History of Terrorism
Terrorism has been in existence since time immemorial. Terrorism emerged as a result of conflicting ideologies and issues among the diverse world populations. Terrorism existed before the civil war due to white supremacy ideologies which provided that white Christians are superior to other ethnicities and races. The social structure in America was an explicit representation of the doctrine with aspects such as the legality of slavery. Groups, therefore, rose to terrorize African- Americans and whites who happened to empathize with other races and such groups were then declared terrorist groups. In the 1920s, acts of violence advanced to communists and anarchists oriented violence. The actions of force in this era represented the great rift existing in America social structure and intensified the fear of communist revolution. The FBI first terrorism investigation of the bombing of Wall Street happened in this era with suspicion of the anarchists as the perpetrators. Up to the twenties, the acts of violence were hardly considered as terrorist activities but rather as a quest for equality by acknowledging the diverse opinions.
The period between the 1960s and 1970s was characterized by the inclusion of commoners in plane travel creating new avenues for expansion of terrorist's acts such as skyjacking. However, right-wing terrorism took root in the 1980s when radical groups emerged and employed extreme acts of violence to pursue their diverse ideologies on social political and religious matters. The 1980s were characterized by significant acts of terrorism with the highlight of the 1999 bombing of Alfred Murray building that led to the death of 168 people. In the 21 st century terrorism has advanced to global levels characterized by militant religious sentiments with recognized terrorist groups such as Al-Qaida make headlines on the news frequently ( Zalman, 2017). Therefore, analysis and evaluation of the critical ideas of terrorism help better understand what terrorism is.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Definitions and Types of Terrorism
Terrorism is defined as the extreme exposure of political, religious, social and radical ideologies through the use of acts of terror to inflict fear on the people. There are two main types of terrorism which are international and domestic terrorism. International terrorism refers to acts of terror perpetrated by people or organizations globally recognized as terrorists or as terrorist associates. Domestic terrorism relates to the extremists’ use of violence by individuals or groups from within a national border in the nations or collaborating with local terrorist movements. International and domestic threats of terrorism have advanced in the recent years enabled by the use of the internet, social media and increasing local terrorists (FBI.gov, n.d). The advancements have expanded and diversified the scope and definitions of terrorism resulting to divergence and conflicts on defining terrorisms.
Causes and Effects of Terrorism
Terrorism is a global threat to peace and international collaboration hence the need to identify its causes and consequences to develop ways to counter the threat. Primarily, several factors combine to amount to different types of terrorism. Causes of terrorism include but are not limited to economic factors, political factors, and social factors. The main economic factors leading to terrorism is poverty which in turn is a result of other economic factors. Economic aspects such as the GDP, income inequality, education levels, unemployment and inflation directly or indirectly lead to poverty. Poverty, in turn, causes people to become indignant and hence result in terrorism as a platform to express their outrage. Research shows that poverty and terrorism are highly correlated. On the other hand, terrorism attracts poverty stricken recruits as they offer attractive compensation in out of money.
Political factors such as political subjugation and diverse political ideologies lead to terrorism. Political rights and civil liberties affect people causing citizens to suffer, and as a result, people have grievances which they seek to address. Governments are however reluctant to respond to people needs and causing people to become humiliated and repel the government resulting in terrorism. Studies show that Politics related social injustices are more significant causes of terrorism that poverty (Butler, 2015). Social factors such as religion have also been identified as significant causes of terrorism. Religious extremism has dramatically increased the scale of terrorist violence in the recent times. The typical form of religious extremism is Islamic radicalism although other types of religious extremism exist.
