When members of al-Qaeda flew commercial jetliners into New York’s World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, the world became clear on who a terrorist was. But, 23 years later, the reality is that there is no one “type” of terrorist. As security forces around the world grapple with myriad threats from all manner of groups, a necessary consensus on who the adversary is becomes crucial.
An effective definition of terrorism is essential to provide rules of engagement to national security agencies and to facilitate joint efforts at the international level based on a shared perspective on peace and war, friends and foes, and threat scenarios.
The good, the evil and the terrorists
A person is called a terrorist because of his actions, not because of his beliefs, and he is prosecuted only because of his actions.
Discussing terrorism at the theoretical level of “good and evil” is unproductive and futile. Even if we all agree that terrorism is a manifestation of evil, there can be no consensus on who the terrorists are.
This is because in today’s fragmented world the category of evil can only be understood locally, and is difficult to share outside one’s cultural boundaries. Evil as a concept depends on cultural perspectives and therefore cannot provide a definition of terrorism based on an objective assessment of harm and threats.
Furthermore, in the world of conflict, the same effect can be produced by the use of violence by terrorists, insurgents, freedom fighters and other groups, and by doing the same act for different reasons and under different labels.
The whole question of an action being “good or bad” depends on the reasons that motivate that action, so this is again a vague criterion. The approval or disapproval of actions cannot depend on the value of “good or bad”, nor on the reasons that generate them.
So this is one more reason to change the way we measure terrorism, forgetting about “good and evil”, focusing instead on the consequences of terrorism, restricting its effects to those we cannot accept. Those effects, unlike ideas about what constitutes motivations, can be counted and measured. When “an act of terrorism is caused by the effects that the act produces, not by the reasons that motivate it”, the way is open for everyone to agree on a common counter strategy to terrorism.
Defining terrorism
Ten years after 9/11, Alex P. Schmid, Distinguished Fellow at the International Center for Counterterrorism (ICCT) and Director of the Terrorism Research Initiative (TRI), gathered the opinions of dozens of experts to arrive at a scientific definition of terrorism for the 21st century.
This has resulted in a long list of characteristics, emphasizing the objective of “spreading terrorism”, identifying communication as a distinctive element of terrorism, and the use of indiscriminate violence against “civilian” targets.
This diversity of definitions makes it difficult to formulate a common operational perspective for countering the threat of terrorism.
Unfortunately, many definitions of terrorism refer to experiences of the phenomenon in a world that no longer exists.
Italy is a good example of this.
History of violence
Italy is notorious for the violence that occurred during the last 30 years of the 20th century, involving groups ranging from far-left groups, such as the Brigata Rosse (Red Brigades), to far-right groups (Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari), as well as the Mafia and other organized crime.
There was a period of violent political terrorism in Italy that sought to replace the state with another idea of the state.
Anti-terrorism laws that still address the phenomenon today were created based on that experience.
However, terrorism today has nothing to do with the terrorism of that time. Therefore, the old regulatory tools are still used to control a changed phenomenon.
This means that an effective, up-to-date response to terrorism requires us to recognise the phenomenon as it appears today, and ask the fundamental question: “What is terrorism?”.
In recent years, terrorism has proven to be flexible, adaptive and opportunistic. It is adept at exploiting the enemy’s weaknesses and this ability gives it strength.
Europol lists current terrorism types and dangerous groups in the TE-SAT Terrorism Situation and Trends Report 2023, and warns that “the lines between different types of terrorism, including right-wing, left-wing, anarchist, jihadist and other ideologies, are likely to become even more blurred in the future”.
Europol pointed out that points of convergence have already been observed between terrorists and violent extremists across the ideological spectrum.
Salad bar terrorism
Ideologically, today we can talk about salad bar terrorism (or mixed ideology terrorism), where the ideological dimension is present, but it is expressed according to personal taste, so as to justify the option of violent affirmation of one’s ideas.
Nevertheless, the real causes of terrorism can be found in terrorism itself as a choice and action. They lie in the terrorists’ belief that only violence can change an already irreparable, urgent and dramatic situation. The personal ideology that terrorists create for themselves is the justification for terrorist action and not the real motivation.
In this framework, recruitment and propaganda are strategic pieces of the ideological puzzle: ideas to be recombined according to a flexible and adaptable image, which constitutes the scenario in which terrorist violence will be expressed.
This fragmentation is the main characteristic of terrorism that affects the identity of young people (since young people are the main victims of terrorist propaganda and recruitment). A fragmentation where geographical, political and cultural boundaries are no longer useful, having been reconstituted by the global network of communication technologies.
More than ideology
The first challenge that emerges is the need to rethink the meaning of nation and state.
The paths leading to terrorism are multiple, and this is why a definition of terrorism based on causes and motivations does not work: the unpredictable salad bar ideology offers many paths to becoming a terrorist.
Ideologies no longer provide adequate analytical categories to identify threats and then to counter them effectively. The factors that drive radicalism today are multiple and come from a variety of inputs.
A good example of the failure to adequately deal with terrorism today are the many tools developed by law enforcement agencies to identify potential terrorists, called terrorist risk assessment tools.
All of these have so far produced poor results because they are based on false assumptions of continuity, linearity, and ideal coherence, whereas today’s salad bar terrorism offers a circuitous path that is swift and unpredictable, and always radical for all.
For example, the Australian Institute of Criminology recently released a report on the use of four risk assessment tools designed to assess the threat posed by radical offenders and, in some cases, justify keeping them behind bars or monitoring them closely after they complete their sentence.
The AIC report found that there is a “relative lack of research on the efficacy of these tools”, which “hinders their use and undermines confidence in the expert assessments that rely on these tools”.
There are often no reliable clues to identify the “specific terrorist” until it is too late.
Today, a more effective way to identify potential terrorist risk may be to adopt the so-called “digital HUMINT” approach, which analyzes both “real” and “virtual” dimensions simultaneously, exploring not only networks of offline relationships and habits, but also social media ecosystems and chat rooms.
A new approach
A new approach that discards the ideological dimension as the fundamental dimension of terrorism is significant and implies that “a terrorist act occurs because of the effects it produces, not because of the reasons behind it.”
This approach is not only supported by past empirical results and failures of counterterrorism efforts. It also has a theoretical basis from the field of crisis management, where a crisis is defined as an event whose effects are not controlled by any system.
It also has a practical basis, building a consensus on “what terrorism is” requires specifying its effects, the harm it causes, for which an objective assessment can be agreed upon. This is fully aligned with the needs of the criminal justice system and the legal framework.
Terrorism is defined in the European Union based on its objectives: “a) seriously frighten the population; b) unreasonably compel any government or international organisation to do or not to do any act; c) seriously destabilise or destroy the fundamental political, constitutional, economic or social structure of any country or international organisation”, without reference to any ideological motivation.
Terrorism is no longer the same as before, but those fighting terrorism do not realize this. Bold decisions have to be taken to abandon old methods and means that can no longer yield results.
What proved effective 50 years ago in fighting terrorism in the 70s and 80s is irrelevant today, as contemporary terrorism bears little resemblance to its previous manifestations. After all, human society has changed.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
