Notes on Terrorism: Origins and Prevention

Abstract

Jerrold Post (this issue) thoughtfully considers what type of terrorist groups are likely to engage in small- or large-scale chemical or biological attacks. He does this by exploring the motivations of different types of terrorist groups, and the constraints placed on them by what they want to accomplish. For example, their desire to influence their own society makes it necessary to respect the lives of people in their society. Their desire to gain international support stops them from actions that would alienate potentially supporting countries. He notes, however, that even when a group would not use chemical or biological weapons, they can create tremendous destruction by using conventional arms, among which he includes the airplanes used in the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. Although one may ask whether anything in particular might be done to prevent the use of chemical and biological weapons by terrorists, the central question is how it might be possible to prevent terrorism in general. In considering this question I refer to Post's analyses of terrorist motives. In the brief analysis that follows, I partly draw on my work both on understanding the roots of genocide, mass killing and ethnopolitical violence, and on the prevention of group violence (see especially, Staub, 1989, 1999; Staub & Pearlman, 2001), and partly on literature on terrorism. Various examples of genocide and mass killing can be regarded as forms of state terrorism (Pilisuk & Wong, in press), violence by the state against a particular group of citizens in genocide, and either against a particular group or against less clearly defined groups of citizens in mass killing. The study of such mass violence provides some insights about illegal violence by groups, their members, and at times individuals against civilians, or "noncombatants," which is a common definition of terrorism (McCauley & Segal, 1989).