Terrorism Education since 9/11

G iven the high profile terrorism now has as a threat to national and international security it is hard to believe that until the 90s threats and acts of terrorism were essentially viewed with the United States “to be what happened to other people in other countries.” Despite the ancient lineage of terrorism even until the 60s the threat and understanding of the nature of terrorism was largely placed on intellectual, policy, and operational backburners. Intellectually, terrorism was largely viewed to be an aspect of the historical record essentially beginning with the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, or an instrumental element of how modern totalitarian government originated and maintained their position. Moreover there was not a particular academic home that claimed the study of terrorism as theirs although early work could be found in the disciplines of history and political science. In the realm of policy and operational concerns there was a focus on terrorism primarily related to tactics and strategies of terrorism as an aspect of anti and post-colonial insurgencies. As in the case of any of the intellectual approaches, terrorism did not have its own unique place in the policy arena and the operational arts. Changes, largely driven by technology would usher in a new age of terrorism. The skyjacking in the 60s and 70s affirmed the emergence of a form of terrorism that was not solely territorially based. This “non-territorial terrorism” resulting from the introduction of commercial jet aircraft enabled terrorists to strike in a matter of hours globally and literally ignore the arbitrary boundaries of the nation-state. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.