Global Terrorism
GLOBAL TERRORISM: AN OVERVIEW AND ANALYSIS
Monty G. Marshall
INSCR
Integrated Network for Societal Conflict Research
CIDCM
Center for International Development and Conflict Management University of Maryland, College Park and the
Center for Systemic Peace
Draft: September 11, 2002
M.G.Marshall – Global Terrorism: An Overview and Analysis (Draft 09/11/02) Page 2 of 48 “Dulce bellum inexpertis” 1 – Erasmus Overview The subject of “terrorism” seized the world’s attention in late 2001 as a result of one fairly brief, yet highly dramatic and destructive, attack on two of the core symbols of the world’s most powerful political actor, the United States of America. The targeting of the World Trade Center in New York City, the symbol of the United States’ enormous global economic power, and the Pentagon Building in Washington, DC, the symbol of the United States’ overarching military superiority, was well planned, coordinated, and executed. The attack itself attained symbolic stature as an affront to the established global order, a challenge to the world’s dominant power, and an announcement that the prevailing US-led global order was not viewed, or valued, equally by all those whose daily lives are increasingly caught in the vortex of post-Cold War change. Of course, the problem of terrorism was already well-known when the planes struck their targets in full view of a vast, global, tele-connected audience and created their indelible psychic images of sophisticated savagery. The politics of terror, and the overpowering fear that terror produces in its wake, lay at the very foundation of the evolution of social order. And it is the ultimate irony of societal development that modern acts of savagery have attained such high levels of sophistication. In its most simple terms, terror has stood as the stark alternative to civility in social relations from the time of humankind’s earliest recorded reflections. As Hobbes explained in his 17th century treatise, “Out
Monty G. Marshall
INSCR
Integrated Network for Societal Conflict Research
CIDCM
Center for International Development and Conflict Management University of Maryland, College Park and the
Center for Systemic Peace
Draft: September 11, 2002
M.G.Marshall – Global Terrorism: An Overview and Analysis (Draft 09/11/02) Page 2 of 48 “Dulce bellum inexpertis” 1 – Erasmus Overview The subject of “terrorism” seized the world’s attention in late 2001 as a result of one fairly brief, yet highly dramatic and destructive, attack on two of the core symbols of the world’s most powerful political actor, the United States of America. The targeting of the World Trade Center in New York City, the symbol of the United States’ enormous global economic power, and the Pentagon Building in Washington, DC, the symbol of the United States’ overarching military superiority, was well planned, coordinated, and executed. The attack itself attained symbolic stature as an affront to the established global order, a challenge to the world’s dominant power, and an announcement that the prevailing US-led global order was not viewed, or valued, equally by all those whose daily lives are increasingly caught in the vortex of post-Cold War change. Of course, the problem of terrorism was already well-known when the planes struck their targets in full view of a vast, global, tele-connected audience and created their indelible psychic images of sophisticated savagery. The politics of terror, and the overpowering fear that terror produces in its wake, lay at the very foundation of the evolution of social order. And it is the ultimate irony of societal development that modern acts of savagery have attained such high levels of sophistication. In its most simple terms, terror has stood as the stark alternative to civility in social relations from the time of humankind’s earliest recorded reflections. As Hobbes explained in his 17th century treatise, “Out