How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns

by Audrey Kurth Cronin

Yet even these brutal government reactions and moves toward repression must be put into perspective when analyzing the viability of terrorism: states may be gravely weakened by terrorist violence over the long run, but terrorist groups are weakened even more. States often move toward their primal natures, particularly the use of force and, all else being equal, are far more effective at it than terrorists. When the objectives of terrorist groups are achieved, it is often not from the use of terrorist attacks (an inherently weak tactic) but as the result of a transition into more traditional means of political coercion, such as insurgent attacks on military forces. (See chapter 6.) Even in such cases, campaigns employing terrorism succeed more despite the use of violence against innocent civilians than because of it; there is far more evidence supporting the efficacy of insurgent attacks on armed forces, for example, than of terrorist attacks on civilian targets.34 Yet attacks on military targets by virtually any commonly accepted rigorous definition do not constitute terrorism. In killing noncombatants, terrorism can attract attention, provoke tactical responses, lead a state to undermine itself, and create a cause celebre; but it almost never installs new rulers, inspires ideological change, takes over territory, or constructs new institutions of governance (as terrorist leaders typically claim). Historically, by virtually any standard of measurement, terrorist success st...