Terrorism is one of the variants of tactics of political struggle, associated with the use of ideologically motivated violence.
The essence of terrorism is violence with the intent to intimidate. The subject of terrorist violence – individuals or non-governmental organizations. The object of violence – the authorities in the face of the various civil servants or the society in the face of individual citizens (including foreigners or officials of other states). Also, private and public property, infrastructure and lifelines. The purpose of violence is to achieve desirable for terrorists, developments, revolutions, destabilization of society, war with a foreign country, independence of a particular territory, the fall of the prestige of power, political concessions from the authorities, etc.
The definition of terrorism appears to be a daunting task. Forms and methods of terrorist activity significantly changed over time. This process has a continuous negative assessment that generates an arbitrary interpretation. On the one hand, there is a tendency of unduly broad interpretation, when some political forces, without good reason, call their opponents terrorists. On the other – undue constriction. The terrorists themselves tend to call themselves soldiers, partisans, saboteurs behind enemy lines, etc. Here are the difficulties of legal definitions as well as theoretical understanding of terrorism.
Terrorism is associated with more general, generic for it the concept of terror. Terror is a method of social control through preventive deterrence. To this way of political action may employ both the state and the organization (or force) that set the policy objectives. Many years of preventive tactics of intimidation, regardless of the nature of the subject of terrorist activities, helped to create the general concept of terror. In the 1970-1980s has developed a terminological distinction between terror and terrorism. Today "terror" is treated as illegitimate violence by the state against society in general or to the dissidents and the opposition. "Terrorism" – the practice of illegal violence, implemented by the opposing to the state forces and organizations.
Terror relies on violence and achieves its goals through demonstrative physical suppression of any active opponents in order to intimidate and to deprive of will to resistance of all potential opponents of the authorities. It is important to emphasize that the terror policy of preventive violence distinguishes it from the harshest repression against the violators of the laws. Terror uses the power of seeking a radical change in the existing order of things. For example - foreign conquest, or social revolution, or the adoption of authoritarianism in a society with democratic traditions. Whenever the political reality is changed radically, and these changes inevitably cause resistance to a large part of society – policy of terror is in the arsenal of political strategies of the new government.
The words "terrorism", "terrorist", "attack" in original sense are all connected to terror, as a policy of intimidation. But here is the crucial importance of the differences. First of all, the subject of terrorist activities that is terrorist, as a rule, is not the state but the organization that sets the political goal of coming to power, destabilization of society, pushing it to revolution, provoking the entry into the war, etc.
A prerequisite of terrorism – resonance terrorist acts in the society. Terrorism is fundamentally declarative. Wide dissemination of information about the attack, turning it into the most talked about event is a key element in the tactics of terrorism. Remaining undetected or classified is meaningless.
This distinguishes a terrorist act from such close phenomena like sabotage or political murder. Subversion – subversive military action through the security services of the state. Diversion is a valuable direct damage to the opponent, the public outcry of operations is not interesting for the saboteur and even can be dangerous. Ideally, a diversion simulates a technogenic catastrophe, an accident or a forceful action, another perfect power. Such acts of sabotage, political assassinations committed by the security services, real artists prefer to blame the false perpetrators.
The public response to a terrorist act required the terrorists to change public attitudes. Terrorist attacks affect mass psychology. Terrorist organizations demonstrate their strength and willingness to go to the end, sacrificing both their lives and the lives of the victims. Terrorist loudly declares that in this society, in this world, there is a force that under no circumstances will accept the existing order of things and will fight with it to victory, or till its end.
The psychology of a terrorist
There is no scientific theory that would fully cover all aspects of the psychology of terrorism and reveal motives of people joining extremist organizations. On the one hand, this is because intra-group processes in terrorist and extremist communities are hidden from psychologists and sociologists. On the other hand, some experts believe that there are much less objective psychological differences between terrorists and ordinary people than people would like to think.
It is not a secret that most terrorists are young men. This can be referred to behavioral biology. In early adulthood men are more prone to risky actions, and there is a high level of testosterone, considered to be one of the causes of aggressive behavior. The rate of testosterone in prisoners serving sentences for committing unprovoked crimes is higher than that of those who were sentenced for committing non-violent offences. Teenagers and grown men whose levels of testosterone in the blood is higher than the average population, more prone to crime, substance abuse, and aggressive reactions to provocations.
