This question is frequently debated: What definition can be attributed to irregular warfare, “resistance” or “terrorism”? (Naturally, the same question also applies to Iraq). It is peculiar, in such dramatic circumstances, how intellectuals, politicians and military people like to lose time with such irrelevant polemics.
It is well known to those who deal professionally with the problem that there is no single definition of the term “terrorism”: it oscillates between two hypotheses: the first is that the terrorist is an illegitimate fighter because he has no state representation, the second is that the terrorist is he who employs particular forms of combat which are banned by international law (for example, slaughter of civilians) (1) .
In the first case, any irregular fighter would be included in the definition and there would be no sense in distinguishing between the terrorist, the partisan, the rebel, the antagonist, the revolutionary, the guerrilla fighter and so on: a dangerous conclusion, both because it would suffocate the “right to resist” against an unjust order, which is at the base of democracy (2) , and more on the practical side, there does not exist a State, party, political aggregation which does not support some irregular armed fight (it is of little importance if it is for instrumental or ethical reasons.
In the second case, it is necessary to define what the banned forms of fighting are, with the risk, on the one side, of including also regular armies among the terrorist number (3) , on the other side, the application of such a definition to many irregular armed organization becomes problematic (4) .
A variant to this attempt would be to underline the eminently psychological character of this form of conflict, where the terrorist aims to demoralize, disorient and terrorize the opponent, rather than inflict material damages, but also in this case, we are confronted with a definition which is excessive, on the one hand, (insofar as any regular army resorts also to this form of fighting) and on the other hand, a definition which is wanting (insofar as it is not exhaustive of the phenomenology of the irregular wars).
This difficulty of reaching a definition which is clear, unequivocal and exhaustive of the phenomenon is, in reality, the result of a conceptually wrong and fraudulent operation: to present as a scientific definition that which is, in reality, a political operation, probably legitimate, but in any event, subjective and open to dispute.
Let us reflect on this observation: no irregular fighter has ever defined himself as a terrorist, but from time to time, as a patriot, a partisan, a revolutionary etc., just as no challenged power has ever conceded the title of partisan, or similar, to its adversaries, invariably defining them as terrorists, bandits, brigands, criminals etc.,
On the basis of these considerations, we can conclude that the only realistic definition of the terms “terrorist” or “partisan” is the following:
“the terrorist is the irregular opposing fighter, the partisan is the irregular allied fighter”.
Therefore, it is a matter of mere political considerations (although transferred in texts of a juridical nature, such as international agreements or criminal laws) and further on we shall see their practical function. Remaining on non-judgemental ground, let us, instead, speak of asymmetrical war (or, if preferred, ‘irregular’ or ‘non-orthodox’ (5) , which can manifest itself in the cases in point, often unduly associated with the term “terrorism”:
a) state subject against internal enemy (“State “terrorism” or “war on the subjects”, e.g. the Aaa during the military dictatorship in Argentina between 1976 and 1982);
b) state subject against another State subject (“concealed war” e.g. commandos actions or attacks during peace);
c) non-state subject against external enemy (“international terrorism” e.g. Palestinian attacks against USA targets);
d) non-state subject against internal enemy (“rebellion”: e.g. The Red Brigades or the Raf).
Naturally, it is only an abstract distinction, both because it is often a matter of reciprocal phenomena (e.g. the “internal rebellion” and “war on subjects”) or hybrids (e.g. the support of a Security Service to a guerrilla movement which blends the rebellion with the covert operation).
We shall now concern ourselves more specifically with the typologies which compare a non-sovereign subject with a sovereign subject (“rebellion” or “international terrorism”). The non-sovereign subject aims at, in one way or another, (conquest of internal power, secession of part of the territory, conquest or re-conquest of the independence of an occupied or colonized country) to become a sovereign subject, to the detriment of the challenged power.
At the outset, the challenging subject is not always aware of the final targets: sometimes limited objectives are aimed for (regional autonomy, freedom of expression, the release of political prisoners etc.,) (6) , but in the majority of cases, the change of targets materialize and, often, it is simply due to the effect of the impact with anti-terrorism.
The asymmetry of the conflict is given by the different nature of the rivals (sovereign the one, non-sovereign the other) which implies military consequences: aeroplanes, tanks and heavy artillery cannot be concealed and require a territory on which to exercise full control, which is what the insurgent does not have, (7) and which is why he has no chance of victory in a confrontation on open ground. He is, therefore, constricted to secret operative methods to have any possibility of victory (8) . All this produces a mirror-like effect: the challenged subject is exposed to the enemy’s attacks because the targets (barracks, institutional buildings, infrastructures, industrial plants, men) are easily identifiable and – in the great majority of cases - are not able to be camouflaged: vice versa, the irregular fighter has no visible targets, he moves in the shadow of the clandestine existence. Invisibility is the strategic weapon of the challenger.
