There is much confusion over what terrorism is and is not. The following
is an essay from the US Army's Command & General Staff College in Fort
Leavenworth, Kansas. The essay does an excellent job of explaining not
only the basics of terrorism, but also details the US policy towards this
phenomenon.
U.S. Army, Field Manual 100-20, Stability and Support Opperations, (Final Draft), "Chapter 8: Combatting Terrorism."
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The Basics: Combatting Terrorism
Terrorism is a special type of violence. It is a tactic used in peace, conflict, and war. The threat of terrorism is ever present, and an attack is likely to occur when least expected. A terrorist attack may be the event that marks the transition from
peace to conflict or war. Combatting terrorism is a factor to consider in all military plans and operations. Combatting
terrorism requires a continuous state of awareness; it is a necessary practice rather than a type of military operation.
Detailed guidance for establishing an organizational program to combat terrorism, including preventive and protective
measures and incident response planning, can be found in Joint Publication 3-07.2 (1993).
Terrorism is a criminal offense under nearly every national or international legal code. With few exceptions, acts of
terrorism are forbidden in war as they are in times of peace. See, for example, the Hague Regulation of 1907 and the
Geneva Conventions of 1949.
This definition was carefully crafted to distinguish between terrorism and other kinds of violence. The act of terrorism is defined independent of the cause that motivates it. People employ terrorist violence in the name of many causes. The tendency to label as terrorism any violent act of which we do not approve is erroneous. Terrorism is a specific kind of violence. The official definition says that terrorism is calculated. Terrorists generally know what they are doing. Their selection of a target is planned and rational. They know the effect they seek. Terrorist violence is neither spontaneous nor random. Terrorism is intended to produce fear; by implication, that fear is engendered in someone other than the victim. In other words, terrorism is a psychological act conducted for its impact on an audience. Finally, the definition addresses goals. Terrorism may be motivated by political, religious, or ideological objectives. In a sense, terrorist goals are always political, as extremists driven by religious or ideological beliefs usually seek political power to compel society to conform to their views. The objectives of terrorism distinguish it from other violent acts aimed at personal gain, such as criminal violence. However, the definition permits including violence by organized crime when it seeks to influence government policy. Some drug cartels and other international criminal organizations engage in political action when their activities influence governmental functioning. The essence of terrorism is the intent to induce fear in someone other than its victims to make a government or other audience change its political behavior. Terrorism is common practice in insurgencies, but insurgents are not necessarily terrorists if they comply with the rules of war and do not engage in those forms of violence identified as terrorist acts. While the legal distinction is clear, it rarely inhibits terrorists who convince themselves that their actions are justified by a higher law. Their single-minded dedication to a goal, however poorly it may be articulated, renders legal sanctions relatively ineffective. In contrast, war is subject to rules of international law. Terrorists recognize no rules. No person, place, or object of value is immune from terrorist attack. There are no innocents. This situation did not always prevail. Throughout history, extremists have practiced terrorism to generate fear and compel a change in behavior. Frequently, terrorism was incidental to other forms of violence, such as war or insurgency. Before the nineteenth century, terrorists usually granted certain categories of people immunity from attack. Like other warriors, terrorists recognized innocents-- people not involved in conflict. Terrorists usually excluded women, children, and the elderly from target lists. For example, in late nineteenth-century Russia, radicals planning the assassination of Tsar Alexander II aborted several planned attacks because they risked harming innocent people. Old-school terrorism was direct; it intended to produce a political effect through the injury or death of the victim. The development of bureaucratic states led to a profound change in terrorism. Modern governments have a continuity that older, personalistic governments did not. Terrorists found that the death of a single individual, even a monarch, did not necessarily produce the policy changes they sought. Terrorists reacted by turning to an indirect method of attack. By the early twentieth century, terrorists began to attack people previously considered innocents to generate political pressure. These indirect attacks create a public atmosphere of anxiety and undermine confidence in government. Their unpredictability and apparent randomness make it virtually impossible for governments to protect all potential victims. The public demands protection that the state cannot give. Frustrated and fearful, the people then demand that the government make concessions to stop the attacks. Modern terrorism offers its practitioners many advantages. First, by not recognizing innocents, terrorists have an infinite number of targets. They select their target and determine when, where, and how to attack. The range of choices gives terrorists a high probability of success with minimum risk. If the attack goes wrong or fails to produce the intended results, the terrorists can deny responsibility. Ironically, as democratic governments become more common it may be easier for terrorists to operate. The terrorist bombings of the New York City World Trade Center and the Oklahoma City Federal Building prove how easy it is for terrorists to operate in a free and democratic society. Authoritarian governments whose populace may have a better reason to revolt may also be less constrained by requirements for due process and impartial justice when combatting terrorists.
