Terror Becomes a Fact of Modern Life

Where will it all end? When will it stop? Our political leaders speak of terrorism as if it were a scourge, a plague or an epidemic. They talk about what must be done to “stop the spread” as if terrorism were a kind of political AIDS. The depressing answer is that it won’t stop.

Developments over the past several years suggest that terrorism, like poverty, prejudice and crime, is becoming another of society’s chronic afflictions. More and more, the use of terrorist tactics by groups and governments is being institutionalized and tolerated, and to a certain degree, even legitimized as a means of political expression--an accepted mode of conflict among nations. And we may be able to do nothing about it. Why not?

There are several reasons: the sheer persistence of terrorism despite efforts by governments to crush it; the demonstrated utility of terrorist tactics by national governments; the concurrent tendency in other states to tolerate, even appease, state sponsors of terrorism; the continuing wrangles over definition; the tendency toward vigilante responses that are indistinguishable from, or border on, terrorism itself--and, perhaps the most insidious development of all, a growing banality of the whole phenomenon.

Governments have become tougher and more proficient at combatting terrorists. Some groups, like Italy’s Red Brigades, have been virtually destroyed.

Yet the volume of terrorist activity worldwide has not diminished. Since the late 1970s, the number of terrorist incidents resulting in fatalities has increased each year. A more alarming trend in the 1980s is the growing number of large-scale, indiscriminate attacks--car bombs, bombings in public places like airport terminals, bombs planted aboard trains--all calculated to kill in quantity.

We once relied on terrorists’ self-imposed constraints to limit violence. Most terrorists used the minimum force necessary to achieve their goals. They regarded indiscriminate violence as politically counterproductive. In the epoch of the car bomb, constraints seem to be eroding.

This is not to say that terrorists have been ultimately successful. They have attracted publicity, caused alarm, provoked international crises; they have compelled governments to divert vast resources to protection against attacks. But they have not translated these achievements into concrete political gains; in that sense, terrorism has failed.

Why, then, do they persist? In part because, cut off from normal contacts, talking only to each other, they come to believe their own propaganda: Government authority is in its death throes, the revolution is about to begin, victory is inevitable and imminent.

Part of the terrorists’ ability to survive may lie in the infrastructure that has grown up to support them. Increased cooperation among terrorists makes them more difficult to combat. There is today a semipermanent subculture of terrorism. Individual terrorists can be arrested, terrorist groups can be “defeated,” but governments find it extremely difficult to identify and destroy the resilient web of personal relationships, clandestine contacts, alliances with other groups, suppliers of material and services that sustain the terrorist underground.

In the process of long-term survival, some terrorist groups are changing their character. It costs money to maintain a terrorist group, and those who do not receive support from foreign patrons must get money through bank robberies, ransom kidnapings, extortion, smuggling or participation in the narcotics traffic. Gradually, the activities become ends in themselves and terrorist groups begin to resemble ordinary criminal organizations with a thin political veneer.

In an essay written more than 10 years ago, I suggested that “terrorism, though now rejected as a legitimate mode of warfare by most conventional military establishments, could become an accepted form of warfare in the future.” It was a concern, not an endorsement.

A growing number of governments are now using terrorist tactics themselves or employing terrorist groups as a mode of surrogate warfare. These governments see in terrorism a useful capability, a “weapons system,” a cheap means of waging war against another nation. Growing state sponsorship of terrorism puts more resources in the hands of the terrorists, including money and sophisticated munitions. It also provides a sanctuary where they can retreat, recuperate and rearm.

State-sponsored terrorism is far more difficult to suppress than independent groups. Going after it may require going after the state sponsor rather than the terrorists themselves. But it is usually difficult to prove connections between terrorist perpetrator and sponsor.

Because Libya and Iran sit atop vital oil and gas resources, many nations are seriously constrained in contemplating anti-terrorist actions against them. Military options are few and risky and their effectiveness is debatable. Finally, governments that retaliate against state sponsors of terrorism may find themselves the targets of terrorist retaliation.

The paucity of options to combat state-sponsored terrorism pushes governments in the opposite direction. Like hardened passengers in a big-city subway, governments turn the other way, trying hard not to notice. They avoid involvement, evade confrontation, mute their criticisms, issue joint communiques. In a new kind of appeasement, governments afford legitimacy to state sponsors--and indirectly, to terrorism itself, in return for a tacit promise of peace.

Efforts to cope with terrorism are complicated by widespread disagreement over how to define it. The United States and its allies view terrorism as a precisely defined list of criminal acts outside the accepted rules of diplomacy and war. But many nations see it as simply another form of armed conflict, no more and no less reprehensible than guerrilla war. These nations do not see moral distinctions between ramming a truck filled with explosives into an embassy and dropping high explosives on a city from a military aircraft. Even some of our allies have difficulty perceiving the difference between state-sponsored terrorism in the Middle East and U.S. support for the contras in Nicaragua.

Many Third World governments see American anti-terrorist efforts as part of a broader campaign aimed at outlawing irregular methods of warfare developed during anti-colonial struggles. Not a few Third World leaders were once called terrorists themselves. Governments may also find themselves compelled to excuse terrorism in an effort to gain peace. After suffering more than two decades of guerrilla warfare, Colombia passed a law that offers unconditional amnesty for all acts of rebellion and all crimes connected with the rebellion including assassination and kidnapings.

The government tacitly recognized that the assassinations of government officials have been part of the guerrillas’ efforts to take power and may therefore be considered part of the rebellion. Kidnapings by guerrillas were also deemed to be political acts because the guerrillas used the ransoms to finance weapon purchases.

Treating assassinations and kidnapings committed as political acts rather than as crimes will inevitably lend a gloss of legitimacy to such tactics.

Meanwhile, some governments have resorted to a kind of vigilantism to combat terrorism. Outraged by the Palestinian attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics and the unwillingness of European governments to take forceful measures against Palestinian terrorists operating in Europe, Israel launched its own campaign of assassination against Palestinian leaders; nine people were shot down or blown up before an innocent person was mistakenly killed in Norway--that ended the operation.

Beneath the dramatic manifestation of terrorism, a more insidious trend is developing--one that will make terrorism increasingly difficult to combat in the future: With the exception of a few particularly dramatic incidents, terrorism is becoming an accepted fact of contemporary life. The monotony of another hijacking, another assassination, another bombing reported matter-of-factly along with the budget deficit and stock quotes dulls our senses. Except for specific acts, such as hijacking, and particularly atrocious acts, such as mass murder, neither world opinion nor world action are aroused by terrorism. We have come to “expect” diplomats to be kidnaped or murdered; in the future only volunteers may be asked to serve in dangerous areas.

The extraordinary security measures taken against terrorism, like terrorism itself, have become a permanent part of the landscape, of our life style. We no longer protest about every airline passenger having to feed luggage through X-ray machines, pass through metal detectors and submit to searches in front of armed guards before boarding. We no longer resent the precautions taken to screen people entering federal buildings, courthouses, even corporate headquarters.

For these many reasons, terrorism will persist. What then are we to do? We must continue to make every effort to combat terrorism without resorting to terrorist tactics ourselves. We must persuade state sponsors of terrorism that such behavior will not be without costs and that responses may include the use of military force.

Continued terrorism need not dull moral outrage. Outrage remains an appropriate response. At the same time, we must realize that we cannot expect to eradicate terrorism, any more than we expect to end murder. We may be well advised to avoid rhetoric that implies final victories. The bad news is we may have to live with terrorism. The good news is that we probably can.