injuring over 2,000. An al-Qaeda-inspired group carried out the attack.
• Impact: The bombings occurred just days before Spain’s general elections, influencing the outcome and leading to Spain’s withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

2005 London Bombings (7/7) – United Kingdom

• Details: Coordinated suicide bombings on the London public transport system, targeting three Underground trains and a double-decker bus. The attacks killed 52 civilians and injured more than 700.
• Impact: The bombings were a stark reminder of the ongoing threat of Islamist terrorism in Europe and led to significant changes in security and counterterrorism policies in the UK.

2008 Mumbai Attacks (26/11)- India

• Details: A group of ten terrorists from the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba carried out a series of shootings and bombings across Mumbai over four days, killing 166 people, including foreign nationals, and injuring hundreds more.
• Impact: The attacks strained India-Pakistan relations and led to a major overhaul of India’s counterterrorism and intelligence apparatus.

2015 Paris Attacks – France

• Details: Coordinated attacks by the Islamic State (ISIS) on various locations, including the Bataclan concert hall, cafes, and the Stade de France stadium. The attacks killed 130 people and injured hundreds more.
• Impact: The attacks led to a state of emergency in France and intensified the global fight against ISIS. It also sparked widespread fear and heightened security measures across Europe.

2016 Brussels Bombings – Belgium

• Details: Suicide bombers affiliated with ISIS targeted Brussels Airport and a metro station, killing 32 civilians and injuring over 300.
• Impact: The bombings highlighted vulnerabilities in European security and led to increased efforts to combat radicalization and improve intelligence-sharing among European nations.

2019 Christchurch Mosque Shootings – New Zealand

• Details: A white supremacist terrorist attacked two mosques during Friday prayers, live-streaming the attack on social media. Fifty-one people were killed, and dozens were injured.
• Impact: The attack prompted a global conversation on the rise of white supremacist terrorism and led to significant changes in New Zealand’s gun laws.

A combined effort at the international level is the need of the hour to tackle the perils of terrorism. Terrorism of any form is unacceptable in a civilized society.

Read: Nuclear terrorism

Article written by: Vivek Rajasekharan

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Terrorism: A Very Short Introduction (2nd edn)

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Terrorism: A Very Short Introduction examines the historical, ideological, and local roots of terrorist violence and explores terrorism in relation to revolutionary power, nationalism, and religious extremism. How does terrorism end? Is one person's terrorist another's freedom fighter? Is terrorism crime or war? For many, the terrorist attacks of September 2001 changed the face of the world, pushing terrorism to the top of many political agendas, leading to a series of world events including the war in Iraq and the invasion of Afghanistan. This VSI considers complex issues related to the successes of specific terrorist and anti-terrorist campaigns in the distant past, and in recent years.

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COMPASS Manual for Human Rights Education with Young people

War and terrorism.

That until the basic human rights are equally Guaranteed to all, without regard to race Dis a war That until that day The dream of lasting peace, world citizenship Rule of international morality Will remain in but a fleeting illusion To be pursued, but never attained Now everywhere is war, war. Bob Marley 1

All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations   Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter

• War, terrorism and human rights

Acts of war or terrorism challenge the human rights framework almost to the point where it seems to collapse. It is hard to see any place for human rights when human life is deliberately targeted, or where it is seen as "collateral damage" in the course of mass bombing campaigns, which either directly or indirectly lead to sickness, disease, suffering, destruction of homes, and death. In times of war, particularly wars which last for years on end, every human right appears to be affected adversely. Health systems break down, education suffers, and home, work, supplies of food and water, the legal system, freedom of the press and free speech, and accountability for abuses by the state – or by the "enemy" state – all see restrictions, if they do not disappear completely. However poor protections were in peacetime, the rights of children, women, minority groups and refugees will almost certainly be poorer still in times of war.

