The Terrorism

1. Definition
2. Classification of terrorists
3. Motivations behind terrorism
4. Rational motivation
5. Psychological motivation
6. Culture motivations
7. Terrorist organizations
8. Combating terrorism
9. Terrorism in the future
10. Conclusion

Terrorism is a special type of violence. It is tactic used in peace, conflict, and war. The threat of terrorism is ever present, and an attack is likely to occur when least excepted. A terrorist attack may be the event that marks the transition from peace to conflict or war. The US Department of Defense’s definition of terrorism is “the calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to inoculate fear, intended to coerce or to immediate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological,”

Finally the definition addresses goals. Terrorism may be motivated by political, religious, radiological objectives. In sense, terrorist goals are always political, as extremists driven by religious or ideological beliefs usually seek political power to compel society to conform their views. The objectives of terrorism distinguished it from other violent acts aimed at personal gain, such as criminal violence. However, the definition permits including violence by organized crime when it seeks to influence government policy. Some drug cartels and other international criminal organizations engage in political action when their influence government functioning. The essence of terrorism is the intent to induce fear in someone other than its victims to make a government or other audience change its political behaviour.

Terrorism is common practice insurgencies, but insurgents and not necessarily terrorist if they comply with the rules of war and do not engage in those forms of violence identified as terrorist acts. While the legal distinction is clear, it rarely inhibits terrorists who convince themselves that their action are justified by a higher law. Their single-minded dedication to a goal, however poorly it may be articulated, renders legal sanctions relatively ineffective. In contrast, war is subject to rules of international law. Terrorists recognize no rules. No person, place, or object of value is immune from terrorist attack. There are no innocents.

This situation did not always prevail. Throughout history, extremists have practiced terrorism to generated fear and compel a change in behaviour. Frequently, terrorism was incidental to other forms of violence, such as war or insurgency. Before the nineteenth century, terrorists usually granted certain categories of people immunity from attack. Like other warriors, terrorists recognized innocents people not involved in conflict. Terrorists usually excluded women, children, and the elderly from target lists. For example, in late nineteenth-century Russia, radicals planning the assassination of T SAR Alexander II aborted serve planned attacks because they risked arming innocent people. Old-school terrorism was direct; it intended to produce a political effect through the injury or death of the victim.

The development of bureaucratic states led to a profound change in terrorism. Modern governments have a continuity hat older, personalistic governments do not. Terrorists found that the death of a single individual, even monarch, did not necessarily produce the policy changes they sought. Terrorists reacted by turning to an indirect method of attack. By the early twentieth century, terrorists began to attack people previously considered innocents to generate political pressure. These indirect attacks create a pubic atmosphere of anxiety and undermine confidence in government. Their unpredictability and apparent randomness make it virtually impossible for governments to protect all potential victims. The public demands protection that the state cannot give. Frustrated and fearful, the people then demand that the government make concessions to stop the attacks.

Modern terrorism offers its practitioners many advantage. First by not recognized innocents, terrorists have an infinite number of largest. They select their target and determine when, where and how to attack. The range of choices gives terrorists a high probality of success with minimum risk. If the attack goes wrong or fails to produce the intended results, the terrorists can deny responsibility.

cultural restrains, such as a desire to avoid harming, women, but the planner cannot that. Essentially, there are no innocents.) Second, attacks that may appear to be senseless and random are not. To the perpetrators, their attacks make perfect sense. Act such as bombing public places of assembly and shooting into crowded restaurants heighten public anxiety. This is the terrorist’s immediate objective. Third, the terrorists needs to publicize his attack. If no one knows about it, it will not produce fear. The need for publicity often drives target selection; the greater the symbolic value of the target, the more publicity the attack brings to the terrorists and the more fear it generates. Finally, a leader planning for combating terrorism must understand that he cannot protect every possible target all the time. He must also understand that terrorists will likely shift from more protected targets to less protected ones this is the key to defensive measures.

Terrorists are inspired by many different motivates. Students of terrorism classify them into three categories: rational psychological, and cultural. A terrorist may be shaped by combinations of these.

The rational terrorists thinks through his goals and options making a cost-benefit analysis. He seeks to determine whether there are less costly and more effective ways to achieve his objective then terrorism. To access the risk, the weights the target’s defensive capabilities to sustain the effort. The essential question is whether terrorism will work for the desired purpose, given societal conditions at the time. The terrorist’s rational analysis is similar to that of a military commander or a business enterer considering available courses of action. Groups considering terrorism as an option ask a crucial question: Can terrorism induce anxiety to attain its goals without causing a backlash that will destroy the cause and perhaps the terrorists themselves? To misjudge the answer is to risk disaster. Recent history offers examples of several groups that had apparently good prospects for success which paid the price of misjudging reaction to terrorism.

Psychological motivation for terrorism derives from the terrorist’s personal dissatisfaction with his life and accomplishments. He finds his raison deter in dedicated terrorist action. Although no clear psychopathy is found among terrorist, there is a nearly universal element in them that can be described as the “true believer”. Terrorists do not even consider that they may be wrong and that other’ views may have some merit. Terrorists tend to project their own antisocial motivations onto, others, creating a polarized “we versus they” outlook. They attribute only evil motives to anyone outside their own group. This enables the terrorists to dehumanize their victims and removes any sense of ambiguity from their minds. The resulting clarity of purpose appeals to those who crave violence to relieve their constant anger. The other common characteristics of the psychologically motivated terrorist is the pronounced need to belong to a group. With some terrorist, group acceptance is a stronger motivator then the stated political objectives of the organization. Such individuals define their social status by group acceptance.

Although technology aids in the defense against terrorism, it also provides terrorist with increased opportunities. Terrorists can operate in cyber space to destroy or, manipulate information for their own purposes. Skilled “hackers” with terrorist intent can access all but the most secure data, banks, stealing or changing information, or destroying it. This gives them the potential, for example, of manipulating the stock market for their own profit or to participate inflation or depression. There is evidence of large-scale counterfeiting of American currency to purchase weapons. This could cause serious economic disruption. Access to police and other security files can keep terrorist one step ahead of their government opponents.

In some terrorism is calculated. Terrorists generally know what they are doing. Their selection of a target is planned and rational. They know the effect they seek. Terrorist violence is neither spontaneous nor random. Terrorism is intended to produce fear; by implication, that fear is engendered in someone other than the victim. In other words.