The New Terrorism: Fanaticism and the Arms of Mass Destruction [Paperback]

Walter Laqueur (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0195140648 | ISBN-13: 978-0195140644 | Publication Date: October 12, 2000

Recent attacks in Oklahoma City, at the World Trade Towers, and at American embassies in Africa demonstrate the horrifying consequences of a terrorist strike. But as technological advances make weapons of mass destruction frighteningly easy to acquire, a revolution is occurring in the very nature of terrorism--one that may make these attacks look like child's play.
In The New Terrorism Walter Laqueur, one of the foremost experts on terrorism and international strategic affairs, recounts the history of terrorism and, more importantly, examines the future of terrorist activity worldwide. Laqueur traces the chilling trend away from terrorism perpetrated by groups of oppressed nationalists and radicals seeking political change to small clusters of fanatics bent on vengeance and simple destruction. Coinciding with this trend is the alarming availability of weapons of mass destruction. Chemical and biological weapons are cheap and relatively easy to make or buy. Even nuclear devices are increasingly feasible options for terrorists. And with the information age, cyber terrorism is just around the corner. Laqueur argues that as a new quasi-religious extreme right rises, with more personal and less ideological motivations than their left-wing counterparts, it is only a matter of time before the attainability of weapons of mass destruction creates a terrifying and unstable scenario.
From militant separatism in Kashmir to state-sponsored extremism in Libya and ecoterrorism in the West, The New Terrorism offers a thorough account of terrorism in all its past and current manifestations. Most importantly, it casts a sober eye to the future, when the inevitable marriage of technology and fanaticism will give us all something new to think about.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The use of violence to achieve political goals stretches all the way back to biblical times, and Walter Laqueur outlines its long practice in these pages. Yet his main concern is with the 21st-century threat of "megaterrorism": "What we know about past ages of barbarism is frightening enough," he writes. "The consequences of aggressive madness in the age of high technology and the era of weapons of mass destruction may well be beyond our imagination." Along the way, he offers a fascinating sociology of terrorism; its practitioners, for instance, tend to come from the educated middle classes (although this is far from a hard-and-fast rule). Also, terrorists rarely believe their actions will allow them to seize political power. Instead, they aim to provoke specific responses from their targets, such as lighting an international conflict. Although it is hardly a how-to book, The New Terrorism describes what it takes for terrorism to succeed--Laqueur's list of essentials includes careful planning, an ability to improvise, small units of operation, the anonymity of large urban areas, and ready sources of money. The book is full of rich observations, and there probably isn't a more knowledgeable source on the subject than Laqueur, who has written several books on European and Middle Eastern history and military analysis. His mild pessimism is troubling, but perhaps warranted. Terrorism is about to become even more terrible. --John J. Miller --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Laqueur's descriptive survey of terrorism touches on all geographic locales of religio-political violence over the past 125 years. Supplying a quantity of detail suited for the student-researcher, Laqueur spools up the various threads that come together in particular terrorist incidents. The explanations for them include the stated grievance of the perpetrators, their psychology, and their ideologies. The anarchists and the People's Will of Tsarist Russia initiated the relativistic intellectual arguments for terrorism that extend up to the present. Though contemporary assassins or bombers really have no new arguments, they have innumerable causes and potential access to a frightful variety of destructive means, described in Jessica Stern's The Ultimate Terrorists. Laqueur discusses weapons, too, but concentrates more on the actors and their acts, be they Tamil Tigers, IRA Provos, American groups left and right, or Islamists claiming (dubiously) religious sanction, as in the unending atrocities in Algeria and elsewhere. A handy integration of the background and present face of the terrorist phenomenon. Gilbert Taylor --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (October 12, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195140648
• ISBN-13: 978-0195140644
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #317,106 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #94 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Current Events > Arms Control

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A pedestrian treatment of a fascinating subject., March 26, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The New Terrorism: Fanaticism and the Arms of Mass Destruction (Hardcover)

Although this book received glowing reviews on the back jacket from the likes of Vincent Cannistraro and Robert Gates it is not only dull but offers little or no new information. The book is further marred by a lack of footnotes, putting a serious dent in the author's credibility. For example, Laqueur states in one chapter that a right-wing racist group in the US managed to obtain Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. This is something I would have like to check out but could not, because there were no footnotes. Even worse, contrary to the title of the book which talks about weapons of mass destruction, there is very little discussion of how terrorists would obtain or use weapons of mass destruction. The book reads like a college text on the ideology of terrorism. Fine for the ivory towers of academia but of little value in the real world. Save your money, this book is a dog. I would recommend Jessica Stern's "The Ultimate Terrorists" or William E. Burrow's "Critical Mass" both make more interesting reads and both HAVE footnotes. Sorry Walter, better luck next time.

