Why terrorism doesn't work

The article identifies some important reasons why terrorism conflicts tend to go into long-lasting deadlocks. Insurgents tend to use terrorism only as a last resort when no other efficient weapons are available. This indicates a severe imbalance of power between the two parts, which makes it impossible to reach a fair compromise by negotiation. The violence of terrorism and counter-terrorism has a strong psychological effect which, according to the cultural r/k theory, influences the cultures of both parts in the direction of strong nationalism or group identity, intolerance and bellicosity. The mass media amplify both the psychological effect and the imbalance of power by emphasizing fear and drama and by giving unequal coverage of the two sides. Examples and suggestions for mitigating these problems are given. Scientific neutrality The general standards of scientific neutrality are difficult to live up to in the study of terrorism where often there are no unbiased information sources. It has been found that most studies of terrorism are based on biased information sources such as news media and government sources, and in fact the bulk of the literature on the relationship between terrorism and the media has been characterized as dismaying (Reid 1997, Paletz and Boiney 1992, Irvin 1992). In the present study, I am attempting to take the role of a neutral observer. In the absence of unbiased information sources I have attempted to gather information from both parts in the conflicts, admitting that the scarce sources from the terrorist side may not be representative. Definition of terrorism Before we start our analysis, we may need a definition of terrorism. Definitions of terrorism have often been arbitrary and ad hoc. Mass media and political leaders have used the label of terrorism very selectively to target their enemies (Lee and Solomon 1990), and the alleged terrorists have challenged this categorization. It has often been argued that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. The most workable definition of terrorism that has been published is the intentional use of, or threat to use violence against civilians or against civilian targets, in order to attain political aims (Ganor, n.d.). But even this definition has a problem because it includes nonhuman targets and thus may be interpreted to include, for example, flag-burning as terrorism. Since there are more than a hundred different definitions of terrorism (Ganor, n.d.) we have to admit that the concept of terrorism is a rhetoric device used for condemning one's enemies rather than a scientifically definable category. Consequently, the scientific analysis may as well use the constructionist approach of defining terrorism as whatever people so considers. These definitional quibbles are of minor importance, however, to the purpose of this article. What matters to the application of the cultural r/k theory (see below) is that terrorism is terrifying. Any attack that evokes strong feelings of terror whether intended or not may thus be relevant to the discussion of this article. The major focus of the article is on the kind of terrorism that we see in connection with insurgency.