As commanders and staffs address terrorism, they must consider several
relevant characteristics. First is that anyone can be a victim. (Some
terrorists may still operate under cultural restraints, such as a desire to
avoid harming women, but the planner cannot count on that. Essentially, there
are no innocents.) Second, attacks that may appear to be senseless and random
are not. To the perpetrators, their attacks make perfect sense. Acts such as
bombing public places of assembly and shooting into crowded restaurants heighten
public anxiety. This is the terrorists' immediate objective. Third, the
terrorist needs to publicize his attack. If no one knows about it, it will not
produce fear. The need for publicity often drives target selection; the
greater the symbolic value of the target, the more publicity the attack brings
to the terrorists and the more fear it generates. Finally, a leader planning
for combatting terrorism must understand that he cannot protect every possible
target all the time. He must also understand that terrorists will likely shift
from more protected targets to less protected ones. This is the key to defensive measures.
Groups considering terrorism as an option ask a crucial question: Can
terrorism induce enough anxiety to attain its goals without causing a backlash
that will destroy the cause and perhaps the terrorists themselves? To misjudge
the answer is to risk disaster. Recent history offers examples of several
groups that had apparently good prospects for success which paid the price of
misjudging reaction to terrorism. In the early 1970s, the Tupamaros in Uruguay
and the ERP (People's Revolutionary Army) and Montoneros in Argentina misjudged
a hostile popular reaction to terrorism. They pushed the societies beyond their
threshold of tolerance and were destroyed as a result. The same is true of
several groups operating in Turkey in the late 1970s and, possibly, several
Mafiosi families in Italy in the 1990s.
Terrorist groups with strong internal motivations find it necessary to justify
the group's existence continuously. A terrorist group must terrorize. As a
minimum, it must commit violent acts to maintain group self-esteem and
legitimacy. Thus, terrorists sometimes carry out attacks that are objectively
nonproductive or even counterproductive to their announced goal.
Another result of psychological motivation is the intensity of group dynamics
among terrorists. They tend to demand unanimity and be intolerant of dissent.
With the enemy clearly identified and unequivocally evil, pressure to escalate
the frequency and intensity of operations is ever present. The need to belong
to the group discourages resignations, and the fear of compromise disallows
their acceptance. Compromise is rejected, and terrorist groups lean toward
maximalist positions. Having placed themselves beyond the pale, forever
unacceptable to ordinary society, they cannot accept compromise. They consider
negotiation dishonorable, if not treasonous. This may explain why terrorist
groups are prone to fracturing and why the splinters are frequently more violent
than their parent group.
The Jewish experience in Palestine is a classic example of splintering. In
1931, Haganah B broke from Haganah; in 1936, Irgun Svai Leumi split from Haganah
B; and in 1940, Lochamei Herut Israel, or the Stern Gang, broke from Irgun.
Each successive group was more rigid and violence-prone than its parent.
The psychodynamics also make the announced group goal nearly impossible to
achieve. A group that achieves its stated purpose is no longer needed; thus,
success threatens the psychological well-being of its members. When a terrorist
group approaches its stated goal, it is inclined to redefine it. The group may
reject the achievement as false or inadequate or the result of the duplicity of
"them." Nicaragua's Recontras, The Basque ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna,
"Basque Fatherland and Liberty"), and many Palestinian radical groups
apparently suffer from fear of success. One effective psychological defense
against success is to define goals so broadly that they are impossible to
achieve. Even if the world proclaims the success of a political movement, the
terrorists can deny it and fight on.
The treatment of life in general and individual life in particular is a
cultural characteristic that has a tremendous impact on terrorism. In societies
in which people identify themselves in terms of group membership (family, clan,
tribe), there may be a willingness to self-sacrifice seldom seen elsewhere.
