influence, as it separates ‘friendly’ from ‘unfriendly’ states through the ‘with us or
against us’ rhetoric and thereby produces friction. Though so far, apart from the
cases of Iran and Syria, this has not led to open balancing either.
However, opposition is exerted not from the unit level but from below, by a sub-
state rather than a state actor. Terrorism directed against Western countries, and the
United States in particular, is currently regarded as a sub-state phenomenon,^80 even
if it might be sponsored or harboured by states.^81 This kind of violence is also based
on material and ideational factors combined, and it is a result of disequilibrium
reflected on the sub-state level.
First, sub-state opposition is presumably due to the fact that, at the regional or
national levels, insufficient balancing takes place to satisfy in real terms the tendency
towards equilibrium, which has negative effects particularly at the sub-state level.
However, due to the latent presence of this tendency there exists a desire for positive
change towards more parity. This, I would argue, entails oppositional behaviour
from below the state level in order to compensate for the absence of opposition at
that higher level.
Let us try to retrace the empirical link between the absence of balancing at the
state level and sub-state terrorism. First, the lack of balancing may be a cause of
frustration for those populations not directly affected by ideological integration
under hegemony. Equilibrium can be understood, even if this is not explicitly part
of IR theory, as a general, rather intuitive, popular desire. This is particularly the
case if disequilibrium has been experienced, affecting the peoples in the form of
poverty and widespread unemployment (cf. the ‘relative deprivation’ thesis),^82 and
in cultural and ideological terms. Therefore, arguably, the lack of balancing is
resented by large parts of the Middle Eastern population, and this resentment is a
breeding ground for terrorism and a basis for its support. Terrorists capitalise on the
frustration, which they need to legitimise their actions and to find human resources
for recruitment. They not only capitalise on it, they instrumentalise it by attempting,
or promising to attempt, a recreation of the equilibrium, and to reinstall ‘justice’, or
even a certain alternative regional or world order. Many terrorists, furthermore,
claim to be fighting against infidels, meaning states or peoples rejecting their
religions. Terrorists, therefore, use religions or political ideology as a framework for
their struggle, but they are also clearly motivated by questions of material power
relationships and by their experience of suffering aggression. Economic causes, for
example, have been discussed extensively.^83
Second, the Middle East region is experiencing both direct and indirect (or
‘structural’) violence, exerted particularly by the United States.^84 The enactment of
power in an oppositional (offensive or violent) way leads to more violence (and
hence to counter-violence) rather than submission,^85 particularly in the absence of soft
power. Therefore, counter-violence derives from the logic of tit-for-tat, which
assumes reciprocity in relationships both of conflict and cooperation, rather than
reciprocity in the accumulation of capability. Hence, it can be supposed that violent
action against an actor – for example in the form of military intervention – will be
responded to with violent counter-action. Even if, according to rational choice
242 Hegemony, equilibrium and counterpower