Research shows that no systematic personality differences seem to demarcate terrorists as a category from non-terrorists. Nor has there been much support for the assertions that poverty or oppression are the root causes of terrorism. That does not mean that certain personality characteristics, for example; authoritarianism, collective narcissism, or sensation seeking could not predispose some people to embrace terrorism. Nor does it mean that poverty or oppression could not, under some circumstances, be channeled into a support for terrorism. In other words, personality traits, political and economic conditions, etc. could well constitute contributing factors to terrorism, but are unlikely to constitute the root causes.
The “tool” view of terrorism seems more promising. This view rests on a simple notion that terrorism represents the use of fear-inducing tactics for advancement of one’s objectives. It thus suggests that in principle, any social agent may become a “terrorist”; a non-state player, a state or even a lone individual. Commentators and analysts have long stressed the considerable variety of terrorist groups and organizations, exhibiting heterogeneous scopes, ideologies, and objectives. In understanding terrorist behavior there are limits and opportunities of psychological inquiry. Open-ended diversity paints dim prospects for formulating a uniform psychology of the “terrorism” syndrome, yet it is compatible with the “terrorism as tool” perspective.
The “tool” view of terrorism treats it as a special instance of a broader motivational category, namely of a means to an end or goal. It implies that terrorism is likely to be utilised when perceived as effective for the attainment of important objectives and that it might be relinquished when its perceived efficacy is undermined, when alternative superior means to the same ends appear feasible, and/or when it is seen to undermine other significant goals. Psychologically, all of these strategies refer to the perception that members of a terrorist organisation may form about their ends and available means. Understanding what those perceptions are and how they might form and change in specific instances represents a major challenge for the psychological research seeking to understand contemporary terrorism and ways of countering it. Users of terrorism – for whom it represents merely one among several available instruments to be launched or withheld in appropriate circumstances – fall in a category that can ultimately give up terrorism in favour of alternative means to achieve desired ends.
Different organisations may differ in their potential for relinquishing its employment. Whereas negotiating with terrorists, and effecting their shifts to alternative goals or means, is unlikely to work with perpetrators whose commitment to terrorism is total and unconditional, it might work with terrorist groups who may entertain alternative means and value alternative goals. However, case studies show that the public seeks to maintain the option of returning to violence if diplomacy fails.
Dissuading the users of terrorism from its deployment may involve a rekindling of alternative objectives incompatible with terrorism. Opposition to suicide attacks is particularly pronounced among groups likely to possess the means to alternative, individualistic goals, for instance professional, family-related, or material goals.
The “tool” view of terrorism affords a classification of terrorism users in accordance with their commitment to that particular means as well as to the ends believed to be served by it. Users can be strongly committed to terrorism because of its intrinsic properties, such as the sense of power it bestows or the appeal of violence. Also, terrorism perpetrators may perceive no alternative means to their objectives. An analyst argues that small organisations may resort to violence to compensate for what they lack in numbers. In that sense, terrorism may be viewed as a “great equaliser” and a tool of choice for relatively powerless minorities.
Analysis of the means-ends conception of terrorism has implications for strategies to discourage terrorism. This may require persuading the perpetrator that this particular means is ineffectual in reference to the actor’s objectives and that there exist alternative, more effective means to the actor’s ends. And that terrorism constitutes a hindrance to the attainment of other important objectives. What guides terrorist groups are certain assumptions about themselves and others. If these assumptions are not well founded the conclusions will not be valid and hence result in frustrations and inadequacies and failures. This suggests the need to opt for alternatives to terrorism in the search for peace and justice.
Terrorism also might be difficult to give up because, besides its presumed advancement of the perpetrators’ ideological objectives, it affords the emotional satisfaction of watching the enemy suffer, which boosts one’s sense potency and prowess. From this perspective, such policies as “ethnic profiling, targeted assassinations or the inadvertent “collateral damage” inflicted during anti-terrorist campaigns might backfire by fueling the range of the terrorists and their supporters, hence amplifying the emotional goal of vengeance against the enemy.
Psychological considerations add a layer of complexity to deciding the “end justifying means” issue in the context of fighting terrorism.There is a belief that the “global war on terrorism” concept may need to be reassessed. It is a fight on too many fronts and against too may adversaries. There are moral complexities involved. The focus should be on terrorists whose defeat is truly worth the price. In words of the 9/11 commission’ “the enemy is not just terrorism,” some generic evil. This vagueness blurs the strategy. The catastrophic threat at this moment in history is more specific.”
The fight against terrorism itself might appear morally unjustified if the end it promised to achieve threatened to hinder the United States’ own foreign policy priorities. As an analyst noted; cold war concerns led the U.S. sometimes to ignore its stated distaste for terror. In Nicaragua, Angola, and elsewhere the U.S. supported terrorist activity, an indication of how difficult it was to forgo a purpose deemed worthwhile evenwhen deplorable tactics had to be used.
In essence, whether an end justifies a means depends on a moral calculus: an end may justify terrorism if it exceeded in its moral significance the end obstructed by terrorism, but it may not justify terrorism if the opposite held true. It is in precisely those terms that President Harry Truman justified the use of the atomic and hydrogen bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ending the war and saving countless American and Japanese lives was more important than the preservation of the fewer lives the bombing would claim. Rather than in black and white, morality often comes in shades of gray.
n The writer is a former director NIPA, a political analyst, a public policy expert and an author.