The protection offered by the human rights conventions does not cease in case of armed conflict 2 . International Court of Justice

War and terrorism are indeed a breakdown of humanity, acts which seem to undermine and sideline the values at the heart of human rights – and the legal system which protects them. However, even in the midst of such a breakdown, human rights continue to operate, albeit in a weakened state, and although they cannot fix all evils, they can provide some minimal protection and some hope for justice.

Wars and national emergencies allow for states to "derogate" from – or temporarily put aside – some of their human rights commitments. However, certain human rights, such as the right to life or the right to be free from torture, inhuman and degrading treatment can never be put aside. These are regarded as so important and so fundamental that they should be observed even when a state's security is at risk.

A judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in 2011 3 (Al-Skeini and Others v. the UK) found that the United Kingdom had been in violation of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, providing for the right to life, in its treatment of a number of civilians while carrying out security operations in Basra, Iraq. The case was the first of its kind in finding that the European Convention applied in times of war, in foreign territories, and over the whole region for which a signatory to the Convention had effective control. Other cases have found that the treatment given to prisoners in detention camps amounted to torture.

• When is a war a war?

In many ways war and terrorism are very similar. Both involve acts of extreme violence, both are motivated by political, ideological or strategic ends, and both are inflicted by one group of individuals against another. The consequences of each are terrible for members of the population – whether intended or not. War tends to be more widespread and the destruction is likely to be more devastating because a war is often waged by states with armies and huge arsenals of weapons at their disposal. Terrorist groups rarely have the professional or financial resources possessed by states.

Apart from the methods used and the extent of the violence, however, war and terrorism are also seen differently by international law. The differences are not always clear-cut and even experts may disagree about whether a violent campaign counts as terrorism, civil war, insurgency, self-defence, legitimate self-determination, or something else.

Question: In the 20th century, Chechens, Abkhaz, Kurds, Palestinians and Irish Nationalists have all seen themselves as fighting a war against a colonising nation. Nation states have always regarded the actions of such groups as terrorism. How can we decide which is the right term?

Problems in defining war

Wars are sometimes defined by the fact that they take place between nation states: but where does that leave civil war, or the so-called "War on Terrorism"? Sometimes a formal declaration of war is taken as defining an act of war, but that excludes low-level bombing campaigns which take place over a number of years, such as the United States' attacks on the borders of Pakistan or in the no-fly zones declared over Iraq in the 1990s.

You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake. Jeanette Rankin 4

Should a definition of war include economic or trade wars, both of which may be enormously destructive in terms of human life? Are sanctions a form of war? UNICEF estimated that the sanctions on Iraq in the 1990s led to the deaths of over half a million children (and many adults).

Question: Carl Von Clausewitz, a Prussian military general, defined war as follows: "War is thus an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will." Do you agree with this as a definition?

• What is terrorism?

Terrorism is intimidation with a purpose: the terror is meant to cause others to do things they would not otherwise do. Igor Primoratz

Terrorism is another of those terms that everyone seems ready to use, but no-one can agree on an exact definition. Even the experts continue to argue about the way the term should be applied, and there are said to be over a hundred different definitions of terrorism, not one of which is universally accepted.

This lack of agreement has very practical consequences: to take just one example, the UN has been unable to adopt a convention against terrorism, despite trying for over 60 years to do so, because its member states cannot agree on how to define the term. The UN General Assembly tends to use the following in its pronouncements on terrorism:

"Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them." 5

Ancient Terrorists The three most famous "terrorist" groups existing before the 18th century were religiously inspired, (and all had names which passed into the English language as words associated with their acts: fanatics are known as zealots, assassins are murderers, and thugs are violent or brutish individuals).

• The Sicarii, otherwise known as the Zealots, were a Jewish movement in the 1st century who tried to expel the Romans from Palestine. They used ruthless methods, including mingling in crowds at public gatherings and stabbing their victim before disappearing back into the crowd.
• The Assassins were a medieval Shia Muslim sect who aimed to purify Islam, and targeted prominent religious leaders, using similar methods to the Sicarii in order to gain publicity.
• The Thugi (Thuggee) were an Indian group sometimes classified as a cult or sect, which operated over the course of about 600 years, brutally murdering travellers by strangulation, and according to very specific rules. They are the longest lasting such group, and were eliminated in the 19th century largely as a result of recruiting informants from within the group.

