More on defining terrorism

Eric Martin, commenting on my post from yesterday on deterrence, made a comment that I felt deserved a response. As I began to formulate that response I realized that my response was in danger of overflowing its banks and drowning the comments section so I’ve made it into a post of its own

Here’s Eric’s comment:

Allow me to take issue with your definition of terrorism:

“I think that a terrorist attack is an attack on civilians or civilian assets whose purpose is to provoke terror. It has no other tactical or strategic significance.”

I guess it depends on how you define “strategic significance” and “provoke terror.”

Some contend that the strategy of targeting civilains is an attempt to compel a certain adversary to acquiesce to political demands of one sort or another. By targeting civilians, the “terrorist” is attempting to make the costs of confrontation so onerous that the other side loses its resolve. Thus there is a strategic significance to the targeting of civilians. Would that mean they are not terrorists?

Maybe you don’t consider this a strategic significance, and would say that any deliberate targeting of civilians is terrorism, even if there is an underlying political goal or a desire to force your opponenet to surrender.

But how would either definition of this tactic handle the historicl tendency by many armies to target civilians as a means to induce surrender? It might sound strange to say, but many generals used terrorism – at least under certain definitions. It sounds strange only because the term has been associated with non-conventional armies and non-state actors, but as a tactic it is the same in quality.

The attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were close to falling under this definition. While there were certain military production facilities in Nagasaki, it is hard to argue that the point was not to make the costs of war seem so onerous on Japan so as to compel their surrender. That was accomplished by killing massive numbers of civilians, and the threat of further destruction in such a manner. The same could probably be said of the bombing raids in Dresden and Tokyo. And of course there is the long ignominious history of targeting Native American “civilians” in order to purge this country of its inhabitants.

In the context of nuclear deterrence as the concept has been discussed, targeting Mecca with nuclear weapons as a response to a nuclear attack on the United States by terrorists who are not supported by Saudi Arabia would be very close to falling under the definition of terrorism. In fact, I think it would be hard to call it anything but (although I am not suggesting that you are advocating targeting religious sites per se, as I understand that is not your position).

I’m certainly open to other definitions of terrorism so let’s examine some. Title 22 of the United States Code, Section 2656f(d) defines terrorism as: “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.”

Here’s how the United Nations defines terrorism:

Proposed Definitions of Terrorism

1. League of Nations Convention (1937):

   “All criminal acts directed against a State and intended or calculated to create a state of terror in the minds of particular persons or a group of persons or the general public”.

2. UN Resolution language (1999):

   1. Strongly condemns all acts, methods and practices of terrorism as criminal and unjustifiable, wherever and by whomsoever committed;

   2. Reiterates that criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or other nature that may be invoked to justify them. (GA Res. 51/210 Measures to eliminate international terrorism)

3. Short legal definition proposed by A. P. Schmid to United Nations Crime Branch (1992):
   Act of Terrorism = Peacetime Equivalent of War Crime

4. Academic Consensus Definition:

   “Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-) clandestine individual, group or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby – in contrast to assassination – the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population, and serve as message generators. Threat- and violence-based communication processes between terrorist (organization), (imperilled) victims, and main targets are used to manipulate the main target (audience(s)), turning it into a target of terror, a target of demands, or a target of attention, depending on whether intimidation, coercion, or propaganda is primarily sought” (Schmid, 1988).

In my definition of terrorism I attempted to formulate something of a minimalist definition considering only the target and means. I deliberately avoided characterizing either the perpetrator or the objective This would seem to be completely consistent with the academic consensus definition above. For me any definition of terrorism should include at least the following acts:

• The destruction of the Murrow Building in Oklahoma City in 1995
• The destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001
• The ongoing terrorist activities of Palestinians against Israelis

Note that I’m specifically not excluding other terrorist acts. But for me these are the quintessential terrorist acts and any reasonable definition of terrorism should characterize them as well.
When I examine these three cases some particular issues stand out. Obviously, these are all acts of terror perpetrated against civilians. I also contend that neither
the destruction of the Murrow Building nor the destruction of the World Trade Center had any real military or political objectives. Yes, there have been political
motivations. But that’s not the same as a political objective. Their purpose was to destroy, kill, and cause terror.

I recognize that it’s more controversial but I’m going to claim that the same is now true of Palestinian terrorist
acts against Israelis. Until Yasser Arafat rejected the terms he was offered at Camp David in 2000 it might have reasonably
been claimed that the attacks had a political objective. The terms Arafat was offered were good. Agreeing to the right
of return would have been negotiating away the existence of the Israeli state and it could not have
been reasonably expected by anyone. Consequently, terrorist acts after 2000 have no political objective.
There are no further terms that can be exacted. Their purpose is only to destroy, kill, and cause terror to Israelis.

Now let’s consider the examples Eric gives above. I agree with him that the firebombing of Dresden was an act of revenge; it was terrorism.
It’s purpose was to punish the Germans not to reduce morale or gain a political objective. It sent a message.

The use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima also sent a message. The message was that the United States had a weapon of such power
that the Japanese had only two choices: surrender or face extermination of their people and their culture. It demonstrated
both the will and the ability do it. I used to believe that the United States had other ways of conveying such a message.
For example, we could have invited Japanese scientists to a deserted island and detonated the bomb there. But after studying
the matter I’ve come to the conclusion that the overwhelming likelihood was that no Japanese scientist of the time
would have conveyed such a message—they would have ended their own lives rather than facing that level of dishonor.
We simply had no other method of conveying the message.

Nagasaki was a completely different matter. It was unnecessary. It was revenge. It was terrorism.

I could argue about the treatment of Native Americans but I’ll acknowledge that that was terrorism, too.

I’m not claiming that Eric is mounting this kind of argument but it’s been my experience that
claims of historic terrorism by the United States are usually the opening sally in a utilization of the Ad Hominem Tu Quoque fallacy. But, as
with all such fallacious argument, their truth or falsehood is irrelevant to the topic under discussion.

As to the claim that the objective of terrorism is to force your enemy to surrender, I just can’t think offhand of any cases
in which that’s been successful. Quite to the contrary it seems to stiffen resistance.

So for the time being I’m sticking to my guns and claiming that terrorism has no tactical or strategic
objective. The preponderance of cases seems to suggest that terrorism is a means of conveying a message.
In the immortal words of Sam Goldwyn, “If you want to send a message, use Western Union”.