Coady's Essay 'Tactical Definition Of Terrorism'

The tactical definition of terrorism in Coady’s essay is the organized use of violence to target non-combatants for political purposes. Non-combatants are any person’s that do not directly coherence with the agents of aggression. The just war tradition tells us the conditions under which it can be right to resort to war (jus ad bellum) and to guide us in the permissible methods by which we should wage a legitimate war (jus in bello). Given the just war tradition and the tactical definition of terrorism, terrorism is morrally wrong. In addition, the supreme emergency must be accounted for. The definition of supreme emergency allows for the violation of the normal immunity of terrorism to be permissible in warfare, though only with a heavy burden of remorse. However, the theory of supreme emergency suffers from grave defects whether it is offered as an exemption on behalf of a state, or some less established political community, or a group claiming to represent either.Therefore, all forms of terrorism and their exemptions are morally wrong.
He goes on to explain that for an act of terrorism to be considered before an act of war is because of the just war tradition. The just war tradition has two main divisions which help us to understand when a war should happen and what needs to be considered during the