Question: Should the threat to use a nuclear bomb be classed as terrorism?

Terrorism: a classification

Some of the following criteria have been seen as important in deciding whether an act is one of "terrorism". Be aware that the experts do not all agree!

• The act is politically inspired

An act of terrorism normally has an end goal which is "bigger", and more strategic than the immediate effect of the act. For example, a bomb attack on civilians is meant to change public opinion in order to put pressure on the government.

• The act must involve violence or the threat of violence.

Some think that the mere threat of violence, if genuinely believed, may also be an act of terrorism, because it causes fear among those at whom it is directed, and can be used for political ends.

Act of Terrorism = Peacetime Equivalent of War Crime A.P. Schmid, in a 1991 report to the UN Crime Branch

• An act of terrorism is designed to have a strong psychological impact.

Terrorist acts are often said to be arbitrary or random in nature, but in fact groups tend to select targets carefully in order to provoke the maximum reaction, and also, where possible, to strike at symbols of the regime.

• Terrorism is the act of sub-state groups, not states.

This is probably the most widely disputed among different observers and experts. Nation states tend to use this as the essence of a terrorist act, but if we limit terrorist acts to sub-state groups, then we have already decided that a violent act carried out by a state cannot be terrorism, however terrible it may be!

• Terrorism involves deliberately targeting civilians.

This criterion is also disputed by many experts, since it rules out the possibility of attacks against military personnel or other state officials such as politicians or the police being classified as terrorist attacks.

Question: Can you define terrorism? How would you distinguish acts of terrorism from other forms of violence?

Can states commit terrorism?

I am convinced that the best – the only – strategy to isolate and defeat terrorism is by respecting human rights, fostering social justice, enhancing democracy and upholding the primacy of the rule of law. Sergio Vieira de Mello

The word terrorism was first used to describe the "Regime de la Terreur" (the Reign of Terror) in France in the last decade of the 18th century, and in particular, the period from 1793-1794 under Maximilien Robespierre. These years were characterised by the use of violent methods of repression, including mass executions authorised by the Revolutionary Tribunal, a court set up to try political offenders. Towards the end of this era in particular, people were often sentenced only on the basis of suspicion and without any pretence at a fair trial. All of the above led to a general atmosphere of fear: a state in which people could no longer feel secure from the threat of arbitrary violence. From such beginnings, the concept of terrorism entered the vocabulary.

During the 19th century, the term terrorism came to be associated more with groups working within a state to overthrow it, and less with systems of state terror. Revolutionary groups throughout Europe often resorted to violence in order to overthrow rulers or state structures that they saw as repressive or unjust. The most favoured technique was generally assassination and among the "successes" were the assassination of a Russian tsar, a French president, an Austro-Hungarian empress and an Italian king.

The 20th century, the most terrible in terms both of numbers of victims and perhaps in terms of the cruelty and inhumanity of methods, saw both governments and sub-state groups turning to violence in pursuit of their goals. The actors and initiators in this series of horrible dramas have included state officials, as well as sub-state groups. However, by the end of the century, it was almost exclusively the latter that were termed terrorist groups. The sub-state groups are often armed, funded and even trained by other states: does that make the states which prepare and support these groups terrorist states?

Question: Do you think state actions should be termed "terrorist" actions if they cause terror in the population?

• The use of force in international law

In war, truth is the first casualty. Aeschylus

International law covers a number of different cases involving the use of force by states. Sometimes – as in the quote at the start of the chapter – the law applies to cases when one state uses or threatens force against another state. Such cases are normally classed as wars, and are regulated by the UN Charter and the Security Council. Sometimes the law applies to the way force is used in the course of war – whether legal or illegal. This is generally the area of international humanitarian law. Even while a war is taking place, however, human rights law continues to function, although for certain rights, restrictions by the state may be more permissible than they would be in peace time.

