My colleague at the University of Utah College of Law, Amos Guiora, has just posted this very interesting paper on the appropriate definition of "terrorism." Here's the main point:
"The recommended definition captures the core elements of terrorism in clear and concise language. In reviewing scholarship and terrorists' writings, the overwhelming impression is that causing harm (physical or psychological) to the innocent civilian population is the central characteristic of terrorist action. The available literature articulates that harming civilians is the most effective manner from the terrorist mindset to effectuate their goals."
Guiora goes on to argue that, without a clear definition of terrorism, we won't take appropriate countermeasures. In particular, we need to understand that terrorism intends to disrupt daily life, and that effective counterterrorism measures will have to be based on that fact.
Further, it requires that we recognize that some of the things that terrorists do aren't "terrorism", because they target legitimate military targets. For instance, the USS Cole attack or many attacks on US servicemembers in Iraq aren't likely going to fall within any useful definition of terrorism.
So while I'm all for the project, I doubt it will ever take hold. People tend to be committed to the idea that tactics used by large organzied militaries can never be "terrorist" and tactics used by guerillas, irregulars, and suicide bombers are always "terrorist". It's extremely hard to convince them otherwise.
I'm not persuaded that anyone seriously considering the question actually thinks that any military action by non-state actors constitutes terrorism. I think what we see there is the view taken by lay people and politicians in reaction to attacks against their own forces. Note, for example, that in the United States the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor is routinely described as an atrocity. Of course, it was in the sense in which war is always an atrocity, but as a matter of law, it wasn't an atrocity at all: it was a legitimate attack on military installations. (It was probably also not in violation of the requirement to declare war before attacking - legally the United States and Japan were arguably already in a state of war due to the US support for the Chinese against the Japanese.)
(Why do we have so many rich Saudis doing it, and not nearly as many poor Africans despite the relative numerical relationship between the two? Did Aum Shinrikyo lack for money? Does the IRA?)
Perhaps you could point out more specifically what you see in the article that's new and valuable, because I didn't see much.
Guiora documents a (selective) sample of the intellectual contortions and political posturing involved in past attempts to define "terrorism". But he doesn't really make things any clearer.
Frankly, I suspect that he's on a snipe hunt ... that the concept so hard to pin down because it's a boo-word, not a descriptive category. But people keep on trying anyway, because the term "terrorism" has emotional power. So they endlessly formulate convoluted definitions that let them tar their enemies with it and avoid being tarred by it.
Here's a simple test. If the term is an objective description of a phenomenon, then it ought describe (some) people we like as well as (some) people we don't. But have you ever heard anybody describe a movement, person or action that he supports as "terrorist"? Neither have I.
The best succint description I've been able to come up with is "war crimes committed by non-state actors."
And nobody is ever going to come up with a sensible definition of "terrorism" that will be acceptable to the Iranian government, because they're never going to admit that by any sensible definition they're sponsors of terrorism.
Guiora's definition seems accurate enough, if conventional; it's not going to make much difference in how things work, though.
For another definition, see Cyrille Begorre-Bret, The Definition of Terrorism and the Challenge of Relativism, 27 Cardozo L. Rev 1987 (2006). It's somewhat philosophical (and the author's first language clearly isn't English), but it makes some good points. In short, Begorre-Bret's definition is along the lines of: (1) violence, (2) political in nature, (3) psychologically frightening in a way that reduces freedom, (4) does not discriminate between combatants and non-combatants (innocent civilians).
One problem I have with Guiora's definition is that he limits terrorism to something that affects "daily life" -- possibly via daily attacks; therefore he excludes events such as 9/11. While perhaps *one* type of terrorism is of the type currently plaguing Iraq and that plagued Israel in recent years (continuous small attacks that make people afraid to go shopping), I think it's incorrect to exclude events like 9/11, the subway bombings in the UK, and the Spanish train station attack. These don't fit into Guiora's "daily life" requirement, but they do fit into Begorre-Bret's since they cause psychological fear and result in a loss of freedom.
Yah, this definition clearly gets it wrong when you consider things like aerial bombardment during WWII. Now we can argue about whether it was aimed at innocent civilians with the intent to kill them but there was certainly allied bombing with the intent to disrupt the economic power of germany (and japan probably too) which is exactly disrupting it from conducting it's daily life in a normal fashion.
Heck there is absolutely no way that the A-bombs dropped on Japan were not aimed at killing innocent civilians AND intended to engage in psychological warfare. I mean after all that was one of the reasons to leave those cities untouched to scare people with the power of the A-bomb.
The problem with trying to give an actually correct definition is twofold. First it doesn't look very pretty and suggests the whole project might be pointless (which it is). More importantly it reveals the fact that one can't show something is bad by proving it to be terrorism. Terrorism as used in natural language already requires that you think the people doing the terrorism aren't justified in their response.
