nerve, have a failure of political will, and, in effect if not formally, offer a political deal.
All governments have a declaratory stance of never negotiating with terrorists, whom
they categorize and denounce as criminals. But in practice, governments do negoti-
ate, though typically indirectly, through third-party agencies, and therefore somewhat
deniably.
When one compares how terrorism and counter-terrorism can win strategically,
the answers are mirror images of each other. And that is true despite the dramatic
asymmetries between the two sides. Victory or defeat (admittedly two terms in need of
careful definition with regard to terrorism and CT) depends critically upon who can win
the struggle for perceived legitimacy. The terrorist branch of irregular warfare is very
much a moral and psychological, which is to say a cultural, struggle, not a material one.
Usually, the terrorist can win only if the government’s CT efforts include heavy-
handed overreaction. If they entail the use of disproportionate and indiscriminate
violence against civilians, they will produce recruits for the terrorists. A clumsy, over-
reacting CT campaign can transform a terrorist nuisance into a small-scale guerrilla war,
which might escalate into a full-fledged popular insurgency. Strategically, the CT side
will have delegitimized itself politically. The dominant issue in the conflict will no longer
be whatever is motivating hard-core terrorists but the government’s alleged crimes
against the people.
For the government, a prime strategy for success in CT is to try to trap the terrorists
into delegitimizing themselves in the eyes of the public. The official response needs to
be restrained, obedient to the principle of minimum force, and respectful of the rights
and feelings even of suspect communities within the state. In that context, the terrorists
have a strategic problem, even a crisis, on their hands. Since the government is not
overreacting in response to terrorist outrages, the temptation is to raise the stakes and
strive for ever-bigger and more shocking atrocities. But that path is fairly certain to
lead to a dramatic loss of public sympathy, always assuming that such sympathy had
been enjoyed previously. The political and moral issue then ceases to be the merit or
otherwise in the terrorists’ cause but rather their culturally intolerable misbehaviour.
If the government’s CT efforts continue to be low key, some terrorists, and especially
many potential recruits, should suffer a devastating loss of morale. Terrorism will seem
hopeless, a path to nowhere, and few people will be attracted to an organization staffed
by what are judged to be inevitable losers.
In its pure (if one dare use the term) form, which is to say as stand-alone behaviour,
terrorism is rarely successful. Recall that unlike an insurgency, which by definition
requires a mass movement directed towards regime change, terrorism itself has no
capacity to seize state power. The terrorist wins only if the government is intimidated,
coerced and thereby humiliated into offering political concessions – or if the government
panics, overreacts and inadvertently fuels an insurgency out of what had been only an
isolated terrorist campaign. In order to gain power, irregular fighters have to evolve from
terrorists into insurgents. Terrorism is always a high-risk tactic, one liable to blow back
negatively on the terrorists themselves. The public is at least as likely to turn on the
terrorists for their outrages against the innocent as it is to be mobilized in hatred of
official misdeeds.
The normal language of military analysis, as well as popular commentary, does not fit
comfortably the context of terrorist–CT struggle. Officials talk of victory and defeat, and
Irregular warfare 257