Terrorism is a loaded term, obviously, with extreme political and emotional connotations. Some arms of the American government, such as the CIA, define terrorism as exclusively the province of non-state organizations - that would mean that even if Israel intentionally blew up hospitals, schools and churches used only by civilians (rather than arguing that they are connected with Hezbollah) those actions would not be terrorist actions. In contrast, the FBI defines terrorism as
..the unlawful use of force and violence against
persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or
any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives. link
So here is my two-page response from last year. You can skip to the last paragraph if you just want the definition, or you can read the whole thing if you want to know how I arrived at it.
There is no complete definition of terrorism that will meet with widespread international approval, either among states or non-state actors. This is because too many state and non-state actors either perpetrate or support acts of terrorism themselves, or have ideological sympathies for those who do. This is the origin of the cliché "One nation's terrorists are another nation's freedom fighters." Since the label of "terrorist" is emotionally loaded, many state or non-state actors will do anything to avoid the label of terrorist, short of ceasing their terrorist activities.
There are several key components any reasonable definition of terrorism must have, regardless of how widespread its international appeal is. They are: violence with a political goal, violence directed against a specific group of civilians, and violence intended to create fear of more violence. This constitutes an acceptable definition of terrorism. In order to increase its international appeal without being forced to absurdly and explicitly limit terrorism to only non-state actors, we can instead employ a half-way measure - define terrorism as a method of asymmetrical warfare, prosecuted by the weak against the strong. This assertion is controversial and is dealt with below.
Violence with a political goal means simply that the violence the terrorist perpetrates is designed to be a catalyst for either political change, or maintenance of the political status quo. In this manner, al Qaeda's attacks against the Twin Towers were designed to, among other things, provoke an American over-reaction that would highlight America's supposed anti-Muslim stance, which would then lead to the overthrow of pro-American Muslim apostate regimes in the Middle East, including Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Similarly, the Irish Republican Army's terror campaign's ultimate goal was not the killing of Protestants or English people (as demonstrated by anonymous warnings before terror attacks in order to reduce casualties); their ultimate goal was a reunification of Northern Ireland with Ireland proper. The fact that they pursued this goal with violence is one part of what made the IRA a terrorist organization.
Violence with a political goal also means that most organized crime falls outside the definition of terrorism. While organized crime may perpetrate violence against civilians, for example in the absence of protection money, and may commit violent acts designed to inspire fear, such as breaking kneecaps, since traditional organized crime does not generally seek to alter the political structure which allows it to exist it does not qualify as terrorism. It is even possible that an organized crime syndicate's attack on a public figure is not a political act, as it may be possible that this attack may be designed to eliminate or intimidate individuals, rather than influence any general political will. However, if that attack is designed to preemptively intimidate, to "send a message" that actions against the syndicate will not be tolerated, then that is an overtly political act in favor of maintaining the political status quo (of toleration for organized crime) and thus falls under the definition of terrorism. Similarly, an attack on a politician on the basis of his politics would constitute terrorism, as this would clearly be designed to influence politics one way or the other.
Finally, terrorism does not have to be directed against the state, or representatives or employees of the state, in order to be political. Operation Rescue, an anti-abortion terrorist group, targeted doctors, nurses and abortion clinics. Although its targets were not state agents, because it selected its targets based on the political issue of abortion, its violence was political and therefore terrorism.
This leads to the second component of the definition of terrorism - its target. Terrorism requires the direction of violence at civilians. This does not, however, require that terrorists carefully select the people they will kill. If a terrorist picks a victim at random, that simply means the population the terrorists were willing to kill was everybody that had a chance of being selected randomly to be a victim. Here, for the purposes of clarity, a distinction has to be made between being targeted for the act of violence, and being the target population. A population is a target population when that population is supposed to act in reaction to the terrorist act, i.e., when it serves as the terrorists' audience. This is different from a population being targeted for an act of terror in the sense that the violence is supposed to kill or wound them directly. For the purposes of this essay it is simpler to refer to first population as the audience, and the second population as the target population.
Sometimes the target population is the same population as the audience and sometimes it is not. Usually the audience is supposed to act on the catalyst of the terrorist act, and either force state action, or overthrow a state. Examples of each include the IRA, whose terrorism targeted their audience population, the English public, in order to force the United Kingdom to withdraw from Northern Ireland, and al Qaeda, whose terrorism targeted Americans, while their audience was Muslims, whom al Qaeda was attempting to incite to overthrow apostate Muslim regimes.
One important caveat is that the targeted population must include persons other than the perpetrators of the violence. Although self-immolation is a violent act often done for political purposes, has a specific audience population, and can create fear of further self-immolations, since the target population consists of only the perpetrator, self-immolation and similar self-sacrificing acts which do not harm others are not terrorism.
The third component of terrorism is that terrorist acts are designed to create fear of more terrorist acts. This is frequently done with the aid of media statements. The Basque terrorist group ETA is expert in releasing statements just after a terror attack has occurred, claiming responsibility and threatening that more attacks will happen unless Basques are awarded more freedom. Terror organizations understand that what gives them success is not killing large numbers of people, but the fear of future terror attacks killing even more people. This is perhaps one explanation for why America has not been attacked with a weapon of mass destruction. If a terror organization has only one WMD, that WMD will be more valuable for them held over the heads of their target and audience populations, than it is after it has exploded and they can no longer threaten its use. This is why Richard Betts outlines his worst-case scenario as a terrorist group launching a biological attack, killing a large number of people, and then threatening to kill more. If there is not a realistic threat to kill more people, then the audience population has little to no incentive to react to the act of terror.
Thus terrorism can be defined as political violence with a specific audience, intentionally targeting civilians and creating a fear of further political violence. The additional and final component of the definition of terrorism is that terrorism is a method of asymmetrical warfare. This is not necessary to a definition of terrorism, but will restrict the definition to partially assuage state fears of being labeled terrorists, thus widening international appeal. The definition also retains some flexibility, as weaker states, such as the Afghanistan or a possible Palestinian state, will still be defined as terrorist states if they attack more powerful states using terrorist methods.
The inclusion of the asymmetrical nature of terrorism fits with a traditional conception of terrorism, yet also largely limits the definition to non-state actors. The stereotypical terrorist hides in a cave or goes underground in a city, and detonates bombs, or uses poison or other methods of sabotage or asymmetrical warfare, not because that is their preferred method of attack, but because that is the only practical method of warfare that they can execute. Osama bin Laden does not command a modern army of tanks and aircraft carriers; if he did, he would surely use them rather than truck bombs or commercial airliners. Terror attacks typically cost little money and require little manpower. They typically target larger targets such as states or corporations with many times their resources. This establishes the asymmetry of terrorism.
That terrorism is warfare is something already assumed by many in the international community; hence the controversy over the United States refusing to grant suspected terrorists their Geneva Convention rights as prisoners of war. While terrorists do not usually wear uniforms or wave flags, it is noteworthy that they do issue proclamations of war, for example al Qaeda's declaration on February 23rd, 1998 to "kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it." If we accept the relatively controversial assertion that terrorism is a subset of warfare, the fact that terrorism is asymmetrical warfare follows logically, as was shown above.
Our final, controversial yet internationally tolerable and only-slightly-emasculated definition of terrorism is asymmetrical warfare for political goals that intentionally jeopardizes civilians and intends to create a fear of further political violence.
Now it's your turn. How do YOU define terrorism? Is it even definable?
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