Terrorist Motivations for the Use of Extreme Violence
Abstract
In his book, Why do Muslims Rebel?, Mohammed Hafez cautions that, "Western responses to Islamist violence must be measured and well thought out. Misconstruing the underlying causes of Islamist rage or overacting to Islamist violence may only intensify militancy, not temperate it."[1] For policy-makers, understanding the source or cause of discontent serves as the best hope to remedy the ills that lie beneath what some refer to as "sacred" terrorism or religious terrorism. Yet a basic question is what would extremists hope to achieve by resorting to such violent acts? Is terrorism ever rational? Can terrorism be deterred? All too often, our analysis of extremist motives begins with our reaction to the terrorist act itself. However, for certain extremist organizations, channeling efforts to identify and isolate the root cause for such events requires a deeper understanding of the intricacies that foment such profound actions, specifically suicide terrorism and the use of a weapon of mass destruction. In a recent review by Jeff Goodwin of Jessica Stern's Terror in the Name of God, he stated that few studies probe deeply into the cause of terrorism and, as a result, "it remains a mystery. A contributing factor is that social movement scholars with very few exceptions have said little about terrorism. Nor have they paid sustained attention to the more general question of how movement organizations make strategic choices, of which terrorism is one."[2] To resolve group level problems we need to view it from a group level or movement level perspective. It is at that point that we can start crafting more tailored solutions to counter the extremist threat. The central theme of this essay is to examine the rational behind terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction. Here, I compare Aum Shinrikyo and al Qaeda to analyze to what extent their actions were the result of strategic choice or group behavior.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 2005
- Accession Number
- ADA521532
Entities
People
- Jaime Gomez Jr.
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School