War in international law

Un charter, kellogg-briand treaty.

The High Contracting Parties solemnly declare in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it, as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another. From the Kellogg-Briand Pact (also known as the General Treaty for the Renunciation of War, or the Pact of Paris)

As the most grandiose act in a series of peacekeeping efforts after the First World War , the Kellogg-Briand Pact was signed by 15 states in 1928, and later on by 47 others. Although the Treaty did not prevent later military actions between signatories, nor the eruption of the Second World War, it was important because it established a basis for the idea of "crimes against peace" and thus played a central role at the Nuremberg Trials. According to the Nuremberg (or Nürnberg) Principles 6 , crimes against peace include the "planning, preparation, initiation, or waging of wars of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties".

The solemn renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy necessarily involves the proposition that such a war is illegal in international law; and that those who plan and wage such a war [...] are committing a crime in so doing. From the Nuremberg Judgment

After the Nuremberg Trials, the Charter of the United Nations became the key international treaty regulating member states' use of force against each other. The Charter does not forbid war completely: it allows, in certain tightly defined circumstances, states to engage in war where this is necessary for them to defend themselves. Even such wars of self-defence, however, must be approved by the UN Security Council, except in rare cases where immediate action is necessary and there is insufficient time for the Security Council to meet.

Responsibility to protect (R2P)

In recent years, some countries have pushed for the idea that where people are suffering grave abuses at the hands of a state – for example, genocide is threatened – the UN should have the power, and the obligation, to step in to protect the people. This has included the possibility of military action against the state responsible. The genocide in Rwanda, where the international community failed to intervene, sparked the debate. The war in Kosovo was seen as one of the first examples of "humanitarian intervention" by military means and in 2011, NATO's military intervention in Libya was based on a similar principle.

Genocide is an act "committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group". Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) 7

The idea of R2P is not uncontroversial. Genocide and the other acts included are serious and terrible acts. However, critics have argued that R2P may be used as a pretext and some military interventions have not really been based on the likelihood of "mass atrocity crimes" but have been more political in nature. Many mass atrocity crimes do not appear to evoke R2P, and some of those where intervention has taken place have seemed less serious in terms of the dangers people face. Even the Responsibility to Protect involves the idea that intervening states should explore all other possible means before undertaking military action. It is not always clear that these avenues have been explored. Finally, people have questioned whether war, which is itself a terrible and destructive act, is an appropriate means of putting an end to suffering. Can the bombing of a country, with all that it entails, be the best way to promote peace and resolve what is often a much more deep-seated conflict between two sides?  

Question: Can war be the "best of two evils"?

The laws of war

Even in times of war, there are certain laws which impose limits on the actions of the warring parties, for example, concerning the treatment of prisoners of war, targeting civilian populations and medical care for the wounded. The "laws of warfare" are mostly governed by international humanitarian law, otherwise known as the Geneva Conventions.

The first Geneva Convention The first of the Geneva Conventions was signed in 1864. It was created after Henry Dunant, a citizen of Geneva, witnessed a ferocious battle at Solferino in Italy in 1859. He was appalled by the lack of help for the wounded, who were left to die on the battlefield, and proposed an international treaty which would recognise a neutral agency to provide humanitarian aid in times of war. His proposals led to what later became the creation of the International Committee of the Red Cross and also to the first Geneva Convention. The Convention made provisions for the humane and dignified treatment of those no longer engaged in the battle, regardless of whose side they were on.

The Geneva Conventions continued to be developed up to 1949, when the fourth Geneva Convention was adopted and the previous three were revised and expanded. Later, three amendment protocols were added. These Conventions have been ratified in whole or in part by 194 countries. In addition to the Geneva Conventions, there are other standards in international humanitarian law, including the Hague Conventions and a range of international treaties on the weapons that can and cannot be used in warfare. Throughout the 1990s, a coalition of NGOs successfully lobbied for an international ban on the production and use of landmines. The Ottawa Treaty or the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention was adopted in 1997 and has since been ratified by 157 states worldwide. The Coalition continues to campaign for a treaty which bans the use of cluster bombs, which, just like landmines, leave a trail of destruction even once a war has ended.

