Understanding Terrorism: Definition, Types, and Approaches

This article discusses the difficulty in defining terrorism, lists the major types of terrorism, and evaluates law enforcement and structural-reform approaches to deal with terrorism. It also provides references for further reading.

TERRORISM

Contents
Explain why terrorism is difficult to define.....................................................................................1
List the major types of terrorism.....................................................................................................1
Evaluate the law enforcement and structural-reform approaches to deal with terrorism................2
References........................................................................................................................................3

Explain why terrorism is difficult to define.
Terrorism is the violence, with goal of making the people afraid from the actions. It is about
trying to bring changes in the political, social and the cultural forms. The terrorists might also
have psychological problems which leads to sadistic personalities. The research agrees that
terrorists are psychologically normal but intends to spread murderous violence. The
contemporary terrorism comes from well-to-do families and they could be well-educated also. It
is difficult to differ it from the other related processes like terror, warfare and the other war for
national independence1. Terrorism is an act that influence the public opinion and then discredit
the individual or formation. It is mainly for identifying some activity use as a red herring or as a
winning popularity. The desire for the political, social and the economic or the cultural change
leads to the problem of terrorism 2.
List the major types of terrorism.
The different types of terrorism are:
a. The state terrorism involves the government violence that leads to frighten the citizens
with stifling dissent. This is about involving the problems of mass murder, assassinations
and torture. Apart from this, there is a violent response for the white law enforcement
officers to the civil rights protests to the state terror. This is then linked to the regimes of
authoritarian setup 3.
1 Noam Chomsky. Pirates and emperors, old and new: International terrorism in the real
world. Haymarket Books, 2015.
2 Richard Jackson,. "Writing the war on terrorism: Language, politics and counter-
terrorism." (2018).

b. Dissent Terrorism: They are for the terrorist group who have been rebelling against the
government. This is by the private citizens rebelling against the private citizens where the
motivation comes through racial, ethnic, religious and another heartedness. The violence
comes from the racists groups with problems related to “hate crime”.
c. Terrorists and the Left and Right: They are the groups which are set for the ideology in a
political manner. The terror comes with the problems about how citizens of one nation
sets against the targeting for the other nation. It is important to analyze about the
American deaths where the translational terror has been common in other nations like
London etc.
d. Religious Terror: They are for handling the extreme religious motivation.
e. Criminal Terror: It is about how the acts are used for aiding the crime and the criminal
profit .
f. Insurgent Terrorism: They are about the commitment of violence mainly by the private
citizens against the own government and the business or institutions representing the
establishment.
Evaluate the law enforcement and structural-reform
approaches to deal with terrorism.
The violence response of Southern white law enforcement officers is to the civil rights protects
for 1960 that has been mounted to the state terrorism, where the offices are murdered, or they
tend to beat hundreds of activities at this time period. The state terrorism is linked with
authoritarian regimes where the observes need to focus on how US government is engaged with
3 Brian M. Jenkins, "International terrorism: A new mode of conflict." International
terrorism and world security. Routledge, 2015. 23-59.

the state terror at the time of 19th century. It is when the US troops are also killed with thousands
of Native Americans 4.
Considering that the terrorism has structural rules, it is a rationalized response no matter how
horrible it is to perceive the grievances about the economic, social and the political conditions5.
The head of US 9/11 Commission is examined thorough the terrorist attacks of the day with
reflecting on the view about how one is facing the problems of radicalization and the rage in
Muslim World. The structural reform approach can help in reducing the terrorism by eliminating
the conditions that give rise to the discontent and leads the individual to commit terrorism. There
has been no easy solution for the transnational terrorism. As long as roots of terrorism persist, the
new terrorists will come along to replace and so the law enforcement and the military approach is
important for countering the terrorist. The arms control and diplomacy remains essential with
strategies for stopping war but the roots of war need to be addressed also.
References
Chomsky, Noam. Pirates and emperors, old and new: International terrorism in the real world.
Haymarket Books, 2015.
Jackson, Richard. "Writing the war on terrorism: Language, politics and counter-terrorism."
(2018).
4 Osoba, A. Osonde, and Kosko Bart. "Fuzzy cognitive maps of public support for
insurgency and terrorism." The Journal of Defense Modeling and Simulation 14.1 (2017): 17-32.
5 Jongman, J. Albert. Political terrorism: A new guide to actors, authors, concepts, data
bases, theories, and literature. Routledge, 2017.

Jenkins, Brian M. "International terrorism: A new mode of conflict." International terrorism and
world security. Routledge, 2015. 23-59.
Jongman, Albert J. Political terrorism: A new guide to actors, authors, concepts, data bases,
theories, and literature. Routledge, 2017.
Osoba, Osonde A., and Bart Kosko. "Fuzzy cognitive maps of public support for insurgency and
terrorism." The Journal of Defense Modeling and Simulation s14.1 (2017): 17-32.
White, Jonathan R. Terrorism and homeland security. Cengage Learning, 2016.