Free Essay Sample: Terrorism and War

Terrorism and war are two different terms that may be confused with each other. However, there exists a significant difference between the two situational settings. According to the U.S., terrorism is defined as the deliberate and politically inspired act of extreme violence which is targeted against a people who are non-fighters, and whose attack is either engineered from a subnational team or even a concealed agents (Schmid, 2011). Alternatively, terrorism can be defined as the act of viciousness and tuff threats while in targeting a particular political, religious - social or conceptual groups to ensure that their intentions are fulfilled. On the other hand, war can be defined as a state an armed conflict that occurs between nations or particular different groups or subgroups within a country.

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Unlike in the case of terrorism, both parties in war are aware of it before it takes place (Sambanis, 2004). War involves the use of weapons by the both fighting armies and thus before it is launched, of the nation, or group is likely to declare the state of war on the other country, and if it does not surrender, then it counters to the situation. However, different from terrorism, the adverse effects of war are quite catastrophic and may declare the loss of so many lives and properties, besides the destabilization of a country's economy (Berrebi, & Ostwald, 2011). Unlike in war, whereby all the participants are well known, a terrorist enemy is hard to distinguish from the ordinary civilians. Moreover, the terrorist's attacks have always had a covert indent, and they are always directed towards normal and unarmed citizens hence posing a significant challenge to the democratic governments.

As a result of its extensive adverse effects, terrorism instills fear amongst the citizens, hence raising the alarm for their liberty and thus some would choose to have their privacy intruded for eradicating terrorism since terrorists would live within the normal citizens, and plan, and launch an attack whenever it is appropriate to them. In the attempt to counter terrorism, the freedom of innocent citizens is at times threatened by the presence of extensive security measures that are put in place to ensure that there lives no terrorist amongst civilians. Thus, the people's democracy is, and freedom to exist as free citizens is tamed down with some of their rights being infringed via sudden security checks which may intrude into someone's home without any notice, to do a private investigation (Primoratz, 1990). Therefore, terrorism may lead to the public discourse regarding domestic security and civil liberty whereby both appear to have a competitive interest in which the federal government strives to install peace, while at the same time putting too many restrictions to its citizens. However, it is argued that lose liberty links directly to the success in terrorism. Therefore, in one way or another, when people give up on their freedom, the terrorists underlines it as a score on their side.

References

Berrebi, C., & Ostwald, J. (2011). Earthquakes, hurricanes, and terrorism: do natural disasters incite terror?. Public Choice, 149(3-4), 383. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11127-011-9868-x

Primoratz, I. (1990). What is terrorism?. Journal of applied philosophy, 7(2), 129-138. Retrieved from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/24353583.pdf?casa_token=gr9qHUmh16AAAAAA:OGQJ7dnutGXxUzGfcIvlimAWONAqMkdsR8xHbIFVNdUG_CZz_n30N3c36viu9YxkdJrIUpGg0e_cFDQHdjykOHTVS4z5HleD1G255ZWzEOpFFpI4frbOw

Sambanis, N., (2004). What is a civil war? Conceptual and empirical complexities of an operational definition. Journal of conflict resolution, 48(6), 814-858. Retrieved from; https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/36055369/Algeria_civil_war.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1559622404&Signature=P5euPNcQbTlL2gLixPKKPgZ1OZQ%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DAlgeria_1992-2002_Anatomy_of_a_Civil_War.pdf

Schmid, A. P. (2011). The definition of terrorism. In The Routledge handbook of terrorism research (pp. 57-116). Routledge. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=_PXpFxKRsHgC&oi=fnd&pg=PR3&dq=Schmid,+A.+P.+(2011).+The+definition+of+terrorism.+In+The+Routledge+handbook+of+terrorism+research+(pp.+57-116).+Routledge.&ots=mEc1TSpiOb&sig=4CgTOtE3YCBSB3VzvniNsAUAJBs