SUMMARY ON FOUR WAVES OF MODERN TERRORISM TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction....................................................................................................................1...

SUMMARY ON FOUR WAVES OF MODERN TERRORISM

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction....................................................................................................................1

CHAPTER ONE.

THE WAVE PHENOMENA (Anarchism)………………….…………………….....…2

CHAPTER TWO: The four waves.....…………………………...…………………….3

1. First wave: creation of a doctrine……………………………………………….……4

2. Second wave .mostly successful and a new language (anti colonialism……………...5

3. Third wave: excessive internationalism……………………………………………....6

4. Fourth wave: how unique and how long.......................................................................7

PART III: Conclusions / Bibliography…………………………………………..……8

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………..9

References.........................................................................................................................10

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

FOUR WAVES OF MODERN TERRORISM.

September 11, 2001 is the most destructive day in the long, bloody history of terrorism. The causalities, economic damage and outrage were unprecedented. It could turn out to be the most important day too, because it led President Bush to declare a “war (that) would not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated”

On that unprecedented September 11 was, president Bush‘s declaration was not altogether unique. Exactly 100 years ago, when an anarchist assassinated President William McKinley in September 1901, his successor Theodore Roosevelt called for a crusade to exterminate terrorism everywhere.

That history shows how deeply implanted terrorism is in our culture, provides parallels worth pondering, and offers a perspective for understanding the uniqueness of September b11 and its aftermath.

THE WAVE PHENOMENA (Anarchism)

Modern terror began in Russia in the 1880s and within a decade appeared in Western Europe, the Balkans, and Asia. A generation latter the waves was completed. Anarchists initiated the waves, and their primary strategy as assassination campaigns against prominent officials -was adopted by virtually all the other groups of the time, even those with nationalist aims in the Balkans and India.

The Anarchist Wave was the first global or truly international terrorist experience in the history; three similar, constructive and overlapping expressions followed. The “anti-colonial Wave” began in the 1920s and lasted about forty years. Then came the “ New Left Wave” , which diminished greatly as the twentieth century closed , leaving only a few groups still active today in Nepal , Spain , the United Kingdom , Peru and Colombia . In1979 a “religious wave” emerged; if the pattern of its three predecessors is relevant it could disappear by 2025, at which time a new wave might emerge.” The uniqueness and persistence of the wave experience indicates that error is deeply rooted in modern culture.

“Wave it is a cycle of activity in a given time period – a cycle characterized by expansion and contraction phases. A crucial feature is its international characters; similar activities occur in several countries, driven by a common predominant energy that shapes the participating groups” characteristics and mutual relationships. As their names – “Anarchist, anti-colonial,” “New Left,” and “Religious”- Suggest, a different energy drives each and each wave name reflects its dominant but not its only feature.

CHAPTER TWO

FIRST WAVE: CREATION OF A DOCTRINE.

The creators of modern terrorism inherited a world in which traditional revolutionaries, who depended on pamphlets and leaflets to generate an uprising, suddenly seemed obsolete. The masses, Nechaev said, regarded them as “idle word – spellers.” A new form of communication (Peter Kropotkin named it “propaganda by the dead”) was needed – one that would be heard and would command respect because the rebel took action that involved serious risks that signified deep commitment.

The anarchist analysis of modern society contained four major points. It noted that society had huge reservoirs of latent ambivalence and hostility and that the conventions society devised to muffle and diffuse antagonism generated guilt and provided channels for settling grievances and securing personal amenities. By demonstrating that these conventions were simple historical creations, however, acts once declared immoral would be hailed by later generations as noble efforts to liberate humanity. In this view, terror was thought to be the quickest and most effective means to destroy conventions. By this reasoning, the perpetrators freed themselves from the paralyzing grip of grip of guilt to become different kinds of people. They forced those who defended the government to respond in ways that undermined the rules the latter claimed to respect. See (Richard B. Jensen 2001)

SECOND WAVE .MOSTLY SUCCESSFUL, AND A NEW LANGUAGE (ANTI COLONIALISM).

