Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war against non-combatants. There are several different definitions of terrorism, without universal agreement on the precise meaning of the term. Different definitions of terrorism emphasize its randomness, the aims are to generally instill fear and to seek a broader impact, beyond the immediate effect on the victims that suffered the attack.
Modern terrorism, evolving from earlier iterations, employs various tactics to pursue political goals, often leveraging fear as a strategic tool to influence decision makers. By targeting densely populated public areas such as transportation hubs, airports, shopping centers, tourist attractions, and nightlife venues, terrorists aim to instil widespread insecurity, prompting policy changes through psychological manipulation and undermining confidence in security measures.
The terms "terrorist" and "terrorism" originated during the French Revolution of the late 18th century, but became widely used internationally and gained worldwide attention in the 1970s during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the Basque conflict and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The increased use of suicide attacks from the 1980s onwards was typified by the September 11 attacks in the United States in 2001. The Global Terrorism Database, maintained by the University of Maryland, College Park, has recorded more than 61,000 incidents of non-state terrorism, resulting in at least 140,000 deaths between 2000 and 2014.
Various organizations and countries have used terrorism to achieve their objectives. These include left-wing and right-wing political organizations, nationalist groups, religious groups, revolutionaries, and ruling governments. In recent decades, hybrid terrorist organizations have emerged, incorporating both military and political arms. State terrorism, with its institutionalized instrumentation of terror tactics through massacres, genocides, forced disappearances, carpet bombings and torture, is a deadlier form of terrorism than non-state terrorism.
Etymology and definition
Etymology
The term "terrorism" itself was originally used to describe the actions of the Jacobin Club during the "Reign of Terror" in the French Revolution. "Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible", said Jacobin leader Maximilien Robespierre. In 1795, Edmund Burke denounced the Jacobins for letting "thousands of those hell-hounds called Terrorists ... loose on the people" of France.Edmund Burke – To The Earl Fitzwilliam (Christmas, 1795.) In: Edmund Burke, Select Works of Edmund Burke, vol. 3 (Letters on a Regicide Peace) (1795).This Internet version contains two, mingled, indications of page numbers: one with single brackets like , one with double brackets like [ ]. Burke lengthily introduces his view on 'this present Directory government', and then writes on page : "Those who arbitrarily erected the new building out of the old materials of their own Convention, were obliged to send for an Army to support their work. (...) At length, after a terrible struggle, the Troops prevailed over the Citizens. (...) This power is to last as long as the Parisians think proper. (...) To secure them further, they have a strong corps of irregulars, ready armed. Thousands of those Hell-hounds called Terrorists, whom they had shut up in Prison on their last Revolution, as the Satellites of Tyranny, are let loose on the people. (...)" John Calvin's rule over Geneva in the 16th century has also been described as a reign of terror.
The terms "terrorism" and "terrorist" gained renewed currency in the 1970s as a result of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the Irish Republican Army (IRA), Basque Homeland and Liberty (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, ETA), and the operations of groups such as the Red Army Faction. Leila Khaled was described as a terrorist in a 1970 issue of Life magazine. A number of books on terrorism were published in the 1970s. The topic came further to the fore after the 1983 Beirut barracks bombings and again after the 2001 September 11 attacks and the 2002 Bali bombings.
Definition
No definition of terrorism has gained universal agreement. Challenges emerge due to the politicised and emotionally charged nature of the term, the double standards used in applying it, and disagreement over the nature of terrorist acts and limits of the right to self-determination.Hoffman (1998), p. 23. See of Inside Terrorism Harvard law professor Richard Baxter, a leading expert on the law of war, was a skeptic: "We have cause to regret that a legal concept of 'terrorism' was ever inflicted upon us. The term is imprecise; it is ambiguous; and above all, it serves no operative legal purpose."
Different legal systems and government agencies employ diverse definitions of terrorism, with governments showing hesitation in establishing a universally accepted, legally binding definition. The international community has been slow to formulate a universally agreed, legally binding definition of this crime, and has been unable to conclude a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism that incorporates a single, all-encompassing, legally binding, criminal law definition of terrorism. These difficulties arise from the fact that the term "terrorism" is politically and emotionally charged. The international community has instead adopted a series of sectoral conventions, which do not have terrorism as a single cohesive criminal offense of terrorism. Rather, sectoral conventions criminalizes various types of criminal activities involved in the commission of terrorism (for example homicide). Terrorism can be seen as a high-impact subset of violent extremism.
