ABSTRACT

Terrorist attacks on victims ranging from office workers in New York to schoolchildren in Russia have dominated headlines throughout the twenty-first century. In response, American President George W. Bush committed his nation to a war on terror – a decision which eminent strategic theorist Michael Howard condemned as a ‘terrible and irrevocable error’.1 Terrorism is, in short, among the most publicised national security issues of our time, and it is also among the most hotly debated. Indeed, one of the main reasons why terrorists prevail in struggles with more powerful opponents is that they confront their foes with situations in which every possible course of action is painful, uncertain and bitterly controversial. Although terrorists may not be able to overcome their enemies directly, they may confuse them, divide them, isolate them, humiliate them and demoralise them, breaking down previously existing political relationships and making it possible for the terrorists – or, more commonly, others working alongside them – to impose new ones.