Terrorism and Threats to Security - Research Paper Example

? Terrorism Introduction Terrorism is not a current issue. Despite the fact that it has been taking place for many millenniums, researchers find it hard to define what terrorism is. People describe terrorism acts, as both a religious belief and a crime, strategy and tactic, a recommended oppression’s reaction and an unforgivable abomination (Burke & Cooper, 2008). Terrorism has highly been a negatively effective approach to the weak side involved in a conflict. Due to the groups’ small size and the secretive nature of the terrorist organizations, they give opponents unclear group to fight against or deter with its deeds (Burke & Cooper, 2008). This is the reason why many countries consider preemption as an essential thing. In most cases, terrorism remains to be a means of carrying on conflicts without considering the threat they cause to nature, hence misusing it for criminal offenses. Due to this characteristic, most groups use terrorism internationally to carry on extreme objectives and goals (Burke & Cooper, 2008). Although there are so many terrorist groups in the world, terrorism can as well be a vague concept. This paper represents a research on terrorism history, types of terrorism incidents, and social and economic effects. Terrorism history The acts and threats of terrorism have been taking place for many millenniums. Despite having such a long history, many governments and groups contesting for their rights and power still use terrorism approach and such acts remain less understood by many people (Weil, 2013). For many years, the adaptability and flexibility of terrorism have resulted in much confusion. The groups looking forward to destroy, reorder, or disrupt the status quo of a country are currently working hard to establish more creative and current technologies to enable them attain their goals (Weil, 2013). Advancement in techniques and tactics used by terrorist groups have been momentous, although more significant is the increase in the number of social contexts in the countries where terrorism occurs. For the last twenty years, the terrorist have been taking place in many countries and the main reason, which influence such acts being religious or political inconveniences (Weil, 2013). Terrorism in 14th century AD The first group in the history of terrorism was the Zealots from Judea. This terrorist group conducted a campaign to assassinate the Roman forces and eliminate all the Jews who had any collaboration with the Romans (Weil, 2013). What influenced their terrorism motive was their belief that they could no longer remain faithful under the Roman leadership and this forced them to commit mass suicide. The next terrorism group was the Assassins, a group that adopted assassination tactic on enemy leaders who were against Cult’s limited labor (Weil, 2013). Even though the two groups operated in ancient time, they are also relevant in today’s world. These groups act as forerunners of the newly established terrorist groups mainly for organization, motivation, goals, and targeting (Weil, 2013). Even though the two groups did not succeed in their missions, their remembrance, even after such a long period portrays the psychological harm they caused. Terrorism in 14th-18th century From as early as the 13th century to the 17th century, groups widely practiced barbarism and terror in conflicts and warfare, although the main ingredients to influence terrorism were missing until 1648 when it was time of modern nation state rise after the Westphalia’s Treaty (Dyson, 2012). During those times, there were inadequate communication means that were controlled, and any cause that could motivate terrorism such as insurrection, ethnic strife, and religious split naturally resulted in terrorism (Dyson, 2012). Terrorism in the 19th century In the late nineteenth century, major political issues and advancement of weapon technology influenced the establishment of many revolutionary groups who successfully attacked states’ governments (Dyson, 2012). For instance, Anarchists succeeded in their assassination of states’ heads such as those from France, Russia, Italy, and the U.S. However, due to their organizational lack and failure to join hands with other social associations in political powers resulted to Anarchists being unsuccessful as a political association (Dyson, 2012). In contrast, this time when Communism’s position as an ideological foundation for political violence was beginning to be highly significant in the twentieth century. Another nineteenth century trend was the increase of nationalism tide in the entire world, whereby, there was a combination of both the political state and the nation (Nasr, 2007). Since the states were now beginning to emphasize on people's nationality identities, those who were under colonization or even conquered, such as the Jews during the Zealots time, could opt for struggle or assimilation. The well-known national conflicts of these times remain unresolved. Nationalism such as communism, evolved to be a major ideological power of the twentieth century (Nasr, 2007). The major terrorist group of this century that acts as a role model in a number of ways for what many people expected was the Russian’s Peoples Will. They varied in a number of ways from current terrorist groups, especially in the way they organized for attacks that could endanger people instead of focusing on their target (Nasr, 2007). Terrorism in 20th Century During the first half of the twentieth century, there was occurrence of two severe terrorism events that influenced the conflict nature of the current day. The effects, which the two world wars posed highly affected the hopes and passions of many citizens throughout the entire world, and ruthlessly destroyed the legality and orders of many international governments. Nationalism took its rise in the early twentieth century in the entire world. This became an authoritative force for those who belonged to a range of colonial