Terrorism is the use of violence to terrorize a group of people in order to extract political concessions. This is different from warfare, which employs violence to extract a political concession through battle.
Terrorism is a "weak to strong" process. The terrorist, in other words, will always lack the arms, personnel, and sophistication to defeat and overcome his or her enemies in direct confrontation. He or she, cannot, for instance, capture and hold territory against a sovereign state's police and military forces. Instead, the terrorist uses what resources he or she does have to spread fear and panic among the population, so as to generate vertical political pressure directed against the state's decision makers.
To be classified as terrorism, therefore, an act must be (a) violent, (b) have a political goal, (c) seek to achieve that goal through the spreading of fear rather than battlefield confrontation.
The general definition of terrorism is the use of violence and intimidation against civilians in the pursuit of political aims.
Terrorism foreign and domestic seeks to intimidate civilians and governments. The pursuit of these political aims seeks to corral civilians and governments into a state of fear and panic that will have them make careless decisions.
For example, the recent chemical attacks in Syria (April 2018) lead to the United States bombing facilities that were supposedly containing chemical weapons. There have been conflicting reports on this information. However, this is an example of terrorism that leads governments to make hasty decisions.
Terrorism in a nutshell is a method used to create fear and intimidation in civilians and governments to lead them to hasty decisions.
Terrorism can be difficult to define. There is no universally recognized definition of what constitutes terrorism. However, we can look for common factors that are generally agreed upon as being elements of terrorism.
1. Terrorism involves the use of violence. These acts of violence are specifically committed against civilians. There is debate as to whether an act of violence in a public place which is announced beforehand by the active group—thus giving the civilians a chance to avoid the violence—classifies as terrorism. The idea that terrorism is violence against civilians would suggest, for example, that some of the acts carried out by the Irish Republic Army in the 1980s were definitely acts of terrorism (blowing up the cars of specific civilians without warning, detonating a bomb in 1984 during the Conservative Party conference) but some were arguably not (the Hyde Park and Regent's Park bombings that killed a number of soldiers involved in a military parade). Personally I feel that the detonating of bombs against soldiers not actively involved in combat, and with whom one is not at war, does fall under the definition of terrorism, but this is for you to decide.
2. Terrorism is carried out in pursuit of a particular set of objectives, which may be political, social, religious, or ideological. So, according to this definition, a man who detonates a bomb in a public place for no particular reason other than for his own ends is not a terrorist, whereas the same act committed by a man affiliated with a political organization or in stated pursuit of political or religious goals is a terrorist act.
3. Terrorism involves the commission of, or threat of commission of, crimes which are both legally and morally wrong.
Taking these factors into account, I would suggest that a good inclusive definition of terrorism might be: Terrorism is the threat or perpetration of violence against civilian (or unwitting) targets in pursuit of a political or religious ideology.
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