ABSTRACT
Lebanon, especially during the civil war that began in the 1970s, supplies a clear example of complex causes underlying widespread violence, including various types of terrorism and the taking of Western hostages. Much of the complexity resulted from the fact that so many different groups relied on violence and terrorism in their efforts to achieve their political objectives. In southern Thailand there has been an insurgent and terrorist campaign among Islamic Malays. Many instances of violence and assassination that have occurred in many of the successor states of the Soviet Union have involved both criminal and terrorist elements. In Colombia, violence and terrorism have included leftist revolutionaries that have frequently operated in league with drug cartels. Ideology would appear to be a more consistent confounding element in cases of violence with complex motivations for the dissident groups and their allies, and it has been ideologies from the left rather than those of the right that have been the most relevant.
