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Categories and Approaches
This website reflects my view of terrorism and its history. The subject is a controversial one, with competing opinions and arguments. This does not necessarily mean that some are “right” and other “wrong,” but that they may approach the subject of terrorism with different agendas and address different audiences. My agenda is to increase the general population’s understanding of terrorism, and, to me, this requires a broad and inclusive approach.

If you want a full exposition of my work on the history of terrorism, you can read Another Kind of War, of course. But even those who do not turn its pages can get a sense of my categories and approaches by reading this brief section. In addition, the supplements on this website begin with the English version of a chapter, “Terrorism as War,” that I published in a French work on modern warfare.

Here are some basics. Walter Laqueur, a wise scholar, questioned the value of trying to define terrorism, since he argued there was not one but many terrorisms. Accepting his warning, I avoid a water-tight dictionary definition, and instead of defining terrorism, I describe it by six traits:

1. the use of violence or the threat of violence

2. that is directed against the persons or property

3. of those unable or unprepared to defend themselves,

4. primarily to create fear and/or outrage

5. through the propagation of public knowledge,

6. with the intention of affecting public policy or community action.

Of these six, two require special attention, 3 and 4. Most commentators stipulate that terrorism is violence directed against civilians, some are looser including non-combatants. The important thing is that the violence is directed against those who cannot defend themselves. Self-defense, the moral foundation of killing in war, does not apply. Terrorism exploits soft targets. And while most definitions of terrorism focus on the fear it inflicts among a target audience, my traits argue that it also can be intended to incite the kind of outrage that leads to flawed or rash responses that are helpful to the terrorists’ cause. For example, it Islamist terrorism incites outrage that provokes Western governments to issue general condemnations of Islam or Muslims, that condemnation can be exploited by radical Islamists as proof of their contention that there is a Western war against Islam. Such a war would require dedicated Muslims to join the terrorists in jihad. Terrorism is at base a kind of psychological warfare designed to manipulate through intimidation and provocation. Physical violence is simply a way to exert a psychological impact. The noted French political and social commentator, Raymond Aron, said, “An action of violence is labeled 'terrorist' when its psychological effects are out of proportion to its purely physical results.”

My list of traits is also notable for what it does not say. Authorities on terrorism are prone to stipulating that terrorism is a form of violence committed by sub-state entities, but I allow for six different levels of terrorism committed by different actors. I begin with the strongest actors and go down the scale to the weakest. State Regimes can terrorize their own populations; Military Forces at War can terrorize enemy populations; and dominant Social Groups, be they based on class, religion, ethnicity, etc., can terrorize other groups they perceive as inferior or dangerous. Criminal Groups employ acts of terrorism to advance their criminal enterprises by influencing political institutions or policies. Today, we are most concerned with the weakest actors, that I label as Radical Terrorists, these I split into two categories, sub-state groups and individuals. The great majority of my book, my courses, and this website focus on radical terrorism, but I devote chapters to the other levels of terrorism to establish context and avoid confusing boulders with stones.

My six levels can be represented in graphic form.

I also argue that terrorists pursue four basic strategies: Intimidation, Initiation, Attrition, and Evolution. We must be aware that these are broad categories that may blur at the edges, but they allow us to see differences in terrorists’ actions and goals. Intimidation relies on fear to suppress resistance and enforce compliance. It is the basic strategy of strong-capacity terrorists against their targets. Intimidation characteristically plays a role at all levels, so radical terrorist groups use it to awe their enemies, compete with their rivals, and punish those they see as slackers and traitors within their ranks and their support group. However, the weak tend to put greater emphasis on other strategies.

Initiation is a particularly attractive strategy for small and weak sub-state groups. It posits that the ills of government and/or society are so atrocious that the general population harbors a great body of discontent with the world as it is. All that the terrorists need do is draw attention to the wickedness of things as they are and the weakness of the forces that maintain the status quo. Violent terrorist attacks that the forces of order are unable to stop expose both. Initiation implies a small group can precipitate something great. It need not carry out the desired revolution, or even lead it, all the group needs to do is to get things rolling. Radical terrorists such as Narodnya Volya in late nineteenth-century Russia, and the Red Army Faction in Germany during the 1970s pursued strategies of initiation.

Attrition is as it sounds: one succeeds by wearing down the resistance of the foe. It implies that the terrorists are more committed and can endure longer than their enemies. Attrition also implies that the terrorist group itself is larger and stronger than groups limited to initiation. The Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), at least after 1976, exemplifies a strategy of attrition.

Evolution addresses a terrorist group’s desire to grow, increasing in size and resources, so that it can engage in higher levels of war. I contend that radical terrorism is entry level war, a way for the weak who believe that violence is their only recourse, but cannot launch an insurgency, much less a conventional war. But some who begin as terrorists hope to evolve into groups with a much greater capacity. The Israeli expert on terrorism, Ariel Merari, once quipped, “One might say that all terrorist groups want to be guerrillas when they grow up.” So, a strategy of evolution encompasses advancing up the political and military ladder to become a state, or semi-state, that can field a large army, and support it all with sufficient resources. The most outstanding example of evolution has been the Islamic State, but one could add others to the list, including the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Hezbollah, and Hamas.

I present these strategies in the following model:

Along with six terrorist traits, six levels of terrorism, and four strategies of terrorism, we can add three waves of radical terrorism. For a number of reasons, I argue that modern radical terrorism only begins after the failure of the Revolutions of 1848, when the dominant earlier form of effective popular political action – overt mass crowd revolts relying on urban barricades – gave way to covert small-scale terrorism by dedicated cells of extremists. This first wave subsided after 1920, with the bombing of Wall Street that year being its great parting shot. The second wave really began during or immediately after World War II. Its two predominant forms were national liberation terrorism, as with the Algerian Front de libération national (FLN), the Irish PIRA, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The other major form of terrorism during the second wave was that of the urban guerilla groups, including the Tupamaros of Uruguay, the American Weather Underground Organization, and the Italian Red Brigades. Holdouts from the second wave continued their struggles beyond 1980, but a third wave began about then. This third wave was and is radical Islamist, as exemplified by Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and the Islamic State. Its most salient strategy has been evolution.

There are those who define terrorism differently, emphasize fear alone as the primary goal of terrorists, talk of it only in terms of what I call radical terrorism, or describe periods or waves of terrorism with different characteristics and different chronologies. I have little interest in discrediting others, but I have good reasons to hold my positions.

Why bother you with all this now? It is necessary, because my book, my courses, and this website are organized around my concepts of traits, levels, strategies, and waves.

Despite the fact that the materials presented here reflect my categories and approaches, I hope, and expect, they will be of value even to those who would take exception to my views. This is something of an intellectual buffet, and you can choose as you want.
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