to seize and hold the moral high ground is one of the most valuable sources of strategic
effectiveness in irregular warfare in all cultural and geopolitical contexts.
The regular soldier tends to abhor irregular warfare. The enemy is elusive, anonymous
in a crowd of civilians, and generally inaccessible to application of the mailed fist. As
a result, it is tempting to try short cuts to success, particularly military success. The
regular is ever liable to forget that irregular war is deeply political and has no strictly
military dimension. In their frustration, regulars engage in energetic and violent sweeps
of ‘bandit country’. They harass suspect communities, and generally do what energetic,
career-minded soldiers are supposed to do: they take the offensive, try to seize the
initiative, and display much activity. However, none of this is strategically very helpful.
In order to succeed against an irregular enemy, regular soldiers have to discard old
doctrine manuals and write new ones. The merit in this view is recognized today. For
example, on 25 June 2006, Sergeant Jonathan Mayville, US Army, said, ‘All of our army
regulations, all of our training manuals, are completely changed.’ Speaking on the same
day and at the same location (Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site, Colorado, USA), Command
Sergeant Major Terrance McWilliams also emphasized the extent of the US Army’s effort
at cultural and tactical transformation for greater effectiveness in irregular warfare: ‘This
is no longer the old Army where you see a bad guy, you automatically shoot them. You’re
trying to maintain the calm with the villagers and at the same time weed out the
insurgents’ (both quoted in Squires, 2006).
Terrorism and counter-terrorism
Terrorism is exemplary violence executed primarily for the purpose of inducing fear
among the general public. It can be targeted against either innocent civilians or agents
of the state, military or bureaucratic. In the latter case, the intention is to promote
demoralization. Definitions that require terrorist action to be directed at civilians are too
restrictive. The particular targets of terrorist assault are not usually inherently important,
even when they are of high symbolic or economic significance, though the destruction
of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York was an exception to that
rule. Terrorists do not seek to inflict material damage or casualties as tactical ends in
themselves. They are not engaged in materially attritional warfare, but rather in warfare
to erode the will of the enemy. They can never inflict sufficient damage upon their
enemies to be able to win by force, probably not even if they employ a weapon of mass
destruction (e.g., a nuclear device). Terrorists can win only politically, if they can win at
all. Generally, they do not win. However, it is important to note that the ‘new terrorism’
executed by al Qaeda does seem to be attempting a strategy of economic warfare. Al
Qaeda may have calculated that a series of blows such as those on 9/11 would have such
expensive consequences for its enemies that they would be compelled to accept defeat.
Terrorism occurs in one of two forms: as a strategic, stand-alone technique of warfare;
or as an adjunct to guerrilla operations. In the latter case it may be employed early in a
conflict when insurgent numbers are small, with the hope being that the official response
will be so mishandled that a popular insurgency can be mobilized. In the case of stand-
alone terrorism, executed in no expectation of its leading to an insurgency, the strategy
will be one of political and psychological attrition. The terrorists will be an expensive
nuisance and a political embarrassment. As that situation persists, the state might lose its
256 War, peace and international relations