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The Lessons of Terror: A History of Warfare Against Civilians: Why It Has Always Failed and Why It Will Fail Again

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This book begins by defining "international terrorism" (also called "destructive war" or "punitive war") as "warfare deliberately waged against civilians with the purpose of destroying their will to support either leaders or policies that the agents of such violence find objectionable." This book only makes sense if one temporarily accepts that definition. Although such a definition of the word "terrorism" at first seems quite removed from the events of 9/11, the author shows how that event fits into his definition. The book's principal thesis is that such violence is always spectacularly counter productive in the long run.

An important corollary is that terrorists should be treated as war opponents not as criminals, and their actions should be treated as acts of war not crimes. Rather than treating them on a par with smugglers drug traffickers or political mafiosi, we should treat them as (organized highly trained hugely destructive) paramilitaries.

In describing the development of and changes to war against civilians, the book romps through more than two millenia of military history. The necessarily rather sketchy stories in this brief book provide a fascinating and accessible broad brush introduction to military history.

My chief complaint with the book --especially the first part-- is that it it doesn't provide sufficient detailed arguments to support its thesis, perhaps because it so quickly covers so much ground. A reader with a good background in military history might receive the messages differently; what I found to be simply good stories might be a sort of shorthand that would bring forth the memory of many more details from the knowledgeable and provide much more support for the thesis.

The thing I liked most about the book is the very wide variety of blunt iconoclastic opinions that the author expresses: Karl von Clausewitz' book "On War" principally shows his admiration for the methods of Napoleon. Islam is notable for the ongoing internal contradiction between its pacifistic compassionate thread and its warlike aggressive thread. The behavior of the colonists during the American revolution was horrific, and was seen as such both by outsiders and by some residents. The African slave trade could not have happened without the locals' high level of intertribal warfare and their common custom of capturing and selling defeated civilians. And many many more.

The ideas in this books don't fit neatly into an existing category. It surprised me to find these two themes joined: treat terrorism militarily, and limit war's destructiveness by not using dirty methods even against a dirty enemy. While I don't necessarily agree with the ideas in this book, I found their presentation lively and provocative, and the prima facie case for them reasonable. Although this book is out of the mainstream of current thought, it's not on the lunatic fringe. It's not just controversial, it's a "mind stretcher."

Carr argues, simply, that the tactics of terror never work. Where he gets controversial is identifying certain tactics used by the US in wars past as "terrorism." Whether you agree with that designation, his argument that targetting civilians always backfires is well-laid-out and persuasively argued.

The trouble, of course, is that I'm not a military historian and have no way of knowing if his argument is valid. If one argues that terrorism is *never* successful, all it takes to invalidate that argument is a single example of a successful terror attack. I have no idea if there are examples that are not mentioned in the book, but it seems to me that Carr is on somewhat shaky ground when he says that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were ultimately self-defeating.

He may be right -- there may have been ways to use the A-Bomb that would have been even more effective and not killed so many civilians, but it is hard to deny that the bombs had the desired effect -- Japan surrendered immediately. I would have liked him to go into this, and a few other examples, further. I still fail to see how, pragmatically speaking, the A-bomb attacks on Japan "failed to work." I understand completely the moral argument, that the attacks were morally repugnant, and probably unnecessary, but Carr argues in other parts of the book that one doesn't need to argue against terror on a moral basis -- that it simply doesn't ever work, and that's that.

Still, a completely thought-provoking book that caused me to re-evaluate my thinking on many issues. I don't know that it will change my mind, but it certainly is food for thought, and a good read.

In this fascinating work, author and historian Caleb Carr looks at modern terrorism in the context of the history of war. It is the author's contention that throughout the history of warfare, people have often targeted the civilian population of their enemies in an attempt to undercut their support for their government or for certain causes. The author further contends that the combatants that resort first to the use of terror tactics and those who use them the most viciously are certain to see their own position dangerously undercut.

Starting with ancient Rome, the author traces the history of the West, as the idea of limited war, involving respect for civilians and a minimization of casualties, kept being rediscovered and then abandoned. In the final analysis, the Muslim extremists who have taken up terrorism as their weapon have damaged their own cause, and now the United States must actively fight against these extremists, while avoiding using terror and spurring the Middle East on to future terror.

I must admit that people are correct to question some of the author's analyses. Indeed, I found the author's treatment of the CIA and Vietnam to quite unobjective, and his denunciations of strategic bombing and economic embargo made me wonder how he would have suggested that the United States battle Japan during W.W.2 (presumably through grinding island-invasion campaigning). Also, some of his other analyses seem out of balance as well.