Consequently, the challenging subject will try to hit where the antagonist is most vulnerable, according to the logic of the minimum effort and maximum results, so as to provoke the psychological, economic (9) and political collapse.
In fact, the challenged power cannot afford an excessive lengthening of a similar situation:
- the citizens’ demand for security requires satisfaction in “political” and not “biblical” time; after a certain period of time, the continuation of the attacks undermines the climate of national unity, lowers the people’s faith in the government and creates determination to find a “way out, whatever it may be” (10) ;
- exceptional measures of limitation to personal or collective freedom appear always more unjustifiable with time, both because an emergency is such if it lasts for a reasonable period of time, and because, if the attacks continue, it means that the measures are ineffective;
- the economic costs of the protection measures cannot be sustained indefinitely;
- this same repressive apparatus (army, police, security services), beyond a certain limit, can undergo desertions, insubordination and mutinies or, in the opposite direction, be oriented to take power, ousting the political authority, which is considered incapable of handling the situation.
As we can see, time does not work in favour of the challenged, but in favour of the challenger, which aims at wearing down its opponent. For this reason, any government knows that in order to subdue insurrections, it has ahead of it, a more or less extended, but not an infinite period of time.
Here, the tendency of the challenged power is to seek the “decisive blow” in the shortest possible time, while the irregular fighter does not have the immediate problem of the opponent’s defeat because he knows that every additional day of war is a victory. It is here the “paradox of the guerrilla fighter”, for whom the attacked (i.e. the constitutional power) cannot remain on the defensive, but must go to the attack, while the challenger, applying the tactic of “hit and run”, enjoys the advantage of the initiative and also that of the defensive position of the challenged power; a unique military situation which re-balances the disproportion of the respective armaments.
These dynamics induce different psychological attitudes in the two contenders, and this is the final asymmetry which includes all the others.
The subversive thinks he is fighting a war, however irregular, and believes he has the right to be considered a political combatant.

On the contrary, the challenged power thinks it is a question of a criminal action and must be treated as such by imposing respect for its laws. For the first, it is a question of war, for the second, a question of crime repression: all conflicts of a terrorist nature contain this ambivalence (11) , which cannot be eliminated.
The sovereign power cannot accept the other as Justus hostis, nor can it seek a political confrontation because this would appear as recognition of the jus ad bellum of its adversary. Besides, this could open the way to unwanted international interventions. Finally, any attitude showing a disposition towards “dialogue” could encourage new challenges, in a spiral which would terminate in the collapse of the constitutional power.
Urged on by the need to conclude the conflict rapidly and without concessions, the challenged power will aim for the only repressive solution: the rapid debellatio of the enemy. But, this does not reconciled favourably with the application of the usual police procedures, particularly in the case of large political/military bodies.
It is here the necessity lies to overcome the limits and the hindrances of the customary jurisdiction and the choice of fighting a war which, however, cannot be named as such.
This opens a series of contradictions; first of all, the “terrorist” is a criminal whose motivations are known; they are political and not for the sake of personal gain. However, this does not constitute a mitigating element for the elimination or partial elimination of blame, but on the contrary, it constitutes an element of aggravation, which worsens the punishments and renders the proceedings brief and superficial. For the challenged power, the armed opponent is just a criminal to be treated as such.
In the second place, if it is not a question of war, but of crime suppression, then it is hard to understand the reason for ‘exceptional laws’ and, vice versa. If the fight against terrorism is a condition comparable to war, the responsibility of the operations should pass from the police to the military, and not the criminal code, but the military criminal procedure of war should be applied, but this would imply delicate problems regarding custody of prisoners (12) etc., and a dangerous shifting of power from the political to the military authority.
In this way, the “anti-terrorist ideology” is developed, which does not coincide with the idea of the fight against terrorism, but with an ideological representation of it, based on these basic assumptions:
a) to defeat “terrorism” the repressive measures are sufficient and, in any case, prevalent with respect to the political ones, which must be subordinate to the former;
b) consequently, the political authority – which, in the majority of cases, does not know what to do – delegates the direction of the fight against terrorism to the security apparatus which, obviously, faces the problem on the basis of their specific professional culture;
c) the legislative response will be based on the usual formula: increasing the punishments, summary procedures, lowering of the human rights guarantee levels;
d) the strong contradictions with the international (13) and constitutional laws that all this creates will be put right by the category “emergency”, a sweetened substitute of the ancient “state of siege” for which an “exceptional” law was produced (for the very reason that the situation was “exceptional” and, therefore, temporary).