It would be naive to assume that physiological characteristics may explain why some people become terrorists, and others do not. Terrorist at the time of the attack thinks he is brave, noble, brutal, uncompromising fighter for "justice". So, "political terrorist," thinks that in the pursuit of justice he can and should sacrifice other people's lives. "Economic" terrorist is convinced that his rival is unfair and requires "extreme measures." "Psychological terrorist," not only implements the capability of having power over people, but also thinks he will be glorified for centuries by his courage".
Effective terrorists are those for whom terror is not just a profession or job but a way of life. Despite what is the objective of the terrorist — political, economic, psychological or religious, there's always the desire for power. Often, the motives of terrorists are changing as they are drawn into extremist activity. And if at first, the main objective can be money, this goal is gradually eroded and the craving for power, violence, and murder.
This assumption is supported by studies of the psychology of mercenaries — people wandering from one conflict region to another.
The motives of the terrorists on the most general level can be divided into selfish and selfless. With selfish motives, it's pretty simple. The apparent ease of economic benefits causes people to join terrorist and extremist organizations. However, the terrorists themselves are reluctant to agree that they are driven by a desire for profit. Therefore, as a rationale, masking the true causes of terrorist activity inspirers extremists often speculating on religious and ideological views. Actively operated in known social psychology phenomenon of "we-feelings" and contrasting "us" and "them". "People who do not have positive identification, often looking for an excuse for self-assessment in identification with the group. Many young people gain pride, power, identity in criminal communities Typically, this mechanism is fertile ground not only for extremist propaganda, but is also actively used by ideologists in totalitarian states.
Among the terrorists most frequently there are two psychological types: first has high intelligence, confidence, high self-esteem, desire for self-assertion, the latter — not confident, loser with a weak "I" and low self-esteem. But both are characterized by high aggressiveness, constant readiness to defend themselves, the desire for self-esteem, excessive self-preoccupation, lack of attention paid to the feelings and desires of others, bigotry.
There are several major motives of the terrorists:
1. Mercantile motives. "Al-Qaeda" used children and women as suicide bombers, and terrorists, many perceived it with repulsion. Money, not ideology became a key motive for joining al-Qaida. For the majority of extremists occupation of terror — one of the ways to earn. And in some regions only.
2. Ideological motives are more sustainable and permanent. Terror-enforced ideology, becomes the "mission", "debt", raises the social status of the terrorist in the community to which he belongs.
3. The explanation of transformations and changes the world. In the basis of these motives is the belief in the imperfection and injustice of the world. Terror as an instrument of justice and order.
4. The motive of power over people — the most ancient and deepest motive. Through the terror action has positioned its power and personality, its superiority over others. A kind of "violence" is also characteristic of higher primates, which thus regulate the hierarchy of relationships in the group.
5. Motives of emotional attachment perform in a variety of forms. Most common motive of revenge for the harm done, for the death of relatives and friends. Another reason - someone from relatives or friends was in terrorist organizations.
6. The motive of self-realization. Due to lack of access to education, science and art for many people, paradoxically, terrorist activity becomes the only possible one in which they can "develop".
Strategy of terrorist actions
Numerous left-wing and right-wing terrorists, and now the majority of Islamists were and are trying to overthrow the ruling regime. The territorial objectives pursued by the separatists (for example, the Sri Lankan "Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam", Kashmiri, Chechen and Palestinian groups). The change in policy may imply, for example, failure to conduct certain foreign policy. So, "Al Qaeda" requires the U.S. refusal to support Israel and Kurdish extremists attacked a third country which supported Turkey. "Ethnic" and "racial" terrorists are trying to get the control over the society. They use violence to protect the "interests" of a people or race - for example, the Irish Republican Army fought for control of the population of Northern Ireland and the Irish Diaspora around the world, "Ku-Klux-Klan" in a similar way fought for influence in the environment of the white American Protestant. Preservation of natural order of things - the goal of many Latin American terrorist organizations, and in the last two years of the Afghan Taliban (Hoffman, 258).