Terrorism includes of actions of terror and violence that besides inflicting fear on the masses has other adverse effects. Terrorism has a direct impact on the economy, social issues, and politics. Economically the impact of terrorism is estimated to cost the world about $52 million. Terrorism leads to the destruction of property and loss of lives taking back the economy. For instance, in the world trade bombing, the destruction of property was worth millions. Global markets are affected by the uncertainty terrorist attacks bring causing investors to hold back on investing which in turn retards the economy. Trade decreases and hence revenue for states goes down. (Gray, 2016). Terrorism also results in foreign skepticism where people lose trust for foreigners from renowned terrorist areas. As a result, societies are divided into racial or religious grounds due to the communal perspective of an organization as terrorist. For instance, Muslims all over the world undergo scrutiny in their travels and in public gatherings with the perception that they could be terrorists. Politically, terrorism leads to political unrest as people blame the government for its lack of ability to protect its people. Governments lose credibility among its people leading to demonstrations and loss of peace. On the other hand, terrorism also creates avenues for other crimes increasing the rates of insecurities
Counterterrorism
The trends of terrorism have improved and advanced over the years. The pattern as necessitated governments and security agencies to come up with ways of dealing with terrorism-related acts and countering related terrorist attacks. Various mechanisms have been put in place and continue to be developed to combat terrorism. For one, nations try to coordinate and work together through international organizations and integration of private and public in strategies to counter terrorism. Another mechanism is the investigation and closure of terrorist financing sources to disable terrorist's abilities. A rising area enabling terrorism in the modern world is the use of the internet. Hence the monitoring of internet materials and exchanges to identify terrorist threats and counteract them before they take place (OSCE, 2018). Another strategy under implementation to counter terrorism is the promotion of collaboration and cooperation of countries and media entities to work together in exposing terrorists related threats and working together to contain them. On the other hand, terrorism is adequately provided for in legislature to give a strict guideline on how to bring perpetrators to justice.
Evaluation
History and Definitions
For longtime issues of violence were assumed by US professionals in an attempt to focus on a collaborative approach to US history rather than one based on conflicts. As a result history of terrorism remained unclear and unexplored until the 1960s when the rise is riots, assassinations and terror attacks rendered the assumption flawed. Consequently, historians and scholars explored the topic of terrorism providing information of terrorist resulting conflicts, attacks, cries, and punishments providing a history of terrorism. The advancements of terrorist acts have led to the increase in addressing to terrorism in the contemporary world. Scholars have examined the roots of terrorism in a bid to find the start of terrorism and for a basis for the history of terrorism. The increased studies have led to a coherent approach to terrorism. However, one of the issues that remain a challenge for historians is defining terrorism and its nature with little agreement on whether to pursue the problem. Defining terrorism becomes an issue in determining its nature, extent, and intensity. That is to explain what acts of violence qualify as acts of terror and what degree of damage attains terrorism capacity.
There is a trend of acceptance that there is no coercive knowledge of what is terrorism. Definitions and aspects of terrorism remain a subject for debate among scholars. Although what terrorism is and its historical hold some unclear aspects some acceptable parameters are acknowledged by the various arguments about terrorism. In the course of historical research on terrorism, two trends arise which are anti-colonial violence and the left wing revolutionary violence. The two phenomena’s are meant to help researchers come up with a theory of terrorism and identify settings that give rise to terrorism. Terrorism is widely accepted as a political signal towards promoting a more significant cause on a particular issue whether social, political or religious characterized by and imprudent approach as opposed to ordinarily violence (Gage, 2011). Therefore, the history and definition of terrorism as critical ideas on terrorism are still under development, but there is evidence for increasing advancements in establishing the concepts.
Causes and Effects
The roots of terrorism are diverse, and at times the acts of terrorism are as a result of several of the sources. Terrorism actions serve purposes such as to attract media attention, destabilizing political states or economies among others. Additionally, the goals of terrorist attacks are either shorter such as seeking care or long run such as redistribution of power and hence the impacts will depend on the goals. Therefore the causes of terrorism and the effects have to have the capacity to create the desired outcomes. The acts of terrorists are usually tactical and planned carefully over time before they are actualized. Typically the actions taken by the terrorist are rational in that the causes of the attack define the intensity of the effects. Specific causes of terrorism are more prevalent than others such as religious and politically incited terrorist’s acts. The roots of terrorism are ere acts of justice that have intensified over tie to extremes and eventually to narrow ideologies. The causes of terrorism are elements of social injustices that need to be addressed although terrorism is an extreme reaction (Schneider et al., 2010). All in all the effects of terrorism immensely affect economies, politics and social lives of people. The intensity of damage caused by terrorism break humanitarian and justice boundaries. The underlying issue is, therefore, to put the effort in dealing with the underlying problems that lead to terrorism as amicably as possible to avoid the adverse effects.
Counterterrorism
Counterterrorism actions are aimed at restructuring terrorism threats and effects. The measures are implemented by the government, military personnel, international organizations and private persons. Counterterrorism approaches are either proactive or defensive. Defensive counterterrorism approaches are meant to make it hard for the terrorist to execute their threat through implementing a mechanism that makes attacks costly for the terrorists and hence reducing the possibility of terror attacks. Also, defensive measures ensure minimal losses in case of an attack on the victims. Defensive measures are instituted as following a terrorist attack as a reaction to the attack. On the other hand, proactive approaches aim at countering terrorism before attacks take place. Proactive measures involve destroying perpetrators resources, cutting off their financial enablers or capturing suspected members among others.