A mix which permits some initial successes, but triggers a dangerous time mechanism which is bound to explode once a certain level is exceeded.
Let us see why.
From a military point of view, terrorism represents a problem of minor importance because the disproportion of forces ensures an easy victory once the enemy’s base is identified.
For this reason terrorism is mainly an investigative problem and is fought with the usual methods, (infiltration, tailing, interception, random controls, analyses of witnesses, etc.), but sooner or later, the temptation will arise to resort to more rapid means: the recourse to torture (14) .
In reality, it is a means which is destined to produce results far inferior to expectations: the danger of obtaining misleading information is high, either because it is willingly furnished by the enemy, or because it is given by a prisoner –maybe unjustly suspected as being a guerrilla – who, in order to stop the ordeal, could declare everything the interrogator wants to hear, including inventions or founded or unfounded rumours he has picked up in gaol.
Moreover, it must be remembered that any terrorist organization uses a strong ‘compartmental’ criteria for which, except in the cases of high level officials, the amount of information the majority of prisoners have is very modest. It must be added that a part of the tortured people dies without giving any significant information.
But, the recourse to torture for extracting information will soon accomplish another function: it will be used in a retaliatory way against the “terrorists”. In this manner anti-terrorism will become a terrorism of a different kind, bearing the sign of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”. As it will be remembered, a debate began in the United States, recently, concerning the suitability of legalizing the use of torture, which, up to now, has never obtained any legislative measures, but it shows how certain initiatives are not the result of a single extemporary action of some sergeant.
All considered, the final balance cannot be anything but mediocre, and quite soon, the challenged power will find that for those modest results, it has paid a very high political price:
a) sooner or later the news of torture cases will leak out and the “terrorists” will reap a formidable propaganda argument: the public opinion at home will be divided between the indignant and those who support the use of such practices, and this will mark the first serious rift in the consensus of the fight against terrorism;
b) inevitably, this will provoke the intervention of the international humanitarian organizations, with the result of creating a wave of indignation in the international public opinion (in which, presumably, the supporters of torture will be substantially in the minority). In addition, this will allow the terrorists to gain international podia from which to expose their reasons (international bodies, television, press,) with consequent diminishing of their isolation;
c) in many trials, evidence gained in this way will be unusable because it was obtained contra legem and the consequent sentences will turn into as many boomerangs for the constituted power: if they are acquittals, they will have an inevitable de-legitimizing reflection on the police forces and, indirectly, on the same government: if they are convictions, notwithstanding the proven use of torture, they will open the door to international jurisdictional appeals and will further compromise the Country’s image abroad, improving, symmetrically, the image of the “terrorists”;
d) However much the emergency legislation tries to legitimize the use of coercion methods and a compliant magistracy can contribute to hiding them, there will always be a limit beyond which, even the most immoral executive groups, cannot go (15) , consequently, there will always be episodes which, when revealed, will produce a strong de-legitimization of the power using these methods;
e) All this will result in a considerable improvement of the conditions of the irregular fighters who will be prompted to increase their offensive and to retaliate by using the same practices against captured police or military agents, provoking – where needed – a further barbarity in the conflict.
In the final analysis, a very bad affair for the challenged power: the violation of the basic rules of civilization and of democracy never comes at a low price and those who delude themselves to the contrary usually pay a higher price.
At home, on the political level, the challenged power usually reacts by portraying the adversary as a sinister and diabolical enemy of the entire community, in order to:
- stop the opponents’ propaganda from penetrating public opinion;
- obtain the active mobilization of the civilian society in function of anti-terrorism (not only with reference to the general consensus to the exceptional emergency measures, but in the form of reporting suspects, reporting unusual occurrences or activities etc.,)
In this sense, the “hiding” of the real political finalities of the enemy is deliberate and wanted: the “terrorist” is by definition, crazy, barbaric, without the ability to reason, therefore, without political rationality. And the worst problem is that the challenged power finishes up by convincing itself, thus becoming the first victim of its own propaganda.
At an international level, the challenged power reacts by trying to inhibit the possible support to its enemy from other States, announcing to international bodies the behaviour of the supporters. Sometimes the challenged State reacts symmetrically: by supporting (or threatening to support) possible subversion within the hostile State (16) .
