Understanding terrorism . . .

Throughout history, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter

The word terrorism comes from the French terrorisme, and originally referred to state terrorism by post-revolutionary Jacobins during the 1793–1794 Reign of Terror (Wikipedia). Terrorisme derives from the Latin verb terrere, to frighten.

Characteristically, terrorism involves acts of violence and/or the threat of violence. The terrorist attack is carried out so as to maximize the severity and duration of the psychological impact. All terrorist attacks have in common their execution for a political purpose. Much of the time, the victims of terrorism are targeted, not because they are threats, but because they are symbolic of a contrary ideology.

There is an excellent review on the history of modern terrorism in the New World Encyclopedia. Although we can identify ancient terrorist groups such as the Siccarii of Judea in the 1st century, and the Thuggees of 13th century India, modern terrorism has its roots in the 19th century. Notable terrorist groups have included the Baader-Meinhof Group of Germany (renamed Red Army Faction, defunct as of 1998), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Red Brigades (Italy), Revolutionary Struggle (Greece), Shining Path (Peru), Weather Underground (United States), ETA (Basque), Fatah - PLO (Palestinian), Irgun (Zionist), FARC (Colombia), IRA (Irish)), PKK (Kurdish), Tamil Tigers (Sri Lanka), Al Qaeda (transnational Islamist), Aum Shinrikyo, renamed Aleph (Japanese); various influences, including Hindu and Buddhist, Klu Klux Klan (U.S., Christian), Abu Sayyaf (Philippines; Islamist), Egyptian Islamic Jihad; Hezbollah.

In 1867, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, a revolutionary nationalist group supported by Irish-Americans, carried out attacks in England. These Fenians were the precursor of the Irish Republican Army.

By the mid-nineteenth century in Russia, the bourgeoisie had grown impatient with the slow pace of Tsarist reforms, and strove to foment revolution. Terrorists launched a campaign against the state that reached its apogee in 1881, with the assassination of Tsar Alexander II.

Within the Ottoman Empire (1890s), groups fighting for an independent Armenia included the Social Democrat (Hunchakian) Party and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaks). Other secessionist groups, fighting for an independent Macedonia, morphed into the Slavic nationalist Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) and the rival External Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (EMRO). The IMRO assassinated Alexander I of Yugoslavia in 1934.

The Fenians/IRA, the Hunchaks and Dashnaks, and the IMRO are examples of nationalist terrorist groups who lend credence to the phrase “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”

Some of the most successful terrorist groups of the 20th century were organized, trained and provisioned by the Western Allies during the Second World War. The British Special Operations Executive (SOE) effectively invented modern terrorism.

Throughout the Cold War, both sides made extensive use of terrorist organizations to carry out proxy wars. Many of the Islamist terrorists of today were originally trained by the U.S. and U.K. to fight the USSR in Afghanistan. Similar groups, including the Viet Cong, received training from Soviet and Chinese military advisers.

The most sustained terrorist campaign of the 20th century was by the Irish Republican Army. The first campaign saw 26 of the 32 Irish counties gain independence. A second campaign (1972-1997) became known as the Troubles, with the Irish Republican Army conducting bombings, assassinations, and even mortar attacks on the British Prime Minister’s residence, 10 Downing Street.

Throughout the ages there have been many efforts to controvert terrorism, very few of them successful. Strategies employed have included: target hardening (e.g. airport security, crash barriers, travel bans, armed police in the streets), pre-emptive neutralization (e.g. drone attacks, state-sponsored assassinations, Guantanamo Bay), stepped-up domestic intelligence and surveillance, military intervention (e.g. Iraq and Afghan invasions by U.S., Russian invasions of Chechnya and intervention in Syria), and non-military interventions to address the underlying inequalities which fuel terrorist activity.

The terrorist threat in Western countries is episodic, sporadic and inconsistent. Trump’s executive order of March, 2017, would have halted travel from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. Ironically, no one from these countries has been involved in a fatal terrorist attack in the United States since 9/11.

One of the primary difficulties of implementing effective counter-terrorist measures is the loss of civil liberties and individual privacy that such measures often entail. More on lessons learned in my next article.