Essay on Terrorism in History is published for informational purposes only. The free papers are not written by our writers, they are contributed by users, so we are not responsible for the content of this free sample paper. If you want to buy a quality Essay on Essay on Terrorism in History at affordable prices please use our essay writing services offered by EssayEmpire.

Terrorism is a fluid and adaptable form of political behavior that defies precise definition. It typically involves the illegal use or threatened use of violence against individuals unable or unprepared to defend themselves in order to elicit fear and advance a political, ideological, or religious cause. Attacks can range from isolated events perpetrated by "home-grown" terrorists such as Theodore Kaczynski (the Unabomber, who engaged in nearly 2 decades of bombings from the late 1970s to early 1990s) and Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols (who bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995) to synchronized mass casualty events such as the September 11, 2001, attacks (9/11) or the Madrid train bombing in 2004. Weapons of terror can include chemical or biological agents (i.e., bioterrorism), radiological dispersal devices (RDDs), and nuclear devices (the so-called weapons of mass destruction, or WMDs). Sometimes terrorism can involve self-sacrifice (i.e., suicide terrorism) and martyrdom.

Catastrophic terrorism raises the specter of numerous casualties and open-ended religious or cultural battles, while other forms of terrorism have been linked to ethnic conflicts, environmental concerns, and criminal activities. Terrorism can impose very high costs, create massive disruptions, and create a generalized condition of fear that may have wide-ranging social, political, psychological, and economic consequences. Thus, terrorism can enable micro actors to have macro-impact.

Analysts are divided on the utility of theorizing terrorism as a permanent feature of political life or as a distinctly modern phenomenon. Certainly, it is possible to identify in antiquity and throughout the Middle Ages individuals and groups that used violence to instill fear in order to advance political goals, such as the Zealots of Judea during the Roman Empire or the Assassins during the medieval period. But these examples do not allow for a clear criterion for deciding who is a terrorist and who is simply a combatant or agent of legitimate political power. Facilitating this distinction is the idea that the legitimate use of violence is limited to a government formed through a social contract, which is a modern concept associated with writers such as Thomas Hobbes.

Indeed, for well over 300 years after Hobbes wrote his state-defining study, Leviathan of 1651, the image of the world as an anarchic system, in which the governments of sovereign states monopolize violence within a defined territory and then engage with other states in a competition to survive that frequently leads to war, was favored by the security community. After the enormous devastation of World War II, analysts and policymakers concluded that the great challenge was to find ways to prevent a third world war involving nuclear weapons while working under the condition of anarchy. A number of concepts were devised or adapted to investigate and explain the problems of the cold war world, such as the security dilemma (actions taken to enhance one state's security may make other states feel less secure, leading to conflict or countermeasures that offset the initial actions), balancing (promoting regional or global stability by forming and reforming alliances to counter states and other alliances of states perceived as threatening), the spiral model (when actions taken by one state lead to countermeasures by another state, triggering further measures by the first state, and so on), and deterrence (when one actor attempts to influence the behavior of another actor by communicating that a given action will lead to a response that will inflict unacceptably high costs). Defense policy was constructed on a platform of realist theory animated by estimates about other states' military expenditures, weapons development programs, alliances, and intelligence capabilities. Late in the 20th century, real-world events began to erode this image. Global processes such as rapid technology diffusion greatly empowered non-state actors, who often organized themselves into transnational networks.

Problems that once paled alongside the threat of world war--such as global terrorism and transnational crime--evolved as serious national security concerns. Over the past several decades, major shifts in global power and technology ushered in a period in which individuals seeking to influence the global political and economic landscape moved beyond territorial boundaries to form transnational networks capable of impacting traditional power structures within and among nation-states. As part of this trend, global terrorism became a significant national security concern.

Small groups now have the motivation and capacity to do great harm. Promoting elections and expanding free trade may not be enough, at least in the short term, to neutralize them.

Moreover, in some instances the threats posed by terrorists have been depicted as not only the most urgent threats facing the United States and many other countries, but also as virtually immune to traditional defense strategies. Reflecting this attitude, the 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States explicitly rejected the utility of the concept of deterrence in understanding or responding to terrorists. Reinforcing this alleged discontinuity with past approaches to security are claims about decisive shifts in the structure and character of network threats such as terrorism.

References:

1) Alexander, Yona and John M. Gleason, eds. 1981. Behavioral and Quantitative Perspectives on Terrorism. New York: Pergamon.

2) Atran, Scott. 2003. "Genesis of Suicide Terrorism." Science 299:1534-39.

3) Crenshaw, Martha. 2000. "The Psychology of Terrorism: An Agenda for the 21st Century." Political Psychology 21:405-19.

4) Enders, Walter and Todd Sandler. 2000. "Is Transnational Terrorism Becoming More Threatening? A Time-Series Investigation." Journal of Conflict Resolution 44(3):307-32.

Free essays are not written to satisfy your specific instructions. You can order a term paper, research paper or custom TOPIC at our site which offers professional essay writing services. Get your high quality custom paper at relatively cheap prices. EssayEmpire is the best solution for those who seek help in essay writing related to TOPIC and other relevant topics.