short essay on effects 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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• Purposes for which Wild Flora is Illegally Targeted
• How is it Done and Who is Involved?
• Consequences of Harms to Wild Flora
• Terminology
• Background: Communities and conservation: A history of disenfranchisement
• Incentives for communities to get involved in illegal wildlife trafficking: the cost of conservation
• Incentives to participate in illegal wildlife, logging and fishing economies
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• Apr. 2021: Call for Expressions of Interest: Online training for academics from francophone Africa
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• Counter-Terrorism

Module 14: Victims of Terrorism

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E4J University Module Series: Counter-Terrorism

Introduction and learning outcomes.

• Definition of 'victim'

Effects of terrorism: A trauma and victimological perspective

• Access to Justice (victim's perspective)
• Recognition of the victim within the judicial process
• Legal framework
• International and regional human rights instruments
• International human rights law
• Regional human rights instruments
• Crime prevention and criminal justice mechanisms
• International and regional instruments governing victims of terrorism
• National approaches
• Key challenges in securing reparation

Exercises and case studies

Possible class structure, core reading, advanced reading, student assessment, additional teaching tools.

Published in July 2018.

  This module is a resource for lecturers  

Before considering the applicable legal frameworks and some key recurring issues for victims of terrorist attacks, it is important to identify some of the effects that the resultant violations and trauma may have on the victims themselves. Sometimes, in the counter terrorism context, such factors are not always as prominent as they should be, even though, ultimately, a primary objective of rule of law based counter-terrorism efforts is to prevent victimization.  In order to fully provide access to justice for victims, however, an understanding of the harm they have suffered, and the needs that arise because of that harm, is essential.

Notably, the impacts identified in this section are not intended to represent the specific experiences of all survivors of terrorist acts, but rather are descriptive of a range of responses which survivors might experience. Traumatic responses will differ between individuals and may be influenced by several factors, including the age and gender of the survivor, together with any political, religious or cultural affiliations which they hold (Baker, 1992, p. 83; Spiric et al., 2010, pp. 411-412). In addition, the socio-political-cultural context within which the trauma occurs will inform the way in which survivors interpret and respond to their experiences (Aroche and Coello, 2004, p. 56). These factors are discussed further in the context of the interrelationship between individual and societal trauma and are demonstrated through a case study example of the use of torture.

The potential effects on victims of terrorism can be devastating and multiple; it may be experienced at many interrelated levels - individually, collectively and societally. From a victimological perspective, there are three circles of 'personal victimization' which are determined in accordance with their proximity to the direct victim: " primary or first order victimization , experienced by those who suffer harm directly, whether it is injury, loss or death; secondary or second order victimization , experienced by family members, relatives or friends of primary victims; and tertiary or third order victimization , experienced by those who observe the victimization, are exposed to it through TV or radio coverage of the victimization, or help and attend to victims" (Erez, 2006, p. 20). (Italics added).

Unlike the effects of accidental injury or disease, research on the effects of crime has stressed mental, psychological and social effects, in contrast to physical or financial effects. This is attributable to the fact that crime is "qualitatively different from being the victim of an accident or disease, because it includes someone deliberately or recklessly harming you" (Shapland and Hall, 2007, p. 178). For the sake of completeness, both the potential physical and psychological consequences of terrorism are highlighted here. (See e.g. General Assembly, Human Rights Council report 19/38, para. 4).

Trauma and the individual

The physical consequences of terrorism-related acts and violations can include broken bones, soft tissue injuries, disability, long-term, chronic pain and sensory disturbance. Victims may experience visceral symptoms, including cardiovascular and respiratory difficulties, intestinal and urological problems and genital complaints (IRCT, 2009(a), Part C, sects. I, II and VI). They may also suffer somatic symptoms, including headaches and back pain (Hoge, 2007). Where abuses have included rape or other forms of sexual violence, survivors may also experience gynaecological, rectal and internal haemorrhaging (Tompkins, 1995, p. 857). Medical consequences can include the contraction of sexually transmitted disease including HIV and other chronic infections, cervical cancer (directly linked to HPV, or Genital Human Papilloma Virus infection, see Ghoborah, Huth and Russet, pp. 198-199), fistula, pregnancy, miscarriage, throat agitation and reproduction problems, together with somatic symptoms such as chronic pelvic pain and hormone dysfunction (Ingeborg, 2005, pp. 73-75; Bell, 2005, p. 117; Clifford, 2008).

