Contemporary Terror: Studies in Sub-State Violence by David Carlton & Carlo Schaerf

Author:David Carlton & Carlo Schaerf [Carlton, David & Schaerf, Carlo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, Terrorism
ISBN: 9781317424314
Google: yBLICQAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 55495403
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1981-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

Conclusion

We may tentatively advance these main propositions regarding the medium-term future:

1. Terrorism in general is likely to grow, but in a somewhat uneven fashion.

2. Some countries will continue to be much less vulnerable than others, even within ideological systems, and the former are therefore less likely than the latter to respond to any incident with an eye to the long-term consequences.

3. Some sovereign states will continue to sponsor terrorist groups but there are probably limits beyond which such states will find it imprudent to allow their friends to go. Hence sponsorship may increasingly be seen in dramatic form only in the Third World arena.

4. State-sponsored terrorists are similarly likely to be discouraged from obtaining weapons of mass destruction, and unsponsored groups may not be able to obtain them in the foreseeable future, even if they should desire them.

5. The scope for universally-accepted international agreements among governments is severely limited – but ad hoc deals to deal with particular aspects such as air hijacking may be attainable.

It is obviously more hazardous to make forecasts about the more distant future – say beyond the turn of the century – when even small groups may have little difficulty in obtaining weapons of mass destruction. Brian Jenkins has asked:

If governments cannot protect their citizens, as terrorists seem to be demonstrating, will governments as we know them become obsolete? The historical growth of national governments in the first place depended in part on national leadership, often a monarch, being able to monopolise the means of organised violence. If the military–power relationships are altered drastically in favour of small groups that obey no government, will we enter an era of international warlordism in which the people of the world and their governments are subjected to the extortion demands of many small groups?12

In short, are we at the beginning of the end of the sovereign national state, which until recently was thought to be threatened, if at all, not by sub-state warlords but by Hitler and/or Stalin seeking global hegemony or by the voluntary adoption of regional supranationalism perhaps leading eventually to world government? There is clearly a finite chance that Jenkins’s vision will one day come about. We may indeed enter a new Dark Age. But so far this seems to be an extremely remote possibility. This is not to say that terrorism will fade away. On the contrary, we have adduced many factors that favour its gradual increase within certain limits. For our time, then, this phenomenon seems unlikely to bring about the end of civilised life as most of us living in urban centres know it but to be set for a long run as international theatre largely played out with ever greater ingenuity and sophistication on the television screens of a watching world.13

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