In this framework of international political activity, we must mention the attempt to achieve international Agreements against terrorism which, nevertheless, is an instrument available only to countries with major international weight.
Yet, as we can see, also in this case, political action is used as a secondary option with respect to repression.
The ideal type of anti-terrorism is that of a surgical operation which removes a cist from the healthy body of society.
In this way, the maximum tension of the repressive apparatus is achieved, but the exploitation of the elements of political weakness of the adversary are renounced.
The war on terrorism rapidly becomes “total” for the annihilation of the adversary which, for this very reason, becomes radical.
The gravest damage suffered by this choice is the gradual loss of contact with the psychology of the antagonist (and in a conflict of this type, the ability to identify with the adversary’s way of reasoning is of fundamental importance) and, usually, it is very difficult to defeat an opponent you do not understand. (17) .
The ideology of anti-terrorism, in the majority of cases, produces a sort of chess game with forced moves, at the end of which (though not always), there is the defeat of the challenger, but with human, political and economic costs which are absolutely out of proportion:
- this solution will often produce the contrary of what is sought: a lengthening instead of a shortening of the conflict;
- as a consequence, this will produce more victims;
- and also an appreciable increase of the economic costs, which, sometimes, lead to the collapse of the currency (18) ;
- the delegation of power to the repressive apparatus will also imply changes, to their advantage, in the relations of power with the political authorities (19) ;
- many elements of the emergency legislation will not be removed with the end of the cause which produced them, thus becoming permanent elements of the criminal system, often, with unforeseeable consequences (20) .
Such being the case, what is to be done against terrorism? First of all, it is necessary to get rid of the “anti-terrorism ideology” and invert the terms of the situation.
The anti-terrorism ideology sees in its enemy a criminal with political motivations. On the contrary, it is necessary to start from the acknowledgement that the “terrorist” is a political subject who resorts to methods which are punishable by law.
Obviously, this does not mean renouncing the repressive aspect (in any case, inevitable) nor necessarily choose the line of negotiation (21) , much less to surrender, but face the battle, subordinating the repressive aspect to the political one.
Politics can furnish the instruments for penetrating and dividing the adversary, drive away allies, discourage and induce it to abandon the armed conflict.
The account is not closed with the killing or capture of the last “terrorist” (22) . It is closed only when the “terrorists” clearly perceive the total impracticability of their objectives. A nucleus of resistance will always remain – and this will constitute a problem for the police, - but the movement will enter into crisis, strong tendencies to dissociation, scissions and individual desertions will occur.

So, in the first place, the identification of the real strategic target of the challenger is absolutely basic, which, frequently, does not coincide with the declared goal at all, and in some cases, has very little to do with it. In the second place, it is necessary to understand through which tactical steps the enemy plans to pursue this target. In both cases the gathering of information is essential, but still more important is the political analysis: it is important to learn where a middle executive of the adversary is hiding or from where the group receives their weapons supply, but more important still is to understand the spectrum of political positions present in its executive group, what the real tactical choices are, what the mechanisms of formation of the political line are, etc.,
By obtaining a good picture of the enemy, it will be possible, from time to time, to form a line of opposition which utilizes both the repressive action (23) and the diplomatic offensive, the utilization of intermediate areas as a “dam” against the expansion of the phenomenon, e.g. reforms to improve those conditions of social or national groups which the opponent is using as a lever – thereby diminishing dissent. It is fundamental to understand the “strong reasons” of the antagonist: to draw a caricature and deprecate the deepest reasons is always wrong and produces the opposite effect. The emergence of an irregular war is always the symptom of a political and social malaise, which must be identified. Let us leave the abstract and come to the question of the Islamic hyper-terrorism.
We shall start with some evidence which is under the eyes of the world, for which the Islamic world:
a) represents more than a fifth of the world population; its military potential is among the highest in the world: has a weight equal to about 9% of the world finances and controls the most relevant portion of the oil production, but being fragmented into circa thirty states – not one of them able to assume the leadership of the area, it enjoys very little weight on the international scene: it has no permanent member in the Security Council, has an irrelevant weight in FMI, has little or no credit in the NATO, has a marginal position in all of the international bodies, does not participate in the G8 meetings, not even as a guest (24) – and all this is a source of great frustration;
b) it is the part of the world which shows the major problems in adapting to the modernization and secularization process: in no other area is the relation between politics and religion so narrow and conditioned, and in no other part of the world is such a strong resistance to industrialization and democratization manifested (25) ;
c) at the moment, it is the area most effected by internal and external conflicts: of the presently active wars and guerrilla wars, about 80% of them involve, at least, one Islamic country or movement;
d) It is passing through a phase of intense domestic mobilization, partly due to the demographic pressure, more accentuated than elsewhere, and partly to the oil extraction revenue, never so abundant, but of which the end is sensed, even if not too imminent.
