According to Enders & Sandler, terrorism is, “the premeditated use or threat to use violence by individuals or subnational groups in order to obtain a political or social objective through the intimidation of a large audience beyond that of the immediate victims” (Lecture 1, slide 9). Now this is not to be confused with other phenomena such as; crime, insurgency, guerilla war, asymmetric war, unrestricted war, etc.
Terrorists have a political or social motive that drives them. Without this, the violence is just an act of crime. In addition, while you may think asymmetric war and terrorism are the same due to their use of unconventional tactics, they are not. Asymmetric warfare is a war between groups whose military experiences and abilities differ significantly and often a war between a professional army and an insurgency. This does not always mean that it is an act of terrorism. Guerrilla warfare is just a type of asymmetric warfare where it is a strategy used by the smaller power. Furthermore, ““The aim of guerilla/insurgent actors is to exploit the stronger army’s immobility and inflexibility in terms of their tendency to rely on fixed positions, their organizational conservatism, and their desire to fight set-piece battles” (Lecture 1, 2, slide 11). Terrorism also
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Typically, yes. A generalized goal of terrorists is to coerce a government due to a political or social motive. They work to achieve this by premeditated attacks on a large audience which then intimidates the audience by making them anxious. Nothing is more important than people feeling safe. Aside from the basic needs of food and water, according to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs of psychology, safety and security fall in line next. If people do not feel safe, nothing else matters. In addition, they use propaganda to help gain support or “spread awareness” (i.e. the counter-terrorism actions