Understanding Terror: Terrorists, Their Motives, Their Rise, and Their Targets
Terrorism is a monster the United States, along with the rest of the world, has been battling for decades. The United States declared its “War on Terror” in 2001, with the government investing heavily in counterterrorism programs. To this day, in multiple places around the world, the aches and scars of terrorism continue to linger. While this is a heavy topic, it is essential to understand terrorism and how it proliferates. From here, we will establish an understanding of terrorism, what drives people to align themselves with extremist and terrorist groups, a terrorist target audience, and what message they want to send.
Defining Terrorism
Currently, there is no concrete consensus or clear definition for terrorism due to the difficulty of studying it. Scholars to this day debate on trying to define the term. For example, in Augustus Martin’s book, ‘Understanding Terrorism,’ he mentions the German definition described as “an enduringly conducted struggle for political goals, which are intended to be achieved using assault on the life and property of other persons, especially using severe crimes (Martin 28).” He also shows Britain's definition, stating as “the use or threat, to advance a political, religious or ideological cause, of action which involves serious violence against any person or property.” As for how the United States defines terrorism, Martin writes, “Terrorism is a premeditated and unlawful act in which groups or agents of some principal engage in a threatened or actual use of force against a human or property targets.” These groups or agents engage in this behavior, intending to purposefully intimidate governments or people. To affect policy or behavior with an underlying political objective. With what has been defined by the American definition, the use of psychological warfare is further explained in James M. Lutz and Brenda Lutz's article, ‘How Successful is Terrorism?’ Six characteristics define terrorism. These characteristics are as follows: the existence of political objectives, reliance on violence or the threat of violence, the involvement of organizations (it is not simply just the actions of isolated individuals), the involvement of a non-state actor as the perpetrator or the target or both, and a reference from Kydd and Walter claiming terrorism is a weapon of the weak designed to change the distribution of power. James and Brenda continue to say, “Terrorism is ultimately a form of psychological warfare that is directed against this target audience.” Whoever that target audience is depends on the group of interest, their allies, and who they deem as their enemies.
Individual and Group Motives
Terrorist groups can have multiple motivations and causes. Be it racial, religious, national, or ideological, it varies from person to person and group to group. Some may think they are revolutionaries and freedom fighters; others may think they are working under divine will. Crenshaw states for terrorist groups, “Groups who want to dramatize a cause, to demoralize the government, to gain popular support, to provoke regime violence, to inspire followers, or to dominate a wider resistance movement, who are weak vis-a-vis the regime, and impatient to act, often find terrorism a reasonable choice (Crenshaw 106).” Crenshaw writes for individuals, “Terrorists are only a small minority of people with similar personal backgrounds, experiencing the same conditions, who might thus be expected to reach identical conclusions based on logical reasoning about the utility of terrorism as a technique of political influence (Crenshaw 106).” For example, the lone wolf, Ander Breivik, in August 2012, claimed to be a leading commander of the Norwegian branch of the Knights Templar. When questioned by the Norwegian police, according to Ingrid Melle’s article, He feared there was an ethnic cleansing of white Norwegians. He had grandiose plans of deporting Muslims out of the country and entertaining eugenics to become a future king of Norway. Ander Breivick is currently incarcerated in Ringerike Prison, serving his 21-year sentence. In November 2024, there will be a trial regarding his parole.
How Terrorists Take Control
In Philip Seib’s book, As Terrorism Evolves, he talks about how the “Arab Spring” in Tunisia in 2011 produced a new wave of chaos, which caused thousands of young Arabs to join militant terrorist groups due to the lack of economic progress. Philip also mentions a small terrorist group that grew in size called IS, an offshoot of Al-Qaeda. IS managed to take over parts of Libya, Iraq, and Syria. They achieved these feats by taxing their communities, exporting oil, and selling looted antiquities. They used these strategies to fend for themselves long-term and use social media to spread their message. In Chapter Two in Understanding Terrorism: Challenges, Perspectives, and Issues. A quote reads, “One person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter.” This is where it gets a little muddy. From the side of the terrorists, they may see themselves as revolutionaries fighting against an oppressive regime or government. A terrorist group will find justifications for their attacks. An example would be Bin Laden’s manifesto, where he makes a list of reasons for hating the United States. Another push towards terrorism is violent extremism. In Understanding Terrorism, Martin states, “Extremism is a precursor to terrorism – it is an overarching belief system that is used by terrorists to justify their violent behavior (Martin 25).” Though extremism isn’t terrorism, since people can have fanatical opinions that are violent, that person may or may not follow through with those intrusive thoughts unless they act upon them.
The Targets of Terrorism
Terrorists always have a target in mind when they make their attack. Though a terrorist attack may seem random, it has a purpose behind it. According to Schmidt’s book, Defining Terrorism, he claims that what terrorists seek to do is to inflict fear and to influence the emotions of their targets and the populace of said targets. They achieve this with their violence to send a message and keep people in dread of what is to come next. It is a means to an end, and those ends would be to coerce, intimidate, provoke, or influence one or more groups. He references Martha Crenshaw’s note, saying, “The political effectiveness of terrorism is importantly determined by the psychological effects of violence on audiences (Schmidt 6)”. In Censhaw’s book Terrorism Studies, a reader writes, “The victims or objects of terrorist attack have little intrinsic value to the terrorist group but represent a larger human audience whose reaction the terrorists seek (Crenshaw 99)”. While the victims of a terrorist attack may feel afraid of a possible future attack, there may be other reactions as well, such as supporters joining a terrorist organization, sympathizers for the terrorist cause, rage from the victims, rage from the organization to continue, and so forth.
Terrorism is a complex topic that may need future articles to further break down specific issues. But what can be gathered is that terrorism is not random or misplaced chaos for evil’s sake. Numerous factions and individuals firmly believe in their causes for one reason or another. They believe extremism and violence are the assured path to meet the ends of their goals. Some groups take advantage of the chaos and the will of the people to direct them at an enemy; others may believe they are fighting for the greater good, and some just want to bring fear. This is why it’s important to know what drives people to follow these groups or their intrusive thoughts and how to prevent future tragedies. It should also be clear that no matter the justifications for a group’s reason for the assault, it doesn’t justify the actions and harm they have done to innocent people who had nothing to do with them. While our militaries and governments may fight the hard fight against terrorism. What we as citizens can do is learn and prevent these groups from springing up in our homes
Works Cited
Crenshaw, M. (2012). The causes of terrorism. Terrorism studies: A reader, 99-114.
Lutz, J. M., & Lutz, B. J. (2009, September). How successful is terrorism? In Forum on Public Policy (Vol. 11, pp. 1-22).
Seib, P. (2017). As Terrorism Evolves. Cambridge University Press.
Schmidt, A. P. (2022). Defining terrorism. International Centre for Counter-Terrorism.
Melle I. (2013). The Breivik case and what psychiatrists can learn from it. World psychiatry: official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA), 12(1), 16–21. https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20002
Martin, G. (2020). Understanding terrorism: Challenges, perspectives, and issues.