At a psychological level, trauma can engender "a metamorphosis of the psyche… mental decomposition and collapse" (Vinar, 2005, p. 313). This in turn can affect a survivor's sense of self (Kira, 2002, p. 54), producing identity disorientation and essentially eliciting "the devastation of one's core identity" (Rauchfleisch, 1996, cited in Hárdi and Kroó, 2011, p. 133). Man-made trauma, such as that associated with terrorism, can shatter core beliefs, including belief in the world as a just place ('the existential dilemma') (Herlihy and Turner, 2006, p. 84; Ramsay, Grost-Unsworth and Turner, 1993, p. 55), in others as kind and trustworthy individuals, and in the inviolability of the self (IRCT, 2009(b), pp. 6-7; Agger, 1992, p. 13). Survivors of terrorist acts - such as hostage taking, hijacking or kidnapping - may experience fear, shock, anxiety, shame, guilt and self-blame, anger, hostility, rage and resentment (Schmid, 2006, p. 7), together with a sense of disempowerment and helplessness. Survivors may also suffer grief for the loss of others and the self, anxiety, depression (including suicidal ideation), emotional numbness and difficulties in recollection (Brewin, 2007, pp. 227-228; Duke et al., 2008, pp. 310-320; Smith and Patel, 2008). Some victims may also experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) which, in addition to depressive symptoms, may also include intrusive phenomena such as flashbacks and nightmares, and which may persist for months or years (Shapland and Hall, 2007, p. 178).

Notably, while PTSD is one of the most commonly diagnosed mental health disorders in survivors of atrocities, the diagnosis itself is controversial amongst some clinical experts and there is disagreement as to its cross-cultural applicability (Hárdi and Kroó, 2011, p. 136; Becker, 2003; OHCHR Professional Training Series No. 8/Rev.1, para. 237). Others criticize the diagnosis because it does not reflect the political, societal or cultural context of abuse suffered by victims (Herman, 1997, pp. 118-120; Aroche and Coello, 2004), the limited list of symptoms which the diagnosis encompasses and its perceived inability to encapsulate and reflect the full symptomology of the survivor (Silove, 1999, p. 201; Hárdi and Kroó, 2011). For others still, PTSD is the 'medicalization' of what they understand to be a natural response to a deeply traumatic experience (Becker, 2003).

Research conducted on the effect of terrorist attacks on victims has revealed that acts of terrorist violence often produce high proportions of significantly affected victims, i.e. that they tend to be at the higher end on the scale of effects. For example, "[a] longitudinal psychiatric evaluation of 32 victims of a bomb attack in a Paris subway in December 1996 found 39% were rated as having PTSD after six months, with 25% still having PTSD at 32 months" (Shapland and Hall, 2007, p. 200, citing Jehel, 2003). Similarly, a study conducted by Bleich et al. concerning responses of victims of terrorism in Israel, reported that of those who responded to questions about emotional harm, over three quarters (77%) had at least some traumatic stress symptoms and almost one-tenth (9.4%) had acute stress, with over half (59%) reporting feelings of depression. It was found that the level of exposure and objective risk of an attack were not related to stress (Erez, 2006, p. 93). One explanation for this is that any victim of crime may suffer consequential effects as a response, which includes "changes in perceived risk of future victimisation" (Shapland and Hall, 2007, p. 178). As Schmid has observed, "[t]he degree of terror as well as the resilience of the individual survivor play a role [in the degree of symptoms experienced as a result of terrorist attacks." (Schmid, 2006, p. 7).

Where abuse has included forms of sexual violence, survivors may also experience sexual dysfunction, fear of intimacy, self-loathing and rejection of their body, which in turn can engender self-injurious behaviour (Yohani and Hagen, 2010, pp. 208-209).

Where injuries and abuses are perpetrated within an ongoing conflict setting, or where there is otherwise insecurity and/or destruction of the healthcare infrastructure, physical and psychological symptoms may be exacerbated by prevailing unsanitary conditions and a lack of access to clinical services or necessary medication. In the case of survivors of rape, clinical needs may go unreported due to shame and fears of social stigmatisation (Andrews, Qian and Valentine, 2002, reported in Bogner, Herlihy and Brewin, 2007), leaving survivors at risk of further injury and/or death because of unsafe, non-sterile abortion practices, infection, and suicidal ideation.