empires. Although resistance and dissent were more common with many colonial empires, and in some cases led to open warfare, nationalist personalities resulted to be a central point for such actions. Increasingly, since many countries established strong ties to ethnicity and race concepts, Global political growth started to support these concepts. Individuals whose nations were under the colonization of other nations or were unable to operate as separate states saw the opportunities of realizing nationalistic ambitions. These individuals decided to use terror, which they thought would be more successful to attain their goals and make their operations widely known to international forces, which they thought would assist them. The current state of terrorism The biggest international terrorism event took place in the United States in the year 2001 in sets of several attacks when an Islamic terrorist group hijacked airliners and forced them to act as attackers of the biggest World Trade Center buildings in New York City (Dyson, 2012). Several large terrorism attacks have however occurred in different countries such as London subway bombings, and Madrid train bombings. The terrorism operational epicenter of Islam has its centers in Afghanistan and Pakistan (Dyson, 2012). Causes of terrorism Terrorism remains to be a major threat to many countries, an act that sociologically affects many individuals nationwide. Many people from different countries have witnessed the occurrence of terrorism and experienced the harms it can pose to peoples’ life. It is essential to understand the main causes of terrorism in order to find ways of preventing such harmful acts taking place in our countries. Governmental indifferences, religious beliefs, and ethnicity are the three main causes of terrorism in today’s societies (Burke & Cooper, 2008). Religious beliefs stand out to be the major cause of terrorism in many countries. These are the religious beliefs, which people use to formulate the ideas of how the religious believers should be (Burke & Cooper, 2008). The main purpose of these religious terrorist groups is to fight any group that seems to be against their beliefs. An individual’s vision can completely transform a whole religion. The leader of any religious terrorism group deserves much respect and attention from others (Burke & Cooper, 2008). One of the main factors that the religious terrorism group leader must have is depersonalization. Secondly, ethnicity is another main cause of terrorism in most countries. Ethnic terrorism takes place when another ethnic group is hindering other’s cultural beliefs and practices. It seems that many terrorist groups look around their home countries and realize that there is the presence of foreign cultural practices (Dyson, 2012). These groups worry because of the way foreign cultures erase and replace their cultural practices and beliefs. For instance, most ethnic terrorist groups in developing nations, belief that, tourists from United Stated bring changes to their ethnicity. These ethnic terrorism groups term this as a violation of their cultures and as a result, this leads to occurrence of terrorism attacks to the countries bringing such changes (Dyson, 2012). Lastly, governmental indifferences highly influence the establishment of terrorism groups especially when a certain government implements inhuman laws to its country’s constitution. Governmental indifferences include political and social injustice (Burke & Cooper, 2008). People from different countries belief that, violence is the best approach they can use to fight for their social and political rights. Additionally, most countries in the world operate under many political parties. Indifferences, which may happen between these political parties, may result to terrorism in a country. Currently, in most countries there is existence of terrorist groups whose establishments are because of these political parties’ indifferences. Types of terrorism incidents Bombings Bombings are the commonly used types of terrorism acts across the world. Typically, advanced volatile devices are less costly and easier to manufacture, hence making them widely used by most terrorism groups around the world (Burke & Cooper, 2008). The advancement in manufacturing technology enables production of small, easily portable devices, which are difficult to detect (Burke & Cooper, 2008). These devices contain higher destructive capabilities; for instance, in the year 1998, two US embassies in African countries were bombed using such devices. These bombings claimed lives of many innocent individuals and an approximation of fifteen thousand people escaping such tragedies with severe injuries (Burke & Cooper, 2008). However, terrorist use readily available materials to construct explosive devices. Kidnappings and Hostage-taking Most terrorist groups employ kidnapping and hostage-taking approach as a means of attacking their enemies. Unfortunately, kidnapping is among the most difficult acts that a terror group can use, although if a terrorism group succeeds in kidnapping, such event yields a lot of money to the group or even setting free of their jailed colleagues (Dyson, 2012). On the other hand, hostage taking unlike kidnapping incites a confrontation with government authorities. It forces the government authorizes to make immediate decisions, which complies with the terrorists requirements (Dyson, 2012). This overt and planned attack draws the attention of the public and media groups. The terrorists’ main target and intention are the impacts they impose to the affected audience and not the hostages (Dyson, 2012). Assassinations and Armed attacks Terrorism groups use armed attacks such as ambushes and raids. Assassinations on the other hand are the killing of a specific victim who is parallel to the demands of the group. Assassinations are mainly through small arms or bombings (Dyson, 2012). One of the most used techniques for assassination is drive-by shooting usually employed by