ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the ways in which terrorism can be understood as an expression of political strategy. It shows that terrorism may follow logical processes that can be discovered and explained. The chapter presents the source of terrorist behavior, rather than the psychological one, it interprets the resort to violence as a willful choice made by an organization for political and strategic reasons, rather than as the unintended outcome of psychological or social factors. The costs of terrorism are high. Terrorism may be intended to create revolutionary conditions. Government's reaction to terrorism may reinforce the symbolic value of violence even if it avoids repression. Hostage taking can be analyzed as a form of coercive bargaining. Hostage seizures are a type of iterated game, which explains some aspects of terrorist behavior that otherwise seem to violate strategic principles. The chapter demonstrates that even the most extreme and unusual forms of political behavior can follow an internal, strategic logic.