But, that said, the author isn't entirely anti-West, showing as he does that it has only been in the West that people have striven to eschew terror as a weapon. Indeed, he is quite clear that non-Western people's use of terror produced its own consequences - such as the African complicity in the slave trade, and the Native American's use of terror rebounding to their own destruction.

Overall, I found this to be a very good analysis, and I do think that the author goes a long way towards proving his point. I would go one step further, the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, seeking to remove them as terrorist supporting states while attempting to limit civilian casualties, suggests that the Bush administration has been reading this book.

Terrorism is terrible, and never less than shocking, but Caleb Carr puts it in the light of history.

"The Lessons of Terror: A History of Warfare Against Civilians: Why It Has Always Failed and Why It Will Fail Again" shows us how terrorism has been used, and why terrorist efforts like the World Trade Center tragedies will accomplish nothing but carnage.

While America sees the evil ugliness of world terrorism, Carr notes how, thoughout the years, terrorism has been a tool by most militaries, even our own in the US. His emphasis on the military side of terrorism, as opposed to a few radicals will be alarming. His analysis of various US civil and international wars and conflicts isn't pretty, and, on such a short book, not easily agreed with at face value. Still, he forces the reader to see past the result of the war, and see the process of war with moral and ethical truth, one way or another.

It is a frustratingly short book, but necessary nonetheless. His points are substantiated, but with his thesis so broad-stroking, it would be good, if in subsequent editions he likewise broadens his support of these points. Timelines, charts, tables all would help.

Just the same, Carr courageously asserts that terrorism is not unique to foreign political and miliary entities. He tries to avoid the public relations skews that we have put on our own actions. Boldly, his is unafraid to say what both liberals and conservatives already are too keenly cognizant of, that we've not always played wargames fairly.

Don't accept Carr at his word, nor expect to agree with every argument. I certainly don't. I do agree, however, that we need to consider the defining and perspective of terrorism with a honest look at what the US has done and is doing.

I fully recommend "The Lessons of Terror: A History of Warfare Against Civilians: Why It Has Always Failed and Why It Will Fail Again" by Caleb Carr.

Anthony Trendl

If you are looking for nice, concise walk through military history, this is a pretty good book. However, in my humble opinion, Mr. Carr completely misses the causes for the effects that comprise the thesis and very purpose for this work.

To qualify my remarks, I am a U.S. Army Colonel of Special Forces, and am fairly regarded as an unconventional thinker within an unconventional community. That said however, this is a topic that is very near to me, and one that I have put considerable practice and study against.

One of Clausewitz's primary points was that warfare is a continuation of politics; and politics is of course a summation of populaces and how they are governed. To wage effective warfare one must not only have a clear grasp of the political objectives one hopes to accomplish, but also the environment in which that warfare will be waged. The short period of limited warfare that existed in Europe during a very unique period of governance (post-Westphalia, but pre-American and French Revolutions) was very much a place where Kings did well to constrain warfare, as success was really a matter of achieving an economic advantage over a competitor, and thereby acquiring some asset that they possessed and you desired. Very business like. The populaces were irrelevant to these transactions and one could win by simply destroying or capturing armies or navies.

With the rise of popular power came the requirement to not simply defeat another's military, but to actually defeat the will of their populace, in order to achieve enduring results. Wars that simply focused on killing soldiers and sinking ships produced no such enduring result. Then along came General U.S. Grant, who upon taking command of the American military in the Civil War recognized that the Confederate Center of Gravity was neither Lee's Army, nor Richmond, but was instead the will of the populace of the South. With this in mind he directed Sherman's (Sorry Sherman haters, he was Grant's most trusted Lieutenant, and was doing exactly what the boss told him to do)campaign (and a similar one in the Shenandoah ultimately waged by Sheridan) as his main efforts to that effect, while he supervised Meade's continued pursuit of Lee and capture of Richmond as a supporting effort. This novel strategy not only won the war, but ensured the peace. There was no follow-on insurgency, nor was there a follow-on war a generation later. It was over.

The Europeans ignored this lesson in WWI and slaughtered a generation for naught, shifting to a strategy aimed at populaces in WWII that put hundreds of years of European conflicts finally to an end. The Marshall plan was not an anomally to this, but a companion, for the populace is just as important in peace as it is in war, and must be targeted equally hard in both, just with different ways and means for different ends.

Carr applies an opinion and forces it to fit every situation, but he simply doesn't know what he is talking about. The facts are straight, but the understanding of those facts is fatally flawed. I would caution anyone reading this book to take the conclusions with an open mind, and to do additional reading to sort this out for themselves.

