NCJ Number
121774
Editor(s)
B Rubin
Date Published
1989
Length
236 pages
Annotation
Mostly indiscriminate and often State-supported, terrorism has emerged over the years as perhaps the most complex and least predictable threat to the security of the United States, its allies, and other nations.
Abstract
No longer a weapon used only by marginal, isolated groups, terrorism relies on networks of communication that transcend international boundaries. Terrorism is or may be used to achieve unusually diverse goals, such as to win new recruits for revolutionary movements that aim to create a new State or to destabilize Nation-States by dislocating their economy and disrupting political structures and to strengthen the hands of factions in domestic political rivalries. The authors examine cases where terrorism has been used as a tool for revolution, an instrument of represssion, and a means of furthering the interests of sponsoring States. Particular attention is paid to Argentina's crisis in the 1970's that resulted from the actions of revolutionary terrorists and military repression, political uses of terrorism in the Middle East, various forms of terrorism in Egypt as a tactic of extremist Islamic fundamentalism, efforts of Iran and Iraq to foment revolution abroad by providing support to terrorist and insurgent groups, and the use of terror as a revolutionary tool in Peru and South Africa. References.