Sunday, July 15, 2007
Does terrorism work?
Interesting paper challenging the notion that terrorism is a successful political strategy (pdf link). The author has assessed the successes and failures of all 28 foreign terrorist organisations as designated by the U.S. Department of State. Despite proposing very favourable conditions for accepting that terrorist acts led to policy change, he concludes that only 7% of aims were achieved.
In the UK at least, terrorism seems to have had no meaningful political outcomes, besides a restriction of civil liberties. Bruce Schnieder has suggested that partly because of this we fail to recognise the underlying political intentions of terrorists. I can't really see that as being true. Every schoolkid in Britain was aware of the IRA's political aims. If the political aims of UK islamofacist terrorists are unclear, to me at least it's because they lack any credible, legitimate political representation, and because the "global aim" of spreading and defending the Islamic State is completely implausible as a consequence of bombings. (Both links via)
In the UK at least, terrorism seems to have had no meaningful political outcomes, besides a restriction of civil liberties. Bruce Schnieder has suggested that partly because of this we fail to recognise the underlying political intentions of terrorists. I can't really see that as being true. Every schoolkid in Britain was aware of the IRA's political aims. If the political aims of UK islamofacist terrorists are unclear, to me at least it's because they lack any credible, legitimate political representation, and because the "global aim" of spreading and defending the Islamic State is completely implausible as a consequence of bombings. (Both links via)
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