In a very concise manner Mr. Carr has written a wonderfully informative handbook. He realizes that terrorism is nothing new but must now be confronted with different measures then were used in past history. He does not say to appease terrorists he just states that people do not meld together when force is used against them for too long. Interesting that he feels that Mr. Rumsfeld is way ahead of his time on the issue.

In this book, Carr sets out to describe the history of terror. Terror against civilians is nothing new. In fact, the ancient Romans practiced terror against the opposing enemy citizens most of the time. Even worse, the Mongols virtually eliminated their enemies' cities. In the middle age, things began to change. Some society's respected the citizens of another country or principality. However many did not and the slaughter continued. When things did change, they did not change for all societies.

Although I agree with most of what this author says, I had a problem with some of his definitions. For instance, where does terror begin and legitimate warfare end. One of the things Carr critisizes is the American "terror bombing" Well, that might have happened in World War II. Carr labels the bombing of Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Afghanistan terror bombing, but lists the foray over Libya as justifiable. I am not sure I agree with his analogy. Another issue I disagreed with is that of Vietnam. Here Communists used terror indiscrimately, while the South and the Americans used it somewhat sparingly (B-52 bombings). The Communists won and proved how successful some terror is against civilians.

This is an interesting read on a current issue that faces the world. This is an OK read about the use of terror.

Mr. Carr has written a concise(small enough to fit in a hip pocket) history of warfare against Civilians. I would recommend this as an excellent primer on the subject. In my belief this should be regarded as a political history as well as a military history.

Saying that, I will add some of his conclusions about reforms are overly simplistic.

The book starts off describing some of the origins of terror, beginning with the Roman Empire. It then steamrolls through the successive centuries picking examples throughout history of why terror doesn't pay off. While I understand the point, I feel the author tried to cover too much ground in too little space. More concrete examples and more direct writings and quotations from key players would have made the examples stronger.

The author also brushes over exceptions to the rule, including post-war Japan and Germany.

Overall, it's decent book that gets you thinking about terrorism in an objective manner...it's just a little bit light on the details.

Terror and its consequences have always bubbled near the surface of our collective consciousness, but it took the events of 9/11 to make us view terror as openly as had the Israelis since 1948. As the Saudi-guided jets crashed into the World Trade Center, Americans instantly began to perceive the nature of the menace that had previously lain dormant in what was supposed to be the only country on earth free of such concerns. In THE LESSONS OF HISTORY, Caleb Carr disabuses the reader of the seeming sanctuary that he surely must have felt solely by virtue of his being an American. Carr sees the current emphasis on combatting terrorism as far more than the radical Islamic tint that has commonly if not incorrectly been associated with it. Carr's thesis is that terrorism has been an enduring part of hostilities ever since combatants first began to toss rocks at one another. He begins with a chronological sweep of terrorism, beginning with the Roman destruction of Carthage, and continuing with analyses of how future emprire-states used state-sponsored terrorism as the means to defeat opponents who may or may not have themselves been using it. Carr suggests that terrorism is not only ineffective in the short run in that it does not even accomplish its stated goals, but that it is also ruinously counterproductive in the long run in that those nations who inflict terror on others inevitably find that they are subject to worse terrorism in the future. Thus, terrorism as an adjunct to more traditional war-making activities has always failed and will continue to fail. I have no problem accepting this basic premise, but the manner in which he states his case makes his thesis less convincing than it might otherwise have been. To begin with, the brevity of his book (256 pages) does not allow him sufficient space to give each example of failed historical terrorism the consideration it needs. What Carr does it to give his topic an overly superficial once over. War is so inherently chaotic and the distinctions between accepted battle between uniformed combatants and irregular terrorists who mask their terrorism under the banner of freedom fighters is often so fuzzy that the reader needs more than Carr's undocumented say so that Franklin Roosevelt's and later Harry Truman's decision to put Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the nuclear torch was clear 'evidence of the self-perpetuating vengeful nature of terror.' (page 181) Further muddying the issue was his cultural bias against the French, the English, and the United States in what he sees as their long-standing propensity to use terror as a means to wage war. Carr shows an unabashed admiration for Ho Chi Minh and Mao Ze Dung's waging of a guerrila warfare that somehow never crossed the line between legitimate acts of insurgency and illegitimate acts of self-serving terrorism. Carr's basic thrust, however, is clear, even if I disagree with his presentation. The United States had better learn to refrain from lashing out at a largely civilian sector in any future wars, for if American military might is used to send a message to those civilians of a hostile power, then that message might be far different from the one intended.