Trauma and society

In addition to the psychological impact of terrorism-related violations experienced at an individual level, affected societies may suffer collective trauma which is particularly the case where attacks are targeted against a particular group or community. (See Alexander, 2012, who explores the development of social and cultural trauma; see also Weine, 1998, p. 1721). In such a situation, the sense of group identity and allegiance is heightened (Aroche and Coello, 2004, p. 56), producing collective solidarity, identity and mutual support (Modvig and Jaranson, 2004, p. 37). Because of that heightened allegiance, when the group, or members of it, are attacked, it may collectively experience symptoms of psychological trauma (De Jong, 2004, p. 165 and 168).

Manifestations of trauma at a societal level can include varying forms of community dysfunction. Abuses such as torture or ethnically-targeted violence may create "an order based on imminent pervasive threat, fear, terror, and inhibition,… a state of generalized insecurity, terror, lack of confidence, and rupture of the social fabric" (Lecic and Bakalic, 2004, p. 97; Kira, 2002; IRCT, 2009(a)). Societies that witness the perpetration of atrocities such as war rape and other forms of violence against community and family members may experience severe trauma (Hagen and Yohani, 2010, p. 19). Collectively, communities enter into shock, which is compounded by grief for the loss of the victim through either death, the debilitating physical and psychological impact of the violation, or, in the case of rape, familial and community rejection (Yohani and Hagen, 2010, pp. 208 and 214; Hagen and Yohani, 2010, p. 19).

Linking individual and societal trauma

Whilst the perpetration of atrocities can generate trauma at the individual and societal levels, the respective nature of individual and collective trauma may differ. Individual and collective trauma reactions can be influenced by factors such as the specific targeting of abuse and the duration or intensity of the stressor. These factors in turn affect the degree of life threat - i.e. the assessed risk of surviving the event - and hence the resulting trauma response. In particular, individually-targeted violations are more likely to represent a threat of imminent death than a repressive, longer-term and chronic stressor targeted at a specific community (Modvig and Jaranson, 2004, p. 37). Notably, while mass conflict or a prevailing threat of terrorist attack is recognized as having a widespread, psychological impact upon society, its effects will not necessarily be uniform, but will be dependent upon the extent to which specific groups were affected (Aroche and Coello, 2004, p. 57).

Far from being conceptualized discretely, however, individual and societal forms of trauma are understood as interlinked and interdependent trauma responses. Gross violations of human rights can affect the individual not only as an individual per se , but also as a member of a community or of society more generally. In particular, community or societal allegiance or affiliation, as aspects of social and cultural identity, form part of the individual's personal identity system. Clinical literature describes a 'layering' of trauma, reflecting to some extent the 'victimization circles' referred to above, such that an individual, as a member of a particular group or of society more broadly, may experience the first phase of the traumatisation process with the onset or increase in group repression or persecution (which may include elements of social and political change). The period during which the individual personally becomes a victim of serious human rights violations marks the second phase in the traumatisation process. A third phase - characterized by dislocation and exile - arises where the victim is forced to flee their home to avoid the threat of harm (van der Veer, 1998, p. 5). Moreover, the societal response to individual and collective trauma has a significant impact on the rehabilitation of individual survivors.

The combined impact of these elements can be illustrated by the example of torture. The issue of conflict-related sexual violence is discussed separately, later in this Module, and illustrates the interrelationship between individual and collective aspects of trauma.

Broader human rights impact

Victims, whether directly or indirectly affected, may suffer social effects, "involving changes to the victim's lifestyle, normally to avoid the situation or context in which the offence occurred. Social effects are very disruptive to the victim's lifestyle and may affect earning potential" (Shapland and Hall, 2007, p. 178). Trauma can also "impact upon the roles of parent, spouse, employee, employer, citizen etc." (Baker, 1992, p. 86), engendering a deterioration in social, educational and occupational functioning (IRCT, 2009(a), p. 7), leading to social withdrawal and isolation, as well as impacting upon societal and cultural aspects of personal identity (Kira, 2002).