The most serious violations of international humanitarian law are considered to be war crimes. War crimes are such serious offences that they are held to be criminal acts for which individuals can be held accountable.

War crimes Based on the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949), war crimes (in the Convention: "grave breaches") include: "Wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person, compelling a protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile power, or wilfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial [...], taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly." 9

Other acts for which individuals can be held responsible include crimes against humanity, mass murder and genocide. Crimes against humanity are severe crimes committed against a civilian population, such as murder, rape, torture, enslavement and deportation. 

The first trials of individuals for such crimes were the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials of Nazi and Japanese political and military leaders in the aftermath of the Second World War. Since then, a number of ad hoc tribunals have been set up, for example to deal with the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Cambodia, Lebanon and Sierra Leone. Other conflicts, many equally serious, have not seen special tribunals set up, which has sometimes provoked criticism that the decision on whether to do so is influenced by political factors.

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was set up by the UN to prosecute serious crimes committed during the wars in the former Yugoslavia and to try their perpetrators. The majority of those indicted have been Serbs and this has led to accusations of bias from some observers. Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch criticised the ICTY for failing to investigate a number of serious charges against the NATO forces, including the bombing of Serbian State Television and a railway bridge when it was evident that civilians had been struck. Amnesty's report into violations of humanitarian law recorded that "NATO failed to take necessary precautions to minimize civilian casualties". 10

Question: War Tribunals – including the Nuremberg Trials – are sometimes seen as "victor's justice". Do you think both sides in a war should be judged according to the same principles?

[T]hose who export war ought to see to the parallel export of guarantees against the atrocities of war. Judge Giovanni Bonello, in the European Court of Human Rights' judgment on Al-Skeini and Others v. UK 11

The International Criminal Court

The second half of the 20th century saw a movement to set up a permanent court to deal with the worst crimes against humanity. In 1998, the Rome Statute was adopted, which provided the legal basis for the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC came into being in July 2002 and sits in The Hague in the Netherlands. The ICC is the first permanent international court and has been set up to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression. Even though the Rome Statute is ratified by states, the ICC prosecutes individuals who are responsible for crimes, not the states. As of 1 January 2012, 119 countries are state parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, including nearly all of Europe, but excluding for example the United States, India, China and Russia. The court has opened investigations into conflicts in Sudan, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, the Central African Republic and Libya.

Question: Can you think of any individuals who are responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide or the crime of aggression that should be taken before the International Criminal Court?

To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole. Robert Jackson, Chief American prosecutor at Nuremberg

Terrorism in international law

Drawing up international legislation to deal with terrorism has been beset with problems, mainly because of the difficulty of reaching a common definition of the term. The Council of Europe has produced a set of guidelines 12 on where the line can be drawn in order not to violate other international treaties or agreements.

The guidelines contain the following key points:

• Respect for human rights and the rule of law – and prohibition of discrimination.
• Absolute prohibition of torture: "The use of torture or of inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, is absolutely prohibited, in all circumstances …"
• The collection and processing of personal data must be lawful and proportionate to the stated aim.
• Measures which interfere with privacy must be provided for by law.
• Anyone suspected of terrorist activities may only be arrested if there are reasonable suspicions and he/she must be informed of those reasons.
• A person suspected of terrorist activities has the right to a fair hearing, within a reasonable time, by an independent, impartial tribunal established by law. They benefit from the presumption of innocence.