A wave by definition is an international event; oddly, however, the first one was sparked by domestic political situation. A monumental international event, the Versailles peace treaty that concluded World War 1, precipitated the second wave. The victors applied the principle of national self – determination to break up the empires of the defeated states (mostly in Europe). The non-European portions of those defeated empires , which were deemed not yet ready for independence , became league of Nations “ Mandates " administered directly by individual victorious powers until the terrorist were ready for independence , (Orkney, U.K.: Sanday, 1981) p. 31.

Whether the victors fully understood the implications their decisions or not, they undermined the legitimacy of their own empire. The IRA achieved limited success in the 1920s, and terrorists groups developed in all empires except the Soviet Union (Which did not recognize itself as a colonial power) after World war 11. Terrorist activity was crucial in establishing the new states of Ireland, Israel, Cyprus and Algeria, among others. As empires dissolved, the wave receded.

Most terrorist success occurred twenty – five years after Versailles and the time lag requires explanation. World war 11 reinforced and enlarged the implications of Versailles. Once more the victors compelled the defeated to abandon empires; this time the colonial terrorists were mandates. The United States had become the major war developed, the process was accelerated because the Soviets were always poised to help would be rebels.

The terror campaigns of the second wave were fought in territories where special political problems made withdrawal a less attractive option. Jews and Arabs in Palestine, for example, had dramatically conflicting versions of what the termination of British rule was supposed to mean.

Adam B. Ulam (1997) states that Compared to terrorist in the first wave, those in the second wave used the four international ingredients in different and much more productive ways. Leaders of different national groups still acknowledged the common bonds and heritage of an international revolutionary tradition, but the heroes invoked in the literature of specific groups were overwhelmingly national heroes. The underlying assumption seemed to be that if one strengthened ties with foreign terrorism, other international asserts would become less useful. Diaspora groups regularly displayed abilities not seen earlier. Nineteenth century Irish rebels received money, weapons and volunteers from Irish American community, but in the 1920s the exertions of the latter went further and induced the U.S. government to exert significant political influence on Britain to accept an Irish state.

THIRD WAVE: EXCESSIVE INTERNATIONALISM.

The major political event stimulating the third, or “New Left,” wave was the agonizing Vietnam War. The effectiveness of the Viet Cong's primitive weapons against the Americans Goliath's modern technology rekindled radical hopes that the contemporary system was vulnerable. Groups developed in the Third world and in the western heartland itself, where the war stipulated enormous ambivalence among the youth about the value of the existing system. Many western groups such as American weather underground, the West German Red Army Faction (RAF), the Italian Red Brigades the Japanese Red Army, AND THE French Acti9on Direct – saw themselves as vanguards for the Third world masses. The Soviet world encouraged the outbreaks and offered moral support, training and weapons.

Henry Dawson (1959) Points out the first wave, radicalism and nationalism often were combined as evident by the struggles of the Basques, Americans, Corsicans, Kurds, and Irish. Every first wave nationalist movement had failed, but the linkage was renewed because ethnic concerns always have larger constituencies than radical aspirations have.

The first and third waves had some sticking resemblances. Women in the second wave had been restricted to the role of messengers and scouts; now they became leaders and fighters once more. Theatrical targets, comparable to those of the first wave, replaced the second wave’s military targets. International hijacking is one example. Terrorism understood that some foreign landing fields were accessible. Seven hijacking occurred during the first three decades of the third wave.

Planes were hijacked to secure hostages. There were other ways to generate hostage’s crises, however, and the hostage’s crisis became a third wave characteristics. The most memorable episode was the 1979 kidnapping of former Italian Prime minister Aldo Moro by The Red Brigades. When the government refused to negotiate, Moro was brutally murdered and his body dumped in the streets. Kidnapping occurred in seventy- three countries – especially in Italy, Spain and America.

FOURTH WAVE: HOW UNIQUE AND HOW LONG.