Terrorists are pursuing several objectives, for example, the Palestinian Hamas, on the one hand, fought with the authorities of the Palestinian Autonomy (the change of the ruling regime) and opposed the Israeli occupation (the solution of territorial issues). "Al Qaeda" has three main goals: first, the establishment of the Islamic Caliphate (that is, the overthrow of the ruling in modern Muslim States), and secondly, the destruction of Israel and the expulsion of the "kuffar", the occupying Islamic territory, for example, Russia - Chechnya, India - Kashmir, USA - from Iraq, etc. (i.e., the solution of the territorial problem) and, thirdly, changes in the foreign policy of Europe, USA and other countries (i.e., policy change).
All terrorist organizations always and everywhere pursued five main strategic methods: retaliation, intimidation, provocation, destruction and forcing the price (Wood). Revenge is used to demonstrate to opponents that the terrorists are so strong that they are able to cause significant damage. Intimidation - for "switching" the people's sympathy, civilians must understand that the terrorists are the same or even more powerful than the authorities. Provocations are used to encourage the authorities to be cruel - this allows to attract sympathy and to radicalize civilians. Destruction is to create "zones of scorched earth" and to make peaceful resolution of a problem impossible. Forcing the price is used in the process of negotiation (or before) to force the government to agree to the terms of terrorists.
The ideology of the terrorists has a direct impact on how they carry out the attack. Primarily the number of victims depends on this. Non-religious terrorist structures, as a rule, prefer to kill politicians, senior police and military officers, famous businessmen, etc. While the civilian casualties are minimized. This is required, among other things, in order to minimize possible losses of the organization (political, economic and human). In turn, religious terrorists seek to carry out attacks with maximum number of victims. For them human life (including his own colleagues’) has a negligible value, most importantly - the symbolism and the magnitude of the attack. They believe that the dead terrorist is guaranteed post-mortem heavenly bliss, and adherents of other religions or "undeserving" brothers in faith may not be taken into account. For example, in 1998, the "al Qaeda" blew up the U.S. Embassy in Kenya. The proportion of casualties among the Embassy staff and Kenyans, who happened to be near the scene of the crime as follows: on each dead American there were killed 20 Kenyans, 95% of the wounded were not Americans (Rapoport, 14).
Secular terrorists try to attack symbolic objects - government agencies, banks, the headquarters of corporations, airlines, and sometimes monuments. Religious terrorists choose not only on the basis of their symbolism, but also from the calculation of maximum possible number of victims. For example, secular terrorists never blew up bombs in vegetable markets, what are constantly doing religious ones. Moreover, religious terrorists specialize in the destruction of religious leaders (Gentiles or ideological opponents of the same religion), religious buildings (churches, mosques, synagogues, etc.). Curiously, the terrorists of various stripes in different ways choose the dates of the next terrorist attacks. Nationalists, for example, are often attacked on the anniversary of any historical events such as battles. Religious terrorists often strike on religious holidays.
The tactics of terrorists are obviously different and if they operate in countries with different systems of power. For example, an epidemic of suicidal terrorism has hardly touched the country, where rule totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. Suicide bombing attacks are almost often aimed at democracy. This is largely explained by the greater susceptibility of the media and public opinion of democratic states to these actions.
In recent years, the number of acts of international terrorism is gradually decreasing, while "local" terrorism, by contrast, is on the rise. The Middle East suffers from terrorism all the time and far more often than any other part of the world. It is significant that most victims of Islamists are their fellow Muslims.
Conclusion
Terrorism is the most dangerous in its scale, unpredictability and consequences, socio-legal problem. Not so long ago, terrorism was a local phenomenon, but over the last 10-15 years, it has become global and increasingly threatens the security of many countries, has a strong psychological pressure on citizens, entails enormous political, economic, moral loss, taking a high toll of innocent people. Terrorism entails massive casualties, losing its spiritual, material, cultural values. It breeds hatred and distrust between social and national groups.
In such a situation it is obvious that without massive government intervention it is indispensable. No one can provide for his individual security without the performance of the public security system, and overcome the economic crisis, eliminate the threat to the safe development of society, promptly prevent the escalation of danger in a threat. All this is impossible without strict government regulation in all spheres of life. Therefore, the priority of ensuring public security should be for government.
Works Cited
Hoffman, Bruce. Inside Terrorism. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006. Print.
Rapoport, David C. "The Four Waves Of Terrrorism". (2011): n. pag. Print.
Wood, Graeme. "What ISIS Really Wants". The Atlantic. N.p., 2015. Web. 22 Mar. 2016.
