Terrorism: The Future of War

1 INTRODUCTION

In this essay, I will focus on the key features of the global threat of terrorism and also discuss how the world was changing the last decades while dealing with this issue. In addition, I will highlight the most important current developments concerning to this topic. To give the paper a clear structure, I will divide the topic into six sections, which will be an introduction, the dimensions boundaries, locations, flows, events and finally a conclusion with an overview of the information.

First of all there should be a definition about the topic. However, this is not that easy as it seems to be. In the discussion about this kind of issue neither in politics nor in academics a consistent terminology exists. Furthermore, also the interpretation of the term ‘Terrorism’ is subjective. On the one hand, sympathisers to terrorist causes argue that the act of aggression including violence is the only opportunity to draw attention on ideologies they are representing (cf. Kiras 2011, 366). On the other hand, counter terrorists are trying to fight against them and created the so called ‘War on Terror’.

The phrase ‘Violence’ used in the paragraph above is not the only key characteristic of terrorism. Bruce Hoffman, a specialist in the study of terrorism from Georgetown University, outlined some more. He proposes that, “terrorism, in the most widely accepted contemporary of the term, is fundamentally and inherently political” (Hoffman 2006, 10). Further arguments are that it has to be a planned, systematic act where violence and power are the keys to success (cf. ibid.).

2 BOUNDARIES

Terrorism is usually based on some kind of ideology and motivation of a group or an individual who wants to provoke political change (cf. Kiras 2...

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