In addition, there are often financial costs of terrorism that are directly associated with individuals wanting to take additional crime preventive measures. There can also be wider socio-economic effects associated with terrorism, such as businesses closing and, therefore, an increase in poverty and unemployment. In turn, as result of increased levels of poverty and unemployment in one study this was linked to an increase in property crime. An atmosphere of political violence as underpins terrorism, may also lead to an increase of violence within the affected society (Erez, 2006, p. 93). Research has further documented the powerful anxiety-inducing effect of the media when reporting on traumatic events such as terrorist attacks which, in turn, may have an adverse negative psychological effect on members of the wider population. Severe circumstances such as an active threat of terrorism "tend to increase the prevalence, and possibly also change the impact, of victimisation" (Shapland and Hall, 2007, p. 199).

Furthermore, there are several other ways in which terrorist activities and threats may have a wider impact on a person's life and community which impairs or prevents their enjoyment of other economic, social and cultural rights. Some of the primary ones are examined in below.

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Essay on Terrorism

Students are often asked to write an essay on Terrorism in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Terrorism

Understanding terrorism.

Terrorism refers to the use of violence, often against civilians, to achieve political goals. It’s a form of fear-based manipulation, aiming to create panic and disrupt peace.

Impacts of Terrorism

Terrorism harms societies both physically and psychologically. It leads to loss of lives, property, and can cause trauma. It also hampers economic growth and societal harmony.

Countering Terrorism

Countering terrorism requires global cooperation. Nations must share intelligence, enforce strict laws, and promote education and understanding to prevent radicalization. Remember, peace and unity are our best defenses against terrorism.

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250 Words Essay on Terrorism

Terrorism, a term that sends chills down the spine, is an act of violence primarily intended to create fear, disrupt societal structures, and promote political or ideological agendas. It is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, which has been escalating in frequency and intensity worldwide.

The Root Causes

The root causes of terrorism are multifarious. It can be triggered by political instability, socio-economic disparities, religious fanaticism, or ethnic tensions. Often, it is a combination of these factors, creating a fertile breeding ground for extremist ideologies.

The Impact of Terrorism

The impacts of terrorism are far-reaching and devastating. Beyond the immediate human toll, it disrupts economic stability, social harmony, and political structures. It instills fear, leading to changes in behavior and attitudes, and can even alter the course of history.

Counter-Terrorism Strategies

Counter-terrorism strategies are as diverse as the causes of terrorism. They range from military interventions to intelligence operations, from diplomatic negotiations to socio-economic reforms. However, the most effective strategies are those that address the root causes of terrorism, rather than merely responding to its symptoms.

Terrorism, a grave threat to global peace and security, requires a comprehensive and holistic approach to be effectively countered. By understanding its root causes and impacts, we can devise strategies to combat it, ensuring a safer world for future generations.

500 Words Essay on Terrorism

Introduction to terrorism.

Terrorism, a term that sends chills down the spine of many, is a complex phenomenon that has been the subject of extensive study and debate. It is characterized by acts of violence or threats aimed at creating fear, disrupting societal order, and advancing political, religious, or ideological goals.

The Evolution of Terrorism

Historically, terrorism was primarily a tool of the weak against the strong, a way to destabilize oppressive regimes or draw attention to a cause. However, the advent of the 21st century has seen its evolution into a more global menace, with the rise of transnational terrorist networks like Al-Qaeda and ISIS. The digital age has made it easier for these groups to recruit, radicalize, and coordinate attacks, making terrorism a borderless problem.

The Psychology of Terrorism

Understanding the psychology of terrorism is crucial in tackling it. Many terrorists are not psychopaths or inherently evil people, but individuals manipulated into believing that their violent actions are justified. Factors such as social exclusion, economic deprivation, political oppression, and religious indoctrination can contribute to this mindset. This underscores the importance of addressing root causes to prevent terrorism.

Terrorism’s impacts are multifaceted. The immediate effect is loss of life and property, but the ripple effects are far-reaching. It instills fear and insecurity, disrupts economic activity, and can lead to restrictive security measures that infringe on civil liberties. Moreover, it can exacerbate social divisions and fuel cycles of violence and retaliation.

Counter-terrorism strategies must be as multifaceted as the problem they aim to solve. Military and law enforcement responses are necessary to protect citizens and bring perpetrators to justice. However, these approaches should be paired with efforts to address the underlying social, economic, and political conditions that breed terrorism.

Conclusion: The Future of Counter-Terrorism

The future of counter-terrorism lies in a balanced approach that combines hard and soft power. While military and law enforcement measures are necessary, they are not sufficient on their own. The fight against terrorism must also be a fight for hearts and minds, addressing the root causes of terrorism, and building inclusive societies where extremist narratives find no fertile ground.