15 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Apologia pro vita "The New Terrorism" sua, January 12, 2002

By 

James Versluys - See all my reviews

This review is from: The New Terrorism: Fanaticism and the Arms of Mass Destruction (Paperback)

I keep thinking I've fread a different book than the ones that other people review. The History of Terrorism is one of those books. This book was fantastic, and it suffered from few to none of the problems attributed to it below.

I admit to being baffled by one other review in particular. Being fairly well versed in Baader-Meinhoff lore, and I couldn't find a single un-superficial problem with Laqueur's account of them, although I did like Laqueur's 1987 book "The Age of Terrorism" better than this book as far as the Red Army Faction goes. But these are small potato problems, and don't lead me at all to the conclusion our German friend had. I think it very significant that he did not bother to note a single "innacuracy".

The other criticisms are either utterly beside the point or approaching the absurd. The worst were the spurious definitional demands. Until it was taken up by dogmatists, terrorism clearly meant non-state, irregular violence. It was only the needs of left-rhetoric that expanded the view of terrorism to include what states do, which intelligent people might think is called "war" and "repression". I can think of no reason to include The US and Isreal except for dogmatic purposes: if we were to include Isreal, why would our German friend not include Cuba? The clear answer is this is an ideological agenda and not a serious rejoinder for an expansive notion of terrorism. Essentially, the other reviewer doesn't like the US or Isreal from political contacts and is saddened from a lack of political agenda on the part of Mr. Laqueur.

And if by some possibility our other reviewer friend does not mean some simple anti-American or anti-Isreali bias, then his main problem is that this book is an American writer writing from an American perspective on terrorism. Contrary to what mister Colberg believes, it is not a crime to have an American perspective.

The last point is most substantive, and wqhere Mr. Laqueur is most right and his other rewviewer is most wrong- the vast majority of terrorists throughout ages have clearly been unremarkable people. This is what makes the phenomenon so interesting- the notion that terrorism is part of some corner in human nature. I give to you the 19 unremarkable folks who took down the World Trade Center as an example. I don't think our other reviewer friend realizes quite how well Joseph Conrad defined the standard terrorist or why his characterization has survived so long in the minds of people who think about terrorism.

This was a fine book. Please buy it.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Stops short of 911, May 11, 2004

By 

James Ferguson (Vilnius, Lithuania) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The New Terrorism: Fanaticism and the Arms of Mass Destruction (Paperback)

This book is little more than a rehash of high-profile terrorist attacks in the 20th century with very little insight into the forces that inspired them. Mr. Laqueur covers the gambit from the far right to the far left, with some discussion of the American "survivalists" and the "eco-freaks" that will go to any length to drive their points home. Laqueur seems more comfortable dealing with the Far Right extremists, as his research seems to be strongest in this regard. He seems on shaky ground when dealing with environmentalist terrorism, unsure of the various splinter groups that have adopted extreme actions in recent years.

His digressions into the literature that may have inspired such groups seem absurd at times, talking about James Bond supervillains and noting Edward Abbey's The Monkey Wrench Gang, which was a dark comedy on environmental terrorism. However, he discusses more pertinent books such as The Turner Diaries, which supposedly inspired Timothy McVeigh in attacking the Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

Probably the best chapter is Terrorism and History. Again, there is nothing new but he provides a good encapsulation of terrorism down through the centuries, noting the historic origins of suicide bombings which have sadly become the favored tactics of extreme Islamicists today. He ends by delving into the apocalyptic potential of terrorists should they get their hands on nuclear, chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction, but there is nothing very solid here. More of the doomsday scenarios we have grown accustomed to.

What I found sorely lacking was any attempt to deal with the political conditions that have given rise to the current wave of terrorism, such as the United States' and Britain's overextending foreign policy. Instead, the book is really nothing more than a collection of newspaper stories that will provide the reader with a general survey of terrorism and its threat to American foreign policy.