Proactive measures are meant to prevent terrorism in the first place while defensive strategies are set to deal with the aftermath of the attack. Ideally, proactive steps make more sense and are more active towards curbing the rising terrorism. However, governments and allied powers hardly take the proactive approach to terrorism as most countries wait upon other countries actions. Consequently, states opt for defensive measures as complementary strategies. In the case of international terrorism, countries hesitate to implement proactive policies in the hope to joy ride on the actions of other nations. What the perspective of most nations on proactive measures results from the fact that instituting proactive measures is complicated and expensive and hence leaders try to avoid the hustle. In the case of domestic terrorism, the approach is different since the instances are internal and are manageable. Therefore in the case of local attacks leade4rs have instituted proactive measures as it is easier to internalize costs and benefits (Todd, 2015). Thus, the counterterrorism approaches employed by states depends on the type of terrorism they seek to curb. Defensive measures are more likely to be effected in international terrorism threats while domestic terrorism is approached via proactive strategies.
The Future of Terrorism
Terrorism has advanced through the ages and is continuously gaining new heights. The rise of terrorism was named as the modern terrorism, and the trends indicate that terrorism techniques are rising and becoming more tactical and advanced. The new characteristics of terrorism are geared towards lethality and religious motivations. There growing intensity in terrorism is as a result of ignorance and assumption from the side of leaders. New terrorists are perceived to be more lethal as compared to formerly recognized terrorists since they deploy more advanced techniques in their attacks. The modern trends portray a scenario that sees similar terrorists are competing in achieving the heights of lethality. For this reason, it would be expected that without the implementation of necessary measures the future of terrorism is an issue to watch out for (Bruce, 2017). Terrorism is bound to achieve greater lethality causing more damage and harm. There is, therefore, a need to implement proactive measures putting in mind that the costs of the effects of terrorism out way the cost of instituting the necessary steps.
Conclusion
In conclusion, terrorism refers to all acts that present the extreme form of violence in pursuit of specific goals. The issue of terrorism continues to raise debates among scholars and historians on elements such as the definition of the intensity of violence that amounts to terrorism and the actual onset of terrorism. What is known is the eventuality of terrorism in the world and the rising trend of terrorism. The definitions of terrorism are provided for differently by various security bodies and states in an attempt to pave a way forward on what is terrorism. However, it is clear that terrorism is on the rise throughout the world and hence a need to implement counter terrorist approaches to curb the rising rates of terrorism. Terrorism presents a challenge for its definition in that its techniques and tactics are changing and advancing making it hard to define what constitutes terrorism. The technological advancements evident in the world today also aid in the breaking and developing nature of terrorism. Relevant authorities should, therefore, aim to monitor improvements and close loopholes for terrorists' activities. Thus terrorism is a social political and economic disaster for the world and requires the collaboration of states to contain its effects.
References
Bruce, N. (2017). Manchester: The newest terrorism, and the future of terrorism. Berkley University. Retrieved on 18 April 2018 from http://news.berkeley.edu/berkeley_blog/manchester-the-newest-terrorism-and-the-future-of-terrorism/.
Butler, T. (2015). What causes terrorism? Retrieved on 18 April 2018, from https://www.mckendree.edu/academics/scholars/butler-issue-25.pdf.
FBI.gov. (n.d). What we investigate: Terrorism . Retrieved on 18 April 2018 from https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/terrorism
Gage, B. (2011). Terrorism and the American experience: A state of the field. The Journal of American History, 91 (1), 18-19. doi: 10.1093/jahist/jar106.
OSCE. (2018). Countering Terrorism. Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe . Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Retrieved on 18 April 2018 from https://www.osce.org/countering-terrorism
Schneider, F., Brück, T., & Meierrieks, D. (2010). The economics of terrorism and counter-terrorism: A survey (Part II) . CESifo Working Paper Series 3011, CESifo Group Munich.
Todd S. (2015).Terrorism and counterterrorism: An overview. Oxford Economic Papers, 67 (1), 1–20.
Zalman, A. (2017). "Terrorism in America." ThoughtCo . Retrieved on 18 April 2018 from thoughtco.com/terrorism-in-america-3209268.
