Introduction - Terrorism
A study of any subject usually begins with definitions. Yet there is no widely accepted definition of terrorism -- a testimony both to the extraordinary complexity of the subject, and to the interests of those who write about it.
The military historian Caleb Carr defines terrorism as "the victimization of unarmed civilians in an attempt to affect the policies of the government which leads those civilians." But as Carr himself points out, his formulation makes the U.S. bombing campaigns of the Vietnam war, or the use of the atomic bomb against the Japanese in World War II, terrorist acts. Thus for any reader who would not call those actions terrorism, an analysis based on Carr's definition becomes suspect. Many of us have an "I-know-it-when-I-see-it" feeling about terrorism, but the above example suggests why such an approach cannot suffice for the purposes of serious study and investigation.