All measures taken by States to fight terrorism must respect human rights and the principle of the rule of law, while excluding any form of arbitrariness, as well as any discriminatory or racist treatment. Council of Europe Guidelines on human rights and the fight against terrorism

• "A person deprived of his/her liberty for terrorist activities must in all circumstances be treated with due respect for human dignity."
• "The extradition of a person to a country where he/she risks being sentenced to the death penalty or risks being subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment may not be granted."
• "States may never […] derogate from the right to life as guaranteed by these international instruments, from the prohibition against torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, from the principle of legality of sentences and of measures, nor from the ban on the retrospective effect of criminal law."

Human rights and terrorism

There are two key areas where the concepts of human rights and terrorism may come into conflict: the first, most obviously, concerns an act of terrorism itself; the second concerns measures that may be taken by official organs in the process of trying to counter terrorism.

Irrespective of the way that terrorism is defined and irrespective of the reasons behind it or the motivation for engaging in it, the act of terrorising members of the population constitutes a violation of their dignity and right to personal security, in the best case, and a violation of the right to life, in the worst. In terms of human rights law, the matter is less simple since human rights law has mostly been drawn up to protect individuals from infringements on their rights and liberty from the side of governments. There is no possibility, for example, to take a terrorist group to the European Court of Human Rights!

However, governments do possess certain obligations: firstly, in terms of protecting citizens from attacks on their personal security; secondly, in terms of compensating victims who may have suffered from terrorist attacks; and thirdly, of course, in terms of not engaging in terrorism themselves.

Question: Do you think that a country which exports arms which are then used against civilians should be held accountable for the use to which the weapons are put? Do you know which groups or countries your government sells arms to?

A number of human rights issues arise in connection with the fight against terrorism – and there is almost bound to be a continuing tension between the measures a government regards as necessary to take in order to protect the populace and the rights it may need to limit in order to do so.

Secret renditions A report written by Dick Marty for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in 2006 13 looked at the assistance given by various European countries to the United States of America in "rendering" suspected terrorists to countries where they faced torture. The report found that 7 countries – Sweden, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Britain, Italy, Macedonia, Germany and Turkey – could be held responsible for "violations of the rights of specific persons" because they had knowingly assisted in a programme which resulted in individuals being held without trial, often for a number of years and being subjected to torture. Other countries, including Spain, Cyprus, Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Romania and Poland were also accused of "collusion" with the United States. Marty said he had evidence to show that Romania and Poland were detainee drop-off points near to secret detention centres.

It is now more dangerous to be a woman than to be a soldier in modern conflict. Major General Patrick Cammaert, 2008 (former UN Peacekeeping Operation commander in DR Congo)

• The victims of conflict

War and terrorism have a terrible and long-lasting impact on huge numbers of people. Deaths at the time of conflict are just one element: psychological trauma, collapse of the physical and economic infrastructure, displacement of people, injury, disease, lack of food, water or energy supplies and a breakdown of trust and normal human relations are some of the others. The impact can last for generations. With the decline in inter-state wars and the rise in civil wars and new methods of warfare, civilian populations are now at more risk and suffer higher casualties than professional soldiers. UN Women estimate that in contemporary conflicts as many as 90% of casualties are civilians, the majority of whom are women and children 14 . Rape and sexual violence are used as a weapon of war, as a tactic to humiliate, dominate and instil fear in communities. 

Women in armed conflicts In October 2000, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1325 to address the issues faced by women in armed conflict. The Resolution calls for their participation at all levels of decision making on conflict resolution and peace building. Four further resolutions have since been adopted by the Security Council. The five documents focus on three key goals: - Strengthening women's participation in decision making - Ending sexual violence and impunity - Providing an accountability system

Child soldiers

A particularly sobering development in warfare, particularly over the past ten years, is the use of children as soldiers in brutal conflicts. Child soldiers exist in all regions of the world and participate in most conflicts. However, the problem is especially critical in Africa, where children as young as nine have taken part in armed conflict. Most child soldiers are between the ages of 14 and 18. Child soldiers are recruited by both rebel groups and government forces.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child requires state parties to ensure that children under the age of 15 do not take part in hostilities. However, this is felt by many to be too low, and initiatives have been made to raise the minimum to 18 years old. The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict (with 143 state parties as of November 2011) raised the minimum age to 18.

