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

by Audrey Kurth Cronin

The terms insurgency and terrorism overlap. Insurgencies often use terrorism as one of many tactics; to assert that terrorist organizations and insurgencies can be neatly distinguished would be foolish: neither term is fully satisfactory. However, degrees of difference and emphasis are important in analyzing what a group is trying to achieve, how great a threat it poses, and how best to respond to it. From the perspective of state military forces, transitioning to insurgency can put a terrorist group onto more familiar ground. Best thought of as military rebellions against indigenous governments or foreign occupiers, insurgencies present themselves as alternatives to the current regime, hold a type of sovereignty over people and territory, and use force as pseudo-armies or guerrilla forces. For this reason, they primarily target the opposing military forces of the state, often using guerrilla-style hit-and-run tactics.36 Insurgents may use terrorism, particularly when they target “noncombatants” such as government officials, police forces, or noncompliant civilian leaders; but unlike terrorist organizations, they can hold territory and engage the military.37 Summing up the differences between the two, Bruce Hoffman argues that, compared to terrorist groups, insurgencies are numerically larger organizations of armed individuals who operate as military units, target military forces, and seize and held territory (at least temporarily).38 Which label we use has practical effec...