Document Type

Article

Disciplines

International Law

Abstract

For the military commander, the legal meaning of "terrorism" has become exceedingly broad and obscure. The term is increasingly losing all operational precision since it may cover forms of both guerrilla, or "irregular," warfare' against military targets, and criminal attacks on noncombatant urban populations. As a result, planning and executing counter-terrorism operations could become excessively confused and difficult. To improve these circumstances in a timely fashion, it will be necessary to recognize the centrality of definition. Before U.S. military forces can be expected to cope effectively with terrorism, they must, at a minimum, be able to identify exactly what constitutes terrorism.

This article analyzes the elements of several official and unofficial definitions of "terrorism" and asserts that all the definitions are vague or overly broad. The article proposes that the definition of "terrorism" must address five key issues: which law (national or international) applies; whether the "terrorist" activity meets the requirements of "just cause" and "just means"; whether the "terrorist" threats meet necessary threshold levels; whether the "terrorist" group meets the "insurgent organization" requirement; and whether the "terrorist" activity results in "political" violence. Part EI of the article then analyzes the importance of Natural Law in defining "terrorism." Finally, Part IV calls for the United States and other leading nations to take a more jurisprudentially correct approach to combatting terrorism.

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