I mean if Jews during WWII had deployed the same tactics against germany as the IRA or other terrorists groups have we probably would call them freedom fighters. The reason is that we think this level of violence is a justifiable response to what was happening to them and they had no other similarly effective tool. However, once we admit that the moral judgement is required to call something terrorism we can no longer use the definition on it's own to settle moral questions about various groups.
I think that's a good one, and it does cover cases like suicide bombings on troops in Iraq.
I don't really understand the objection to adding "non-state actors" to the definition. If you wanted a useful definition "kidnapping", for instance, surely you'd stick something into your definition which says that a state locking up someone for a crime is not kidnapping, but me doing the same thing is. You might say that a state locking someone without a trial is kidnapping, but you'd give the state deference that the single person doesn't--if I lock you up it doesn't *matter* if I tried you first.
Or most of us don't consider all wars to be murder. But a random guy off the street who shoots a police officer for no reason is a murderer, and he can't justify himself by saying the police officer counts as a military target or that he'd declared war.
If the term is an objective description of a phenomenon, then it ought describe (some) people we like as well as (some) people we don't.
That doesn't make sense. For example, I've yet to see the term "murderer" describe someone I like; any cases where I'd accept a killing (self-defense, war, etc.) won't be defined as murder.
Whether these bombardments were innocent or not, they were not terrorism. If atrocities are committed by state actors (and I make no judgments here about our conduct of WWII), there are different remedies than if committed by non-state actors. You can, ofr example, wage war on the state, go after assets of the state and its citizens, etc.
That is not possible with acts committed by the IRA or al-Qaeda.
So the limitation of the ter to non-state actors preserves the emaningfulness of the term.
Ken Arromdee- the objection to adding "non-state actors" is because it's an absurd attempt to claim that when state actors target innocent civilians its a-okay.
Huh? War crimes are a-okay?
Talking about this is already rendered difficult by the implicit assumption that "terrorism" is by definition evil and therefore you don't want to notice when people whose overall goals you agree with are using terroristic methods.
You're turning it around and implictly assuming that all evils should be called "terrorism," in which case the words become synonyms.
Yup, there are many ways to be evil without being a terrorist. I think it's exactly this sort of fallacy which causes people to propose poor definitions like the one we saw in this paper. People want a definition that lets them criticize not one that actually describes how the term is used.
I mean whenever I see someone try and define something like terrorism, god, rape etc.. I get very sucpiscious. That's because it's so easy to bait and switch using the definition to establish something and then the common associations to draw out a conclusion. There is no real point served by defining words like terrorism since an adequate definition could just be used in the argument in place of the word. In other words if the argument doesn't go through unless it is 'terrorism' that is being defined not some arbitrary concept something is fishy.
It also can't be restricted just to harm to civilians. It's terrorism if you plant a bomb in the office of a high-ranking officer.
You also need to factor in things like eco-terrorism, which is indeed terrorism. It's no direct harm to civilians if you blockade a road that foresters need to use to cut down trees, but it's still terrorism. I suppose if you have a sufficiently broad understanding of what counts as harm, then you're ok, but it's not intuitively the best way to get at it.
Haig Khatchadourian's The Morality of Terrorism opens with a very nice discussion of how to define 'terrorism'. He distinguishes between predatory, retaliatory, political, and moral/religious terrorism in terms of the motives, but all have one thing in common: there are immediate victims and a separate real target. There are lots of uses of coercion or force that aren't terrorism. What makes it terrorism is that the intended effect on the primary target is accomplished indirectly by doing something to an immediate victim who isn't the primary target. You do or threaten something to loves ones, civilians, a structure, and so on in order to get someone else to do something.
The relevant section is also reprinted in the first two editions of James E. White's Contemporary Moral Problems: War and Terrorism. (I'm not sure why he removed it from the third edition, but it has pieces that don't strike me as being quite as insightful on this question.)
I just don't get this. If we exempt state actors, we let Stalin and Robespierre off the hook. Not only is that wrong, it ignores the very origin of the word as applied specifically to state action.
Jeremy—I strongly disagree with the people who want to label ecological protesters as "terrorists". I cannot support their methods, but putting people who commit property damage and block roads (and make a point of doing it all non-violently, except insofar as we sometimes call property damage "violent") in the same category as people like Palestinian suicide bombers who deliberately kill and maim large numbers of innocent civilians in order to inspire fear in the population is a really severe moral category error.
I agree with True Path- the very term "terrorism" has implicit in it a subjective disapproval of the aims of the acts. It really does boil down to "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."
Nicely sums up the last 6 years. . .
