ABSTRACT
Strategy is the considered application of means to advance one’s ends. Terrorists, far from being “mindless,” as American politicians sometimes say, are disturbingly calculating about the means they use. Military analysts often describe terrorism as less than a strategy and merely as a tactic, but depending on circumstances and the terrorists’ intentions, it can be either. In the post-1945 world, terrorism has been a strategy central to a score of revolutionary movements. The groups’ documents, communiqués, and testimonials-given to the press or spoken in court-reveal choices made to use terror. States, as well, continue to use terror as a weapon against foreign entities, émigrés, and others they deem enemies. The many consequences of those deliberate choices to employ terrorism range from the most general and ambiguous, through the devastatingly inhumane and destructive, to the decidedly political, and other effects on contemporary life.
