Kryachkov 2!indd

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Английский язык для магистратуры
F
ighting The Hydra
leader of a terrorist sect and had recruited his obedient followers into his group; suppose teach-
ings in the schools and mass propaganda supported his group. There is almost no limit to what 
he could have accomplished using such people. They might not have been clinically ill, but they 
would have been incorporated into a psychopathological movement.
The central fact about terrorists is not that they are deranged, but that they are not alone. In 
Singapore, their recruitment begins with attendance at religious schools. If ardent and compliant, 
they are drawn into Jemaah Islamiyah, where they associate with others like themselves. Being in 
the group gives each member a sense of special esteem and exclusivity, reinforced by the use of 
secrecy, code names, and specialized training. Then they are offered the chance to be martyrs if 
they die in a jihad. Everywhere, leaders strengthen the bombers’ commitment by isolating them 
in safe houses and by asking them to draft last testaments and make videotapes for their families, 
in which they say farewell.
Given its long history, one must wonder whether terrorism accomplishes its goals. For some 
ideological terrorists, of course, there are scarcely any clear goals that can be accomplished. But for 
many assassins and religious terrorists, there are important goals, such as ending tyranny, spread-
ing a religious doctrine, or defeating a national enemy. 
By these standards, terrorism does not work. With one or two possible exceptions, assassina-
tions have not produced results consonant with the aims of the doer. Of the 50 prime ministers 
and heads of state killed between 1945 and 1985, it is hard to think of one whose death changed 
a state’s policies.
One reason it does not work can be found in studies of Israeli public opinion. During 1979, 
there were 271 terrorist incidents in Israel and the territories it administers, resulting in the 
deaths of 23 people and the injuring of 344 more. Public-opinion surveys clearly showed that 
these attacks deeply worried Israelis, but their fear, instead of leading them to endorse efforts 
at reconciliation, produced a toughening of attitudes and a desire to see the perpetrators dealt 
with harshly.
But if terrorism does not change the views of the victims and their friends, then it is possible 
that campaigns against terrorism will not change the views of people who support it. Many social 
scientists have come to just this conclusion.
In the 1970s, I attended meetings at a learned academy where people wondered what could 
be done to stop the terrorism of the German Red Army Faction and the Italian Red Brigades. The 
general conclusion was that no counterattacks would work. To cope with terrorism, my colleagues 
felt, one must deal with its root causes.
I was not convinced. My doubts stemmed, I suppose, from my own sense that dealing with 
the alleged root causes of crime would not work as well as simply arresting criminals. After all, we 
do not know much about the root causes, and most of the root causes we can identify cannot be 
changed in a free society — or possibly in any society.
The German and Italian authorities, faced with a grave political problem, decided not to change 
root causes but to arrest the terrorists. That, accompanied by the collapse of East Germany and its 
support for terrorists, worked. Within a few years the Red Army Faction and the Red Brigades were 
extinct. In the United States, the Weather Underground died after its leaders were arrested. 
But Islamic terrorism poses a much more difficult challenge. These terrorists live and work 
among people sympathetic to their cause. Those arrested will be replaced; those killed will be 
honored. Opinion polls in many Islamic nations show great support for anti-Israeli and anti-Amer-
ican terrorists. Terrorists live in a hospitable river. We may have to cope with the river.
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