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Defining
Terrorism
 efore
assessing the threat of CBW terrorism, we need to define the word "terrorism."
For political reasons, no single definition has been accepted worldwide
and several different ones are in current use.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines terrorism as:
"The unlawful
use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate
or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof,
in furtherance of political or social objectives."
The U.S. State
Department defines terrorism differently, as:
"Premeditated,
politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets
by sub-national groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to
influence an audience."
Terrorism experts
outside government have also developed their own definitions. For example,
Walter Laqueur, a terrorism specialist at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies in Washington, D.C., defines terrorism as:
"The sub-state
application of violence or threatened violence intended to sow panic
in a society, to weaken or even overthrow the incumbents, and to bring
about political change."
Some definitions
of terrorism go beyond sub-state actors to include repressive governments
that may carry out acts of "state terrorism" against their own citizens.
The lack of a universally accepted definition of terrorism has allowed
political leaders to manipulate the term for propaganda purposes. During
the Cold War, for example, the United States and the Soviet Union each
supported sub-national groups engaged in proxy wars. The United States
called the groups it supported "freedom fighters" (such as the contras
in Nicaragua and the mujahideen in Afghanistan), while labeling the
groups supported by the Soviet Union as "terrorists" (such as the
Palestinian
Liberation Organization). The Soviets, of course, described the same
groups in exactly opposite terms. For the purposes of this tutorial,
however, the term "terrorism" will be used to describe acts that incorporate
the following elements:
- Intentional
or threatened violence directed against civilians or noncombatants;
- Actors that
are sub-national groups or individuals (although they may receive
financial or logistical support from governments);
- Motivations
that are chiefly political, ideological, or religious (i.e., not strictly
criminal);
- Often, some
element of symbolism in the choice of target, together with the desire
to elicit fear in a larger audience beyond the immediate victims of
an attack.
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