In conclusion, terrorism is a complex problem that requires a nuanced understanding and multifaceted response. It is not just a security issue, but a social, economic, and political one. By addressing it in this holistic manner, we can hope to make progress in the ongoing struggle against this global menace.

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Terrorism in the United States of America Essay

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Introduction

Domestic terrorist organizations.

Terrorism is a serious problem affecting the United States of America that is likely to worsen in the coming years. The number of terrorist groups operating within the borders has increased over the past decade. Data provided by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) shows that white supremacists pose the greatest risk to the nation’s security. Moreover, anarchists and religious extremists have been cited as perpetrators of terrorist activities within the US. Common types of terrorism include right-wing terrorism (white supremacists and anti-government extremists), left-wing terrorism, and religious terrorism. Recent events following the death of George Floyd have revealed the new face of terrorism in the US. The spread of false information, conspiracy theories, and incitements to violence are some of the means that terrorist groups are using to advance their agenda. Aryan Nations and the Ku Klux Klan are terrorist organizations that continue to promote racial and religious violence as well as anti-Semitic ideas.

Aryan Nations

Aryan Nations (AN) is a white supremacist terrorist organization that is headquartered in Hayden, Idaho. It is a form of right-wing terrorism that is anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi, and that was founded by Richard Girnt Butler in 1977. Its main objective is to establish a white state that excludes other races by fighting against people that pose a threat to the white race, including the Jews and African Americans (Perliger, 2020). Constructivism theory can be used to explain the development and motivations of AN. Originally, it was a branch of the Christian Identity church that has two core teachings: whites are the true Israelites and Jews originated from a union between Satan and Eve. The group has been involved in several criminal activities, hence its classification by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as a terrorist threat in 2001. Moreover, it is founded on a wide spectrum of racist and anti-Semitic ideas that promote racial intolerance (Perliger, 2020). The organization has been described by the RAND Corporation as a pioneer nationwide terrorist network in the US.

Aryan Nations has a single leader who makes all the group’s decisions. Unlike other terrorist organizations, it lacks a hierarchical structure and its activities are determined by the leader. It has been infiltrated by the FBI through an informant. Dave Hall, the group’s propaganda minister was an informant who exposed the organization’s illegal activities (Perliger, 2020). He reported directly to Special Agent Tym Burkey, a security officer who was helping Dayton’s organized Jewish community fight the group’s hate campaign. AN is linked to other terrorist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), National Alliance, and The Silent Brotherhood (Perliger, 2020). The group is funded privately by individuals who support its ideologies and through its involvement in criminal activities. It lacks a strong organization and communication strategy, and it relies on the internet to conduct recruitments and spread its ideologies.

In recent years, wrangles have developed within the organization since the death of its founder, and splinter groups have emerged. It weakened in 2001 after losing its Northern Idaho compound where it was headquartered (Perliger, 2020). 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. Law enforcement agencies have heightened surveillance on groups and individuals deemed to promote terrorism in the US. Therefore, people might be afraid of donating to their initiatives and joining them as members for fear of victimization and prosecution.

Ku Klux Klan

The KKK refers to a domestic left-wing terrorist group that uses fear to advance its white supremacist ideologies. The original group was disbanded in the 1870s, and it was revived in 1915 as a new outfit. The organization had more than 4 million members in the 1920s, and it was financed from member contributions and the sale of publications and costumes. Its objectives include the suppression of African Americans, Catholics, Jews, immigrants, leftists, and members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community (Jones et al., 2020). Its motivations and ideologies can be explained using the constructivism theory because terrorism is a social construct. The group operates primarily in the Southern United States. They are active in several states, including Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky, Georgia, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia, Florida, Illinois, Missouri, and North Carolina among others. Affiliate groups include Noble Klans of America, United Klans of America, the White Knights of Texas, and the Rebel Brigade Knights True Invisible Empire among others.

The group’s organization involves a hierarchical structure that includes a titular head, leaders for each congressional district, and county heads. The overall leader is referred to as the Grand Dragon while the head of a congressional district is referred to as the Grand Titan. The counties are overseen by a head known as the Grand Giant, who is responsible for organizing militia members and supplying them with weapons. The Grand Dragon makes the group’s most critical decisions and receives frequent reports from district heads regarding the organization’s activities. The KKK is funded primarily by individuals who support the group’s ideologies. Counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO) refers to a series of activities conducted by the FBI between 1956 and 1979 to disrupt political organizations that destabilized the US (Perliger, 2020). COINTELPRO-White Hate program involved the infiltration of the KKK by FBI agents through overt techniques that included paying informers, bribing Klansmen, and the use of wiretaps and bugs.

