What's Wrong With Terrorism?

Preface vii

Acknowledgements x

1 Introduction 1

2 Terrorism as Unjust War: Killing Innocent Civilians 6

Three problems with the just-war analysis of terrorism 9

A different sense of ‘innocence’ 18

War crime, ordinary crime or a special offence? 21

3 Terrorism as a Political Tactic: Intending to Instil Fear 31

What sort of ‘ism’ is terrorism? 32

What terrorists want 35

Fear is the key 45

Summing up 48

4 States Can Be Terrorists, Too 50

The definitional ploy 53

States terrorizing other states 60

States terrorizing their own people 66

State-sponsored terror and crimes of complicity 73

5 Warnings Can Be Terroristic, Too: Profiting Politically from Fear 78

Threats and warnings 80

Impure warnings: ‘terrorist warnings’ versus ‘warnings of terrorism’ 85

Politicians’ intentions matter, too 91

Terrorism as an aggravated wrong: is ‘violence’ required? 100

Better ‘terrorist warnings’ than none at all? 108

6 Warnings Bound to Be Misheard 111

How big a deal is terrorism? 114

Calibrating risks 118

Mechanisms of misperception 123

Mass-mediated terror 131

Risks of really mass destruction 136

Imprudent precautions 142

7 Terrorizing Democracy 156

Terrorism as a political wrong 156

Fearlessness as a response 159

Hobbesian solutions to non-Hobbesian problems 170

Of tyrants and terrorists 176

8 Conclusions 179

Notes 187

References 218

Index 238