Terrorism refers to the unlawful use of violence in order to further the social, political or religious ideology of a group of people, referred to as terrorists.
The use of terror to achieve aims in modern world dates back to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, which led to the outbreak of World War I.
The global outlook for terrorism since the last few decades shows that it has several characteristics of a competitive industry as:
- Proliferation of numerous terror outfits spreading terror, akin to numerous industries producing the same goods.
- Control over factors of production such as:
(i) land – IS and Taliban occupy substantial land in Iraq-Syria and Afghanistan respectively.
(ii) labour – by recruiting people.
(iii) capital – by state-sponsored funding (Hezbollah and Houthis by Iran, Syrian rebels by US and Saudi Arabia etc.) or by selling goods such as oil from the land controlled by them.
(iv) entrepreneurship – emergence of leaders which set up new terror outfits, akin to employees leaving the industries to start their own ventures.
- Competition for the market share and diversification of portfolio to include newer products (attacks) – from IEDs to vehicular bombs to suicide bombers and fidayeen-type attacks.
- Offices in different continents and franchising terror – Al Qaeda have its branches in Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) as well as Africa (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb). Boko Haram, a Nigerian terror outfit, has pledged it’s allegiance to Islamic State (IS).
- Leveraging social media for marketing their ideologies and recruiting new employees (fighters) from social media by training professional recruiters.
- Industry provides wages, accommodation and becomes a part of life for the worker. Terror outfits also provide these facilities and promote themselves as a new way of life.
- Disruptive innovation that affects the system disproportionally, such as brainwashing and the sudden rise of “lone-wolf” attacks, which are very hard to foresee or prevent.
However, the biggest difference between terrorist outfits and industries is that while traditional industry seeks to produce goods and services that are beneficial or entertaining to the mankind and make human work easier. However, terrorism only spreads fear, hate, and uncertainty.
There is a need for the world to join hands and take concrete multilateral initiatives to ensure that terror groups are dealt with a heavy hand. Accepting and ratifying the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) proposed by India would be good first step.