The KKK has experienced a steady decline in membership in the past decade. However, the organization continues to promote its ideologies and recruit more people. Its new techniques include creating new websites, opening accounts for donations, and creating content that spreads its ideologies (Jones et al., 2020). In the future, the organization is likely to plateau because of poor leadership, wrangles within the group, and the inability to create and maintain alliances. Moreover, the group has numerous affiliate hate groups. Therefore, the lack of a stable leadership system is a risk to the group’s stability. Moreover, increased surveillance and monitoring by security agencies hamper their activities around the country.

Terrorism is a serious threat to the security of the United States of America. For many decades, security agencies in the country have implemented several measures to curb the rise in terrorism within the country’s borders. Right-wing, left-wing, and religious forms of terrorism are common in the US. Aryan Nations (AN) and the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) are terrorist groups that have operated in the US for decades. They are funded mainly by individuals who subscribe to their ideologies. Their involvement in racial and anti-Semitic criminal activities renders them, terrorist groups, as classified by the FBI. The groups might disintegrate in the future because of leadership wrangles and the lack of funding. Moreover, increased surveillance by security agencies has hampered their recruitment and fundraising activities.

Jones, S. G., Doxsee, C., & Harrington, N. (2020). The escalating terrorism problem in the United States . Center for strategic and International Studies. Web.

Perliger, A. (2020). American zealots: Inside right-wing domestic terrorism . Columbia University Press.

• Identifying Terrorism-Related Situations
• The Concept of Counter-Insurgency Practices
• Being a Middle Class Minority & Understanding the Ku Klux Klan: Labeling White Males on the Top of the Food Chain
• Development of Ezra Pound’s Anti-Semitic Views
• Jewwatch.com: The Anti-Semitic Website
• The Use of Intelligence Collection Systems
• Counterterrorism and Intelligence
• Task Force and the Fusion Center: Terrorism Prevention
• Fusion Centers: The Role in Terrorism Prevention
• Australian Anti-Terrorism Laws
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2022, June 8). Terrorism in the United States of America. https://ivypanda.com/essays/terrorism-in-the-united-states-of-america/

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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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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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Last updated on August 19, 2024 by ClearIAS Team

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, War, and Social Change: The Costs of Terror and Violence

The Social Consequences of Global Terrorism

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• First Online: 10 September 2022
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• Hogr Tarkhani 7 &
• Taib Biygautane 8  

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Wars and terrorist attacks can both induce massive changes in social dynamics and policy structures. Historically, World Wars I and II brought tremendous social, cultural, and political changes to Europe and regions beyond. Recently, terror brought a new wave of social and political changes to the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, and other regions. Terrorism is also changing how humans interact and set relationships with one another based on the fear that terrorist attacks create in societies. Likewise, wars are usually thought of as periods of rapid transition, if not as the lifeblood of new sociopolitical, economic, and cultural structures. Terrorism has various effects on the target societies. While these impacts tend to be limited, with the continuing threat posed by global terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda and ISIS, this threat can be substantial and long-lasting in fragile societies. Terrorist activities can also impact and change cultural norms in the long term, as these activities occur repeatedly. People may change their behaviors and interactions with others, as these changes occur frequently. Terrorist attacks are intended to instill fear in society and threaten societies’ well-being and social functions through different types of violence.

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Terrorism as Hazard and Disaster

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Tarkhani, H., Biygautane, T. (2022). Terrorism, War, and Social Change: The Costs of Terror and Violence. In: Baikady, R., Sajid, S., Nadesan, V., Przeperski, J., Islam, M.R., Gao, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Global Social Change. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-87624-1_313-1

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-87624-1_313-1

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war on terrorism

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war on terrorism , term used to describe the American-led global counterterrorism campaign launched in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 . In its scope, expenditure, and impact on international relations , the war on terrorism was comparable to the Cold War ; it was intended to represent a new phase in global political relations and has had important consequences for security, human rights , international law , cooperation, and governance .

