A reader provides a good breakdown.
“I think there are four possible responses to terrorism:
“1. Do what they want. If their goals are limited and discrete, and the cost
of giving into their demands is less than the cost of resistance, complying
with the terrorists’s demands solves the problem. Here, terrorism works.
“2. Do nothing. Accept a certain level of death and destruction
indefinitely. Use criminal law within your own country to punish who can
catch, and that’s all. It’s hard to say whether this means terrorism is
’working’ or not. Since the terrorists aren’t really suffering any
consequences and they’re inflicting casualties, I say terrorism is working
here too.
“3. Kill every last terrorist and eliminate the breeding grounds for
terrorists. Probably the most expensive option. You have to send military or
paramilitary forces all over the place, angering lots of people and
suffering casualties. It takes a long time and you’re never really sure when
you’re done. The terrorists may eventually be defeated, but it costs plenty
of blood and treasure. Does terrorism work here? Beats me.
“4. Make the cost of terrorism to the terrorists much greater than the
benefits. For example, carpet bomb or nuke something important to them if
they attack. If you’re credible, this is a very reliable method. Problem is,
credibility means you have to do it once, killing thousands or tens of
thousands of noncombatants. Definitely a case of terrorism not working.
“Nobody in the West is willing to do #4, and of the few who are capable of
doing #3, most of them don’t bother. So, if most countries are generally
using only #1 and #2, and #3 is uncommon and a wash anyway, then it’s only
natural that terrorism, on the whole, works.”
[Derb here] I think that sums it up pretty well, though I’d add some
qualifications. If the terrorists are inspired by other-worldly ideals, as
the Jihadists are, it seems to me that identifying “something important to
them” that is sufficiently material to be bomb-worthy could be problematic,
so that #4 might be ruled out on practical as well as moral grounds. Since
(my impression is) #3, to the extent that we have attempted it, doesn’t seem
to be going very well, #1 and #2 pretty much rule, and terrorism works.
Q.E.D.
This reader, and several others, have added to my list of terrorism’s
victories. The next such major victory will be the Palestinian state that
all respectable people now claim to wish for. That state, when it arrives,
will be largely a fruit of terrorism. If not for terrorism, in fact, the
word “Palestinian” probably wouldn’t even be in our language.