ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to expand on the concept of “enhanced terrorism,” a condition whereby terrorism is used with enhanced effects in the midst of calamitous chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or hazardous waste (CBRN + H) conditions. The framework for discussion involves the description of enhanced terrorism's “proactive” and “ad-hoc” dimensions; heuristically driven extensions of the conceptualization's implications and applications; description of terrorist group splintering or cohesion conditions and trajectories within calamitous conditions. In previous work, the concept of “enhanced terrorism” is articulated with two of its sub-types positioned at either end of an enhanced terrorism continuum: (1) “proactive” enhanced terrorism; (2) “ad-hoc” enhanced terrorism. In the case of “proactive” enhanced terrorism, terrorist group leaders use traditional terrorism and cyberterrorism to take advantage of calamitous conditions to magnify terrorist assault effects. In the post coronavirus era, what is implicitly understood in the carefully reasoned plans of terrorist chieftains, the hallmark of “proactive” enhanced terrorism, is the potential for enhanced terrorism to have compound ripple effects across the environmental system dimensions with direct and indirect connections. In comparison, “ad-hoc” enhanced terrorist actions are more spontaneous events, in many cases reactive to political events and institutional processes that occur within a calamitous condition such as the coronavirus pandemic. The ad-hoc enhanced terrorism reflective of the anxiety and abject fear that calamitous conditions create are in many cases directed at ethnic, religious, and racial minority group members who are blamed for that calamitous condition. In the United States, for example, “right-wing” extremist groups have blamed Asians and the American political “left-wing” for coronavirus. One variation of this spurious argument reports the American political “left-wing” works with American Jews through “5 G” communications networks to spread the virus and achieve worldwide political domination. In the United States, many of the motivations that drive closer personal affiliations to political movements which promote social equality and economic justice are linked to anger, frustration, and similar sentiments about political, economic, cultural, and social disparities between communities in society. A calamitous condition such as coronavirus works to sharpen those differences; those motivational demands that lead to political movement affiliations, if left unattended by government institutional responses, can increase the potential for terrorism. This resonates with Gurr's notion of “relative deprivation theory,” where more plentiful economic and political opportunities associated with one particular ethnic, racial, or religious group, often separated by region, stands in stark relief to the limited economic and political opportunities of other groups, thereby increasing the likelihood of physical conflict.