As its predecessor began to ebb, the “religious wave” gathered force. Religious elements have always been important in modern terror because religious and ethnic identities often overlap. The Armenian, Macedonia, Irish, Cypriot, French Canadian, Israeli and Palestinians struggles illustrate the point. In these cases, however the aim was to create secular states. See (Richard B. Jensen, 2001)

Today religion has a vastly different significance, supplying justification s and organizing principles for a state. The religion wave has produced an occasional secular group a reaction to excessive religious zeal. Buddhists in Sri-Lanka tried to transform the country, and a terrorist response among the largely Hindu Tamils aims at creating a separate secular state.

Islam is at the heart of the of the wave. Islamic groups have conducted the significant, deadly and profoundly international attacks. Equally significant, the political events providing the hope for the fourth wave originated in Islam and the success achieved apparently influenced religious terror groups elsewhere. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986)

Christian terrorism, based on racist interpretation of the bible, emerged in the amorphous American “Christian identity” movement. In true medieval millenarian fashion, armed rural communes composed of families withdrew from the state to wait for the second coming and the great racial war. Although some observers have associated Christian identity with the Oklahoma City bombing (1995), the Christian level of violence has been minimal so far.

CHAPTER THREE

CONCLUSION

Unlike crime or poverty, international terrorism is a recent phenomenon. Its continuing presence for 125 years means, however, that it is rooted in important features of our world. Technology and doctrine have played vital roles together with democratic ideas and modern life.

The failure of a democratic reform program inspired the first wave, and the main theme of the second was national self-determination. A dominant, however confused, third wave themes was that existing systems were not truly democratic. For many reasons, terrorist organizations often have short lives; sometimes their future is determined by devastating tactical mistakes. A decision to become visible is rare in the history of terror, and the quick success of the coalition's Afghan military campaign demonstrates why. If al-Queda successfully reconstructs itself, it may discover that it must become an “ordinary” terrorist group living underground among a friendly local population.

REFERENCES

An earlier version of this essay was published in current history ( December 2001): 419-25. Another version was delivered at the annual John Barlow Lecture of Indian , Indianapolis . I am indebred to Jim ludes , Lindsay Clutterbuck, Laura Donohue , Clark Mccauley, Barbara Rapport , and Sara Grdan useful comments , even those I did not take . The problems in the essay are my responsibility.

See Richard B. Jensen, "The United States, International Policing the War against Anarchist Terrorism," Terrorism and Political Violence 13, 1 (Spring 2001): 15-46.

The Russian police prior to the rise of rebel terror also were not armed; they carried ceremonial sabers only.

Henry Dawson, The Sons of Liberty (New York: Private Publication, 1959).

Adam B. Ulam, In the Name of the People (New York: Viking Press, 1977) p. 269. (my emphasis)

Peter Heehs, Nationalism, Terrorism, and Communalism: Essays in Modern Indian History (Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1998) Chapter 2.

Guerrillas carry weapons openly and wear an identifying emblem, and we are obliged therefore to treat them as soldiers.

For a more detailed discussion of the definition problem, see my "Politics of Atrocity" in Terrorism: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Eds. Y. Alexander and S. Finger (New York: John Jay Press, 1997) p. 46ff.

Most people using the term "international terrorism" thought that it was a product of the 60s and 70s.

James Adams, The Financing of Terror (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986) p. 192.Ibid., p. 94.

This was not the first time secular forces would help launch the careers of those who would become

Those attacks, as well as the expected ones which did not materialize, are discussed in a special forthcoming volume of Terrorism and Political Violence 14:1 (Spring 2002), edited by Jeffrey Kaplan.

A disappointed office seeker, not an Anarchist, assassinated Garfield.

Heehs, note 8. pg. 4.

See Richard B. Jensen, "The United States, International Policing the War against Anarchist Terrorism," Terrorism and Political Violence 13, 1 (Spring 2001): 19.See my "The International World..." op.cit.

David Dubin, "Great Britain and the Ant-Terrorist Conventions of 1937," Terrorism and Political Violence (V, I). Spring 1993 p.1.

Irish-Americans have always given Irish rebels extensive support. The Fenian movement was born in American Civil War and sparked a rebellion in Ireland.

Hans J. Klein in Jean M. Bourguereau, German Guerrilla: Terror, Rebel Reaction and Resistance (Orkney, U.K.: Sanday, 1981) p. 31.