European countries do not recruit under the age of 17 and do not send soldiers into combat under the age of 18. The UK has the lowest recruitment age in Europe – 16 years old, although this is nominally for training purposes only. The UK has been widely criticised for this by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. In Chechnya, children under 18 have reportedly served in rebel forces.

• Youth, war and terrorism

In 2011, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work".

Young people are directly concerned by war in many ways. In addition to the case of child soldiers mentioned above, young people constitute the vast majority of soldiers, especially in countries and times of national military service. It can therefore be said that young people are in the front line of the victims of war. In the case of professionalised armies, it is often young people from underprivileged social backgrounds who are enlisted into armed forces, because they have fewer opportunities of earning a decent living.

What have I done? … Someone has lost her husband, someone else a father, someone a child, someone an unborn infant ... . What's this debris of the corpses? Are these marks of victory or defeat? Are these vultures, crows, eagles the messengers of death or evil? Ashoka

Young people are often targeted by terrorist groups as possible agents of terrorist attacks, regardless of the motivation, as exemplified by the attacks in London in 2005. This is often attributed to the identity-searching that some young people experience and that makes them especially vulnerable to extremist ideas and ideals. Young people may also be specifically targeted by terrorist attacks, as exemplified by the attacks in Norway in 2011 and by attacks on schools in the Caucasus.

Youth organisations have traditionally played an important role in raising awareness about the non-sense of war and the costs it imposes on young people. Several reconciliation and exchange programmes were set up after the carnages of the First World War; many of them still exist today, such as Service Civil International or the Christian Movement for Peace / Youth Action for Peace which promote international voluntary youth projects and workcamps.

The European Bureau of Conscience Objection works for the recognition of the right to conscience objection to military service – the right to refuse to kill – in Europe and beyond.

War Resisters International is an international movement created in 1921 under the credo: "War is a crime against humanity. I am therefore determined not to support any kind of war, and to strive for the removal of all causes of war". WRI promotes non-violence and reconciliation and supports conscience objectors and asylum seekers in cases of draft evasion or desertion.

1 Bob Marley in the song "War", adapted from Ethiopian Emperor H.I.M. Haile Selassie's address to the United Nations on October 1963 2  Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice of 9 July 2004, para. 106. 3 Al-Skeini and Others v. the United Kingdom, European Court of Human Rights Grand Chamber (Application no. 55721/07), 7 July 2011; http://www.bailii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/2011/1093.html 4 Jeanette Rankin was the first woman to enter U.S. House of Representative in 1917 5 1994 United Nations Declaration on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism annex to UN General Assembly resolution 49/60 , "Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism", of December 9, 1994 6 Document A/CN.4/L.2, Text of the Nürnberg Principles Adopted by the International Law Commission, Extract from the Yearbook of the International Law Commission: 1950,vol. II; http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/documentation/english/a_cn4_l2.pdf   7 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide; http://www.un.org/millennium/law/iv-1.htm 8 http://www.physiciansforhumanrights.org/blog/us-ban-landmines-facts.html    9 Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949 http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/380?OpenDocument 10 NATO/Federal Republic of Yugoslavia "Collateral Damage" or Unlawful Killings? Violations of the Laws of War by NATO during Operation Allied Force, Amnesty International - Report - EUR 70/18/00, June 2000; http://www.grip.org/bdg/g1802.html    11 See Endnote 2 above 12 Human rights and the fight  against terrorism, The Council of Europe Guidelines, 2005; http://www.echr.coe.int/NR/rdonlyres/176C046F-C0E6-423C-A039-F66D90CC6031/0/LignesDirectrices_EN.pdf 13 Alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers involving Council of Europe member states,  Parliamentary Assembly, Doc. 10957, 12 June 2006 http://assembly.coe.int/Documents/WorkingDocs/doc06/edoc10957.pdf 14 http://www.womenwarpeace.org/

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