(Note, however, that American soldiers are less surprised at heroic sacrifice
for one's military unit; the difference among cultures is in the group with
which one identifies.) At times, terrorists seem to be eager to give their
lives for their organization and cause. The lives of "others," being
wholly evil in the terrorists' value system, can be destroyed with little or no
remorse.
Other factors include the manner in which aggression is channeled and the
concepts of social organization. For example, the ambient level of violence is
shaped by the political structure and its provisions for power transfer. Some
political systems have no effective nonviolent means for the succession to
power. A culture may have a high tolerance for nonpolitical violence, such as
banditry or ethnic "turf" battles, and remain relatively free of
political violence. The United States, for example, is one of the most violent
societies in the world. Yet, political violence remains an aberration. By
contrast, France and Germany, with low tolerance for violent crime, have a
history of political violence.
A major cultural determinate of terrorism is the perception of "outsiders"
and anticipation of a threat to ethnic group survival. Fear of cultural
extermination leads to violence which, to someone who does not experience it,
seems irrational. All human beings are sensitive to threats to the values by
which they identify themselves. These include language, religion, group
membership, and homeland or native territory. The possibility of losing any of
these can trigger defensive, even xenophobic, reactions.
Religion may be the most volatile of cultural identifiers because it
encompasses values deeply held. A threat to one's religion puts not only the
present at risk but also one's cultural past and the future. Many religions,
including Christianity and Islam, are so confident they are right that they have
used force to obtain converts. Terrorism in the name of religion can be
especially violent. Like all terrorists, those who are religiously motivated
view their acts with moral certainty and even divine sanctions. What would
otherwise be extraordinary acts of desperation become a religious duty in the
mind of the religiously motivated terrorist. This helps explain the high level
of commitment and willingness to risk death among religious extremist groups.
Terrorist groups that are not supported by a government usually create a
support structure of sympathizers and people who have been coerced into helping
them. The support structure may comprise active and passive members. It
furnishes the active terrorists with logistic support, intelligence,
dissemination of propaganda, recruiting, and money.
Terrorist recruitment and training are, predictably, security-sensitive.
Among groups that are not ethnic-based, the usual sources of recruits are high
school and college students who show commitment to the cause. Ethnically based
terrorist groups recruit new members personally known to them, people whose
backgrounds are known and who often have family ties to the organization.
Intelligence penetration of organizations recruited in this way is extremely
difficult.
Terrorist training varies considerably. Those with military experience or who
have received prolonged training at sophisticated facilities are the equals of
most state security forces. At the other end of the spectrum are "throw
away" operatives who get little more than inspirational talks before being
activated. Typical training includes instruction in the use of small arms and
explosives along with intelligence collection and indoctrination in the group's
cause.
Contemporary terrorist actions include the traditional assassinations,
bombings, arson, hostage-taking, hijacking, kidnapping, seizure and occupation
of a building, attacks on a facility, sabotage, and perpetration of hoaxes.
Newer categories of operations include ecological terrorism and the still
largely potential "high-tech" terrorism using nuclear, biological, and
chemical (NBC) weapons and materials. Target selection considerations are
equally diverse but include the target's value in terms of its contribution to
group goals, its accessibility given group capabilities, and the purpose of the
attack, such as to gain attention, collect resources, eliminate a threat, or
demonstrate a capability. All these factors are reflected in the group's
organization and training.
Unfortunately, it is easier to prescribe unity of effort than to achieve it.
In circumstances where multiple police and intelligence agencies have vague and
overlapping charters and jurisdictions, friction is bound to occur. As in other
aspects of stability and support operations, the solution lies in negotiation
and consensus-building. Fortunately, experience has proved that cooperation at
the local unit or installation level is relatively easy to obtain.
In combatting terrorism, intelligence is extraordinarily important. The
essential elements of information (EEI) differ somewhat from those normally
found in traditional combat situations. In addition to the terrorists'
strength, skills, equipment, logistic capabilities, leader profiles, source of
supply, and tactics, more specific information is needed. This includes the
groups' goals, affiliations, indication of their willingness to kill or die for
their cause, and significant events in their history, such as the death of
martyrs or some symbolic event. The specific EEI are particularly important
because most terrorist groups are interested in symbolically significant targets
rather than in targets that would be operationally more damaging to US forces.
