The Impact of Modern Terrorism - Research Paper Example

TERRORISM Terrorism Hypothesis Proposal: When a high casualty attack is made by a terrorist group, the smaller terrorist organizations from within their alliance or domestic groups will become more active, vocal or organized: Perhaps All Introduction Over the past decade, following the September 11 attacks on the world trade center in the United States of America, various governments stepped up their security measures in a bid to cub any threats that may have followed the acts of terrorism in the united states. The measures that need to be put in place include studying the reasons some people resort to such extreme acts of violence in the first place. A person does not just wake up and become a terrorist on any day; there are situations that force them to get into such activities. It may be because of need and so on. Apart from the reasons of getting into terrorism, it is necessary that people and agencies in charge of national security and anti-terrorism put measures that can enable them to get more information before attacks are executed by these terrorists. Various hypotheses have been put forward in an attempt to study and try to understand terrorists. Some of them have been successful and valid while other have been totally far-fetched. In this research proposal document, we take a look into the various terrorist attacks that have occurred over the years and try to see which patterns we can make out from them that can be useful in trying to minimize such attacks in the future. Literature Review This is one of the many hypotheses to be formulated over the years on the study of terrorists and terrorist attacks. It is not always the case that when a terrorist attack happens, especially a high casualty attack, that terrorist groups will re-group and become more organized. Governments have failed to protect citizens from such acts of violence such as terrorism over the years. As a result very many people have been killed and some have even opted to move away from the ‘hot targets’ like the united states of America. A look at the kinds of crimes committed by international terrorist groups and those by domestic terrorist groups indicate that there is a difference in these types of terrorism statistically. The international terrorist groups are the jihad groups. They engage in bombings of massive fatalities like that of the world trade center. On the other hand, domestic terrorists are mainly right-wing groups who engage in car thefts and bombings. Nonetheless, terrorist groups like Al Qaeda influence and motivate small domestic groups into engaging in more criminal activities whenever successful terrorists’ attacks are executed by the Jihad Group. Among the activities the small groups start engaging in as a result of the motivation are fire arm sales, acquisition of machine guns and their sales and so on. It is recorded that Al Qaeda influences the sale and use of over 80% of illegal firearms among small terrorist groups (Hamm, 2005). Terrorists’ attacks have been increasing over the last 20 years or so. Most of them has targeted Americans with a very high frequency. Some of the attacks that have happened could have been prevented if the government had taken the initiative to penetrate these terrorist groups (Davis, 1988). With the decline in state sponsored terrorism attacks, many terrorist groups have been targeting civilians over the years. This can be shown by the number of civilian casualties from the September 11 attacks. There were about 3000 victims from the attack. This means civilians are most prone to attacks by terrorist groups than never before. In 1988, as a result of the failure of governments to protect their citizens, the Executive Protection Specialist became a new growth industry at the time. This industry concentrated on looking at the reasons why terrorists were keener to target corporations and individuals rather than targeting governments (Davis, 1988). Terrorism emerges for very many reasons. Some of these reasons are political while others are simply acts of violence stemming from hate and lack of purpose (Hamm, 2005). Racial discrimination is one of the reasons why acts of terror will not stop or many not stop in the near future. As defined by Masoud Kamali, racial discrimination is a study of the bases of institutions of the racial and ethnic inequalities in various European countries such as Britain, Austria, France, Cyprus, Poland, Italy, and Sweden. From this study, the focus is on the barriers to the integration of immigrant groups, more so the Muslim immigrant groups. The discrimination people face in locations away from their homes make it hard for them to integrate and become part of the societies they settle into in these foreign lands. As a result, they may become targets for terrorists who want recruits. At the time of recruitment, these immigrants are often frustrated and may opt to revenge through acts of terrorism (Agyeman, 2010). Motivations for the Research Hypothesis The Impact of Modern Terrorism Modern times have led terrorists to be more lethal and effective in the way they execute their acts of terror. To begin with, the economic growth in the world has enabled terrorists to have the capacity to fund their attacks and activities. They are increasingly using more sophisticated methods by the day. This has enabled them to be able to achieve long term as well as short term goals they set to do. As earlier stated, modern acts of violence and terrorism have been devastating because of a vast variety of weapons that are more lethal than the ones they used to use in the past. Additionally, technology today allows these terrorists to extort large amounts of money from people all over the globe. They extort money from corporations, individuals, as well as governments. Apart from their capability in weaponry and financial abilities, even small splinter groups today have the ability to use media, both newspapers, the internet, television and even radio. They use media to communicate their demands to their targets especially when they have victims in their custody. Apart from their demands, terrorists distribute propaganda using the media and more often than not, are focused on provoking outrage from the general public. According to Reber and Shaw, 1976, even the small terrorist groups with limited capabilities for violence are able to cause a lot of chaos and havoc in the world by using the tactics they have learnt with time. Moreover, terrorism has become more devastating because terrorists are ready to attack fellow human beings rather than targeting property (Jenkins, 1985). Response from Law Enforcement Law enforcement agencies have not been as effective as civilians would have expected. Most of them often resort to threatening the terrorists groups into submission instead of studying them and trying to understand them. More force has always resulted into more attacks happening (Agyeman, 2010). Immigration Many terrorists today are able to cross borders whenever they feel like. It is difficult to spot who is a terrorist and who is not. Scientists, scholars, and even students are terrorists today; some of them even attending universities in the enemy institutions of higher learning. Conclusion With the above motivations it is important that a study into the activities of these terrorists be looked at with keener eyes. Failure to do that, they often achieve more after a high profile attack in terms of organization and regrouping in attempts to avoid getting caught, and also in hope for better results in the future. References Agyeman, J. (2010). The Mounting Threat of Domestic Terrorism:al Qaeda and the Salvadoran Gang MS-13. Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews , 100-110. Davis, D. (1988). Combating Terrorism on the Corporate Level: The Emergence of Executive Protection Specialists in Private Security. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice , 241-251. Enders, W., & Sandler, T. (2011). Domestic versus transnational terrorism:. Journal of Peace Research , 320-337. Enders, W., & Sandler, T. (2000). Is transnational terrorism becoming more threatening? A time-series investigation. Journal of Conflict Resolution , 307-322. Enders, W., & Sandler, T. (2006). The Political Economy of Terrorism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hamm, M. S. (2005). Crimes Committed by Terrorist Groups: Theory, Research, and Prevention. Terre Haute: Indiana State University. Jongman, A. J. (1992). Trends in International and Domestic Terrorism in Western Europe 1968-1988. Terrorism and Political Violence , 26-76. Mickolus, E., & Simmons, S. (2006). Terrorism. Westport: Praeger Security International. Piazza, J. A. (2011). Poverty, Minority Economic Discrimination and Domestic Terrorism. Journal of Peace Research , 339-354. Sandler, T., & Scott, J. L. (1987). Terrorist Success in Hostage-Taking Incidents : An Empirical Stud. Journal of Conflict Resolution , 35-53. Read More