The sense of frustration, together with the intense mobilization, is producing the birth of a trans-national area (at the centre of which would seem to be the Moslem Brothers) which poses its candidacy for leader of the Islamic world: a political translation (26) ( And, perhaps, state politics.) of the umma or, if preferred, a “modern” re-visitation of the Caliphate. In this endeavour, the Islamic trans-national wing sees its worst enemy, even before the West, in the national executive classes, which have no intention, obviously, of giving up their power to newcomers (27) . On the other hand, Islam has won strong support among the working classes (and their recent electoral successes in Egypt and Palestine fully confirm this) and also within the establishment (28) , so that the national political classes avoid any direct confrontation (being too difficult to recuperate) preferring to ride the wave through changeable and ambiguous behaviour (29) .
The consequence is some sort of a “threesome asymmetrical war”:
- the West against fundamentalists;
- the fundamentalists against national regimes;
- the national regimes in a cooperation-competition regime with the West - something between a covert war, a civil war and international terrorism.
This is the context within which the phenomenon of the so-called “Islamic fundamentalist terrorism” must be read, which is not only Al Qaeda, but also a galaxy of minor groups, more or less inspired by the Bin Laden central although having an accentuated operative autonomy.

This irregular war (defined by some as “hyper-terrorism”) presents three unknown peculiarities:

a) it has a strong trans-national character;
b) it enjoys strong supports within parts of State apparatus and executive classes of various countries (30) ;
c) it goes beyond the habitual distinction between subjects equipped with heavy weapons and those equipped with light ones, because it resorts to fighting techniques (remembering the 11th of September) which go far beyond this threshold, and it is feared may possess weapons of mass destruction.
So, it is a terrorism which is trans-national, trans-state and of a yet unknown aggressiveness at the military level.
At a distance of five years from the beginning of the “war on terrorism”, we have a balance where the “bright spots” (the fact that an attack of the gravity of the 11th September has not been repeated; the dismantling of the Afghan base (31) , occasional arrests of armed groups in Europe) are by far overwhelmed by the “shadows”: Neither Bin Laden nor any other top man of the Al Qaida has been captured, comparatively minor attacks, but always serious, have happened at Bali, London, Madrid, Ankara and Sharm el Sheik; the operation of penetration in Al Qaida has given no exceptional results (32) and not to speak of the civil war in Iraq.
From all this follows a series of deductions:


a) we are facing an unprecedented complex scenario with a very high quantity of inter-dependent variables which pose numerous questions. What effect has the increased oil price had on terrorism? What repercussions would a new conflict with Iran have in Saudi Arabia? What effect has the Hamas victory had on the middle-east balances? : if a new conflict should explode with Israel, what attitudes would the other Arab countries take? And so on, in an ever thickening weave of inter-dependent causes and effects. This requires an adjustment in our analytical capabilities and the need for support instruments adequate to the complexity of the problems to be faced;
b) the problem of fundamentalism goes far beyond “terrorism” and this certainly does not end with Al Qaeda: so, even if the West succeeded in capturing and destroying the entire executive group united around Bin Laden – although obtaining a great success – probably this would not automatically signify either the end of terrorism or, much less, that of fundamentalism;
c) so, without abandoning the ground of the fight against “terrorism”, a solution will be found, however, only on the basis of a stable insertion of the Islamic world into the new world order and this can have but two outcomes: either a generalized conflict with the world of Islam, according to the model of a “conflict of civilizations” (33) or discovering some sort of representation of the Islamic world to participate in the international decisional context. And the solutions in this sense could be various: to help one Country to assume a role of leadership, aiming at the role of the Arab League or the Islamic Council, even finding from within the same Moslem Brotherhood, the interlocutor of a negotiation, possibly contributing to the formation of an alternative unification project, but equally trans-national.
The hypotheses can be many and it is not the case to explore them in this article, but it requires that Europe and the United States have a clear political line on how to integrate the Islamic world into the new world order.
But does this line exist? To judge from the management of the Iraqi and Palestinian crises, it does not appear so, at all.