For example, a communications center is operationally significant, but a
terrorist interested in publicity to influence US policy might find a few
off-duty personnel or a motor pool more appealing and probably less protected.
Unless terrorists' specific interests are known, predicting the likely target is
pure chance.
The United States considers all terrorist acts criminal and intolerable and
condemns them without regard for their motivation. The United States will
support all lawful measures to prevent terrorism and bring perpetrators to
justice. We will not make any concessions to terrorist blackmail because to do
so will merely invite more terrorist actions. (No concessions does not mean no
negotiations.)
DOD has identified five threat levels to standardize reporting. They are
based on terrorists' existence, capability, intentions, history, targeting, and
the security environment. The five levels are described below:
Threat levels are not the same as threat conditions (THREATCON); the latter
are a matter of command decision that implements countermeasures. THREATCONs
and actions to implement them are described in AR 525-13 (1992), Joint Pub
3-07.2 (1993), and DOD Directive 2000.12 (1990).
Future terrorism is likely to include higher than ever levels of violence.
Hijackings, kidnappings, and drive-by shootings will continue, but their shock
effect has decreased with familiarity. Since terrorists need publicity to
inspire fear, familiarity causes them to seek more unusual events that capture
and hold public attention.
The March 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City may be
typical of future terrorist attacks. If the bombing had gone as planned by the
perpetrators, there might have been thousands of deaths. There was also a
conspiracy to attack symbolic landmarks, including the Holland Tunnel and the
United Nations headquarters, in and around New York that would have affected
thousands of people and caused millions in property damage. It is not difficult
to imagine the psychological effect of these types of attacks on the U.S.
public.
Although technology aids in the defense against terrorism, it also provides
terrorists with increased opportunities. Terrorists can operate in cyber space
to destroy or manipulate information for their own purposes. Skilled "hackers"
with terrorist intent can access all but the most secure data banks, stealing or
changing information, or destroying it. This gives them the potential, for
example, of manipulating the stock market for their own profit or to precipitate
inflation or depression. There is evidence of large-scale counterfeiting of
American currency to purchase weapons. This could cause serious economic
disruption. Access to police and other security files can keep terrorists one
step ahead of their government opponents.
Terrorists can follow the example of Iraq's Saddam Hussein and create
ecological disasters by starting fires and causing chemical spills. For
example, the forests of the American Northwest are vulnerable to arson. Seeking
more spectacular attacks, terrorists may poison water supplies or blow up dams
and levees. Chemical weapons have become increasingly powerful and easy to
produce. Triggering devices have become more sophisticated. The potential for
using weapons of mass destruction, including biological and nuclear material,
exists.
Parallel to these ominous developments favoring the terrorist is a disturbing
trend to resort to violence for an ever-widening range of causes. Terrorism is
practiced on a global scale in support of criminal business initiatives, various
social issues (for example, environmental and antiabortion extremists), ethnic
conflicts (ranging from US street gangs to conflicts in Central Africa and South
Asia), religious interpretation, traditional political power struggles, and
insurgencies. Combined, these factors bode ill for the future and demand the
attention of military commanders.
US military personnel will continue to be targets for terrorists for the same
reason they have in the past. Collectively and individually, they symbolize US
power. While no one will challenge the United States on the conventional
battlefield in the foreseeable future, terrorist acts are likely to be the
preferred form for expressing hostility toward the remaining superpower.
Relative to the other forms of political violence, terrorism remains cheap and
successful regarding limited objectives and carries low risk to the perpetrator.
The activities that are likely to engage US military personnel in the near
future occur in situations favorable to terrorism. These include peace
operations; humanitarian assistance; and foreign internal defense where
governments have failed, ethnic conflict prevails, widespread banditry exists,
and weapons are readily available.
Terrorism constitutes a threat in all stability and support operations. The
deployed forces' good intentions will not preclude terrorist actions to thwart
US national objectives. An effective antiterrorism program will reduce the
likelihood of successful terrorist attacks but only if it is so deeply instilled
that it is habitual.
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