Also, by defining terrorism only in terms of non-state actors, you lose the ability to say that country Z supports terrorism. or you have to twist the definition of state actor into something that doesn't make much sense.
The absurdity of that comment is easily demonstrated using long established principles:
Dropping bombs from great heights with expensive aircraft: not terrorism
Leaving homemade bombs at curbside: terrorism.
Launching expensive guided rockets with an expensive delivery system toward a distant target: not terrorism.
Launching cheap unguided rockets with cheap portable launcher toward a distant target: terrorism.
Depositing hundreds of U.S. manufactured cluster bombs in civilian areas, if done by person in military uniform: not terrorism.
Planting one remotely triggered bomb in a civilian area, if done by a person not in military uniform: terrorism.
* * *
I trust the differences are readily apparent.
Of course it doesn't. My point, though, is that historically the term "terrorism" was applied to state actors; indeed, it originated that way. It seems pretty odd to change the term now.
That's especially the case when we consider some problems with exempting state actors. You say there are other remedies. So there are when the tactic is used by one state against another. But what about when it is used by a state against its own people (as was in fact the case with both Robespierre and Stalin)? What's the remedy then, revolution? Remember, too, that both Robespierre and Trotsky were explicit in justifying terrorism against their own people and frankly labeled it as such. Again, I ask, "Why should we exempt them from the label?"
This definition is awful. Military and government agents are often the target of terrorist operations, e.g., ETA in Spain, the IRA in the UK, and Hamas and Hizbola in the Middle East. Terrorism is often state-sponsored. This is the norm in the Middle East.
If I had immediate access to some available definitions produced by, e.g., the FBI, Brookings, the 9/11 Commission, etc. or the time to do an Internet search, I'd post them so readers could get a better idea of what's out there. Readers can seek these out for themselves via Google.
My sense is Guiora didn't do his homework before he prepared this document. If he had he might have realized he had nothing to add and might not have bothered.
If there is any gray scale to terrorism, this surely is as black as it gets.
With that in mind: When states engage in violence, the purpose is nearly always to either take territory or to defend territory. There have been a few historical exceptions, but when states seek territory, they care little about the beliefs of the people who live in that territory; they only care about the territory itself. Terrorists, on the other hand, have no realistic expectations of capturing, holding, or governing territory. (As Evidence A, I call out Hamas in Gaza -- if what they are doing can be said to be governing, in any sense of the word, then my Baptist aunt can be said to be the Pope.) The goal of a terrorist organization is to use violence against a group of people, who represent a particular school of thought, to pursuage others to self-censor and turn away from that school of thought. It's a crude but effective form of thought policing. They attack civilian populations because of what the attacked civilians symbolize (and because they are easy targets).
So from that perspective, was the firebombing of Dresden, or the A-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagisaki, terrorism? No, because the purpose of these bombings was to destroy the enemy's capacity to wage war, not to punish people for what they believed. True, many civilians got killed, but for the most part that was simply because they were in the way. Were the 9/11 attacks examples of terrorism? Yes, because the stated goal of the attackers is to force all Americans to convert to their brand of Islam -- out-and-out thought policing. (The Pentagon attack qualifies as terrorism because civilians in the hijacked airliner were used as part of the attack. If alQ had fired a missile at the Pentagon, then I think we could debate about whether or not that would qualify as terrorism.)
Was the Battle of Britian an act of terrorism by the Nazis? The Luftwaffe attacks, probably not. Accounts vary some, but by most accounts I've read, the purpose of the attacks was to harm morale to soften Britian up for a Nazi marine invasion. (It didn't work, obviously.) Were the later V-1 and V-2 attacks against London acts of terrorism? It could be said that they were, since it appears that the purpose was to punish Londoners for not converting to the Nazi cause; the attacks had little military value and there was no pretense that the V-1s/V-2s would in any way help advance the Nazi war effort. (This is backed by the name that Hitler gave the weapon; the "V" in V-1 and V-2 stands for a German word which translates as "vengence weapon".)
Note that there was a significant post-war effort in Germany and Japan to convince the population to turn away from Naziism and Japanese imperialism. However, these efforts were not carried out using military violence; they were carried out in the context of the victors' governing the conquered territories. Certainly, some people who resisted were punished and even executed, but this was because of acts they carried out, rather than because they refused to change their thoughts per se.
So, to sum it up, to meet this defintion of terrorism, two tests must be met:
1. The attack is aginst civilians from a given population.
2. There is a stated or implied threat against the remainder of the population to either submit to thought conversion, or face the same fate as those attacked.
I will exempt you from a begging the question charge, since I did not ask a question.
Ah, the Big Picture. The bloody details will ultimately resolve themselves into an elegant portrait so long as evil does not triumph.
I'm off to look for a definition of evil.