Counterterrorism analyst Bruce Hoffman has noted that it is not only individual agencies within the same governmental apparatus that cannot agree on a single definition of terrorism; experts and other long-established scholars in the field are equally incapable of reaching a consensus. In 1992, terrorism studies scholar Alex P. Schmid proposed a simple definition to the United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ) as "peacetime equivalents of war crimes", but it was not accepted. Text may have been copied from this source, which is available under a Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. (Per this page . In 2006, it was estimated that there were over 109 different definitions of terrorism.Arie W. Kruglanski and Shira Fishman Current Directions in Psychological Science Vol. 15, No. 1 (February 2006), pp. 45–48
History
Pre-modern terrorism Early published studies like Paul Wilkinson considered terrorism a product of 19th-century revolutionary politics. Technological developments like the pistol and dynamite made possible the relentless onslaught of successful attacks and assassinations that shook the 19th-century. For the most part, scholars considered terrorism a modern phenomenon until David C. Rapoport published his seminal article Fear and Trembling: Terrorism in Three Religious Traditions in 1984.
Rapoport proposed three case studies to demonstrate "ancient lineage" of religious terrorism, which he called "sacred terror": the "Thugs", the Order of Assassins and the Jewish Sicarii Zealots. Rapoport argued religious terrorism has been ongoing since ancient times and that "there are signs that it is reviving in new and unusual forms". He is the first to propose that religious doctrines were more important than political rationales for some terrorist groups.Rapoport, D. (1984) "Fear and Trembling" in Mahan, S., Griset, P. L. (2012). Terrorism in Perspective. United Kingdom: Sage Publications:"Furthermore, the three cases illustrate a kind of terror nowhere adequately analyzed in our theoretical literature, terror designated here as holy or sacred. Before the nineteenth century, religion provided the only acceptable justifications for terror, and the differences between sacred and modern expressions (differences of nature, not scale) raise questions about the appropriateness of contemporary definitions. The holy terrorist believes that only a transcendental purpose which fulfills the meaning of the universe can justify terror, and that the deity reveals at some early moment in both time and end the means and may even participate in the process as well. We see terrorists as free to seek different political ends in this world by whatever means of terror they consider most appropriate.": "The misunderstandings about the nature of terrorism in the 1970s were founded, in part, on political reasons. At the time, terrorism was predominantly left wing in inspiration and it did not come as a surprise that commentators belonging to the same political persuasion would produce theoretical explanations which were, at the very least, not unsympathetic as far as terrorists were concerned. It was argued in these circles that terrorism always occurred where there was oppression, social or national, that the terrorists had genuine, legitimate grievances—hence the conclusion that once the grievances were eradicated, terrorism would also disappear. Terrorism, in brief, was seen as a revolutionary phenomenon; it was carried out by poor and desperate human beings and had, therefore, to be confronted with sympathetic understanding." Rapoport's work has since become the basis of the model of "New Terrorism" proposed by Bruce Hoffman and developed by other scholars. "New Terrorism" has had an unparalleled impact on policymaking. Critics have pointed out that the model is politically charged and over-simplified. The underlying historical assertions have received less critical attention. According to The Oxford Handbook on the History of Terrorism:
Since the publication of Rapoport's article, it has become seemingly pre-requisite for standard works on terrorism to cite the three case studies and to reproduce uncritically its findings. In lieu of empirical research, authors tend to crudely paraphrase Rapoport and the assumed relevance of "Thuggee" to the study of modern terrorism is taken for granted. Yet the significance of the article is not simply a matter of citations―it has also provided the foundation for what has become known as the "New Terrorism" paradigm. While Rapoport did not suggest which late 20th century groups might exemplify the implied recurrence of "holy terror", Bruce Hoffman, recognized today as one of the world's leading terrorism experts, did not hesitate to do so. A decade after Rapoport's article. Hoffman picked up the mantle and taking the three case studies as inspiration, he formulated a model of contemporary "holy terror" or, as he defined it, "terrorism motivated by a religious imperative". Completely distinct from "secular terrorists", Hoffman argued that "religious terrorists" carry out indiscriminate acts of violence as a divine duty with no consideration for political efficacy―their aim is transcendental and "holy terror" constitutes an end in itself. Hoffman's concept has since been taken up and developed by a number of other writers, including Walter Laquer, Steven Simon and Daniel Benjamen, and rebranded as the "New Terrorism".
Birth of modern terrorism (1850–1890s)