poorly organized or unsophisticated terror groups. In the context of terrorism history, terror groups have succeeded in assassination of specific people mainly because of the psychological effects (Dyson, 2012). Fire bombings land Arsons Terrorist groups mostly use incendiary devices mainly because they are less costly compared to other devices and they are easy to hide and hard to detect (Burke & Cooper, 2008). Fire bombings and arson devices are mainly for terror groups that are poorly organized, not well equipped, or even not trained to the level of being a major terror group organization (Burke & Cooper, 2008). A fire bomb or arson against a hotel, utility, industrial center, or government building portrays that the current government of that particular country is unable to maintain order in the country. Skyjacks and Hijackings Hijacking refers to the forceful seizure of a vehicle, together with its passengers or its load. Skyjacking is a situation whereby a terrorist group takes an aircraft with aim of creating a mobile hostage blockade situation (Dyson, 2012). This type of incidence enables a terrorist group to host citizens from different countries and draw attention of a wide range of media. Skyjacking however enables a terrorist group to take the hostages to a country that supports ideas and shields them (Dyson, 2012). Other types of terrorist incidents On top of the above terrorist acts, several other terrorist acts take place under the terrorism’s framework. Terrorism causes severe maiming to their colleagues as a form of punishment of either violation of security, informing, or defections (Burke & Cooper, 2008). These groups also organize extortion and robberies when they want to fund their operations and they have a shortage of finance. There is a current form of terrorism, cyber terrorism, which widely used for many people currently rely on computer internet for information and enhances peoples’ connectivity (Burke & Cooper, 2008). This type of terrorism enables terror groups to conduct their activities without taking any life risk as it the case with other forms. Terrorist groups use computers to destroy computer networks with the aim of destroying or interrupting business or government’s data. This type of terrorism is not widely used although its impacts are highly destructive (Burke & Cooper, 2008). Social effects caused by terrorism All terrorism actions around the world involve violence or threats that leads. According to the FBI, terrorism groups conduct violent acts, which contribute to so many social impacts. The effects these terrorist acts have too many countries are so tremendous causing death to innocent people and destruction of property (Burke & Cooper, 2008). This terrorism attack also affects economic status, tourism, and foreign trade of countries. These economic effects highly affect the social status of the citizens since it increases the rate of unemployment in a country. The government of any country faced with such attacks carries the burden of compensating the properties destroyed during such attacks and the lives lost (Burke & Cooper, 2008). These compensations cost such governments huge amounts of money hence dampening the economic status of such countries dramatically. However, terrorism acts affect tourism sectors of the involved country. This is because once a country has had terrorism issues, many tourists avoid visiting such countries and this low tourist turnout hence negatively affecting the economic growth of the country (Nasr, 2007). Additionally, terrorism attacks affect the education system in many countries. Students in such countries find it difficult to attend classes following terrorism attacks. Education is a very vital aspect in almost all countries, since the learners are the leaders of tomorrow (Nasr, 2007). Terrorism violence also increases the rate of refugees in many countries. This is because following occurrence of these attacks, many citizens run away from their homes or even because the terrorism groups destroy residents’ homes (Nasr, 2007). Such displacements highly affect the social and living standards of the affected groups. Conclusion In conclusion, terrorism attacks clearly pose severe threats to the lives of human beings and bring threats to both social and economic status of a country. States’ government must find means of terminating such inhuman acts since governments are responsible for ensuring maximum security to all citizens within the nation (Weil, 2013). It is significant to understand that, overestimating the social and economic impacts caused by terrorists encourages them to continue with their mission. Such overestimations are even more dangerous than underestimating the impacts caused (Weil, 2013). The effects, which the terrorism wars pose to countries highly affect the hopes and passions of many citizens throughout the entire world, and ruthlessly destroy the legality of many international governments and orders (French, 2008). In order to prevent establishment of more terrorist groups or control the occurrence of such acts, governments of all countries must be able to adhere to the needs of all tribes under their leadership since the failure of fulfilling some tribe needs or disagreeing with their beliefs leads to establishment of terrorism groups (Weil, 2013). By adhering to the needs of all people, terrorism in many countries will become a theme of the past. References French, J. L. (2008). Terrorism. New York, NY: Chelsea House. Dyson, W. E. (2012). Terrorism: An investigator's handbook. Cincinnati, Ohio: Anderson. Weil, A. (2013). Terrorism. Costa Mesa, Calif.: Saddleback Educational Pub. Burke, R. J., & Cooper, C. L. (2008). International terrorism and threats to security: Managerial and organizational challenges. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Nasr, K. B. (2007). Arab and Israeli terrorism: The causes and effects of political violence, 1936-1993. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland & Co. Read More