The war on terrorism was a multidimensional campaign of almost limitless scope. Its military dimension involved major wars in Afghanistan and Iraq , covert operations in Yemen and elsewhere, large-scale military-assistance programs for cooperative regimes, and major increases in military spending. Its intelligence dimension comprised institutional reorganization and considerable increases in the funding of America’s intelligence -gathering capabilities, a global program of capturing terrorist suspects and interning them at Guantánamo Bay , expanded cooperation with foreign intelligence agencies, and the tracking and interception of terrorist financing. Its diplomatic dimension included continuing efforts to construct and maintain a global coalition of partner states and organizations and an extensive public diplomacy campaign to counter anti-Americanism in the Middle East . The domestic dimension of the U.S. war on terrorism entailed new antiterrorism legislation, such as the USA PATRIOT Act ; new security institutions, such as the Department of Homeland Security ; the preventive detainment of thousands of suspects; surveillance and intelligence-gathering programs by the National Security Agency (NSA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and local authorities; the strengthening of emergency-response procedures; and increased security measures for airports, borders, and public events.

The successes of the first years of the war on terrorism included the arrest of hundreds of terrorist suspects around the world, the prevention of further large-scale terrorist attacks on the American mainland, the toppling of the Taliban regime and subsequent closure of terrorist-training camps in Afghanistan , the capture or elimination of many of al-Qaeda ’s senior members, and increased levels of international cooperation in global counterterrorism efforts.

However, critics argued that the failures of America’s counterterrorism campaign outweighed its successes. They contended that the war in Afghanistan had effectively scattered the al-Qaeda network, thereby making it even harder to counteract, and that the attacks in Afghanistan and Iraq had increased anti-Americanism among the world’s Muslims, thereby amplifying the message of militant Islam and uniting disparate groups in a common cause. Other critics alleged that the war on terrorism was a contrived smokescreen for the pursuit of a larger U.S. geopolitical agenda that included controlling global oil reserves, increasing defense spending, expanding the country’s international military presence, and countering the strategic challenge posed by various regional powers.

By the time of U.S. Pres. George W. Bush ’s reelection in 2004, the drawbacks of the war on terrorism were becoming apparent. In Iraq , U.S. forces had overthrown the government of Saddam Hussein in 2003, and U.S. war planners had underestimated the difficulties of building a functioning government from scratch and neglected to consider how this effort could be complicated by Iraq’s sectarian tensions, which had been held in check by Saddam’s repressive regime but were unleashed by his removal. By late 2004 it was clear that Iraq was sinking into chaos and civil war; estimates of the number of Iraqi civilians killed during the period of maximum violence—roughly 2004 to 2007—vary widely but generally exceed 200,000. U.S. casualties during this period far outnumbered those suffered during the initial 2003 invasion. Afghanistan, which for several years had seemed to be under control, soon followed a similar trajectory, and by 2006 the U.S. was facing a full-blown insurgency there led by a reconstituted Taliban.

The Bush administration faced domestic and international criticism for actions that it deemed necessary to fight terrorism but which critics considered to be immoral, illegal, or both. These included the detention of accused enemy combatants without trial at Guantánamo Bay and at several secret prisons outside the United States, the use of torture against these detainees in an effort to extract intelligence, and the use of unmanned combat drones to kill suspected enemies in countries far beyond the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.

By the last years of Bush’s presidency, public opinion had turned strongly negative concerning his handling of the Iraq War and other national security matters. This discontent helped Barack Obama , an outspoken critic of Bush’s foreign policy , win the presidency in 2008. Under the new administration, the expression war on terrorism —still closely associated with Bush policies—quickly disappeared from official communications. Obama made the rejection explicit in a 2013 speech in which he stated that the United States would eschew a boundless, vaguely defined “global war on terrorism” in favour of more focused actions against specific hostile groups. Under Obama, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were gradually wound down, although at the end of Obama’s presidency in 2016 there were still U.S. troops in both countries.

It is worth noting that beneath Obama’s rejection of the war on terrorism as a rhetorical device and as a conceptual framework for national security there were important continuities with the policies of his predecessor. The Obama administration, for example, greatly expanded the campaign of targeted killings carried out with drones, even eliminating several U.S. citizens abroad whom it deemed threatening. Special operations forces were greatly expanded and increasingly deployed to conduct low-profile military interventions in countries outside of acknowledged war zones. And U.S. security agencies continued to exercise the wide-ranging surveillance powers that they had accumulated during the Bush administration despite protests from civil liberties groups.