ABSTRACT
Democracies are clearly vulnerable to terrorist attacks because of the openness of their societies and the ease of movement across and within frontiers. It is always easy for extremists to exploit democratic freedoms with the aim of destroying democracy. In the long run, the threat to human freedom from the spread of terrorism in Third World areas is far more serious. For terrorism in these often highly unstable areas is much more likely to lead to the undermining of fragile democratic governments and is widely used as part of the repertoire of revolutionary movements to bring about Marxist takeovers of Third World states. A major political difficulty in cooperation against terrorism is the lack of a clear single forum for Western democratic cooperation. Some Western democracies have little or no direct experience of terrorism, and thus cannot see the importance of the problem.
