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Terror Targets
Terrorism is a complex and widely used term in today's lexicon. What started out as a tactical approach to warfare has seemingly morphed into a label for loosely organized Muslim militias. Being branded as a terrorist is certainly relative, where one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Regardless of these distinctions, terrorist organizations, at least perceived in Western culture, are threats to peace and stability. The purpose of this essay is to explore the significance of terrorist targeting preferences and methodologies in order to understand how terrorist choose targets contributes to counter-terrorism operations, policies and practices. I will explore this topic by examining and interpreting literature relevant to this topic.
Drake (1998) explained how terrorist targets, while once thought to be indiscriminate, are essentially extremely specified. He explained that "target selection is instead determined by a number of factors, and the terrorists' ideology is central to this process, not only because it provides the initial dynamic for the terrorists' actions, but because...
By focusing on ideology, and ignoring the indiscriminate factors in motivation, some sort of counter-plan may be developed.
When ideology's are presented as motivating factors, counter-terrorist organizations have access to their playbook. Drake used the example of communist revolutionary terrorists to explain this point. He suggested that "Arrigo Cavallina of the Armed Proletarians for Communism recalls how he systematically read the complete works of Marx, Lenin, and Mao in a vain attempt to turn himself into a 'professional revolutionary.'" By expressing motivations for terrorist attacks, these groups essentially give their foes an opportunity to peek inside their minds, allowing for appropriate and effective countermeasures.
Carpenter (2009) reported in an interview with Loretta Napoleoni, a reporter who has been granted unique access to terrorist organizations, that terrorists seem to know what they are doing…
Works Cited
Carpenter, Shanna. "Q&A with Loretta Napoleoni: The ever-changing face of terrorism." Ted, December 14, 2009, http://blog.ted.com/2009/12/14/qa_with_loretta / (accessed January 31, 2013).
Drake, C.J.M. "The Role of Ideology in Terrorists' Target Selection." 10 (1998): 53-85.
Libicki, Martin, Peter Chalk and Melanie Sisson. "Exploring Terrorist Targeting Preferences." Rand Corporation (2007).
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