The use of violence outside of the norms against established authority.  This is one of the tools of those who are the weaker side so at the end of the Cold War the rise of insurgencies will turn to use of violence of what we call terrorism.  Hence, what we have now since the end of the Cold War particularly in the last 10 years is the spread of political terrorism around the world and the way we didn’t see it much during the Cold War period.  However, it’s important to remember and try to keep this in context which is what I’m trying to talk about today, keeping terrorism a concept in context.  If the level of the threat posed by groups using terrorism is basically limited, they are not existential threats to governments except the very weak governments, the failing governments.  But they are basically full of drama, full of tragedy, problems that have to be dealt with but they’re not existential threats to established governments except in the unlikelihood case of a terrorist group obtaining nuclear weapons.  I’m not going to get in to that – much has been discussed about it.  But this is the only time when terrorist group could pose an existential fundamental threat to established government and the likelihood of that happening for all sorts of reasons is very, very small.  It’s very serious but it’s very small.  Another aspect of terrorism which we often don’t want to recognize is, everybody did it and everybody does it at one time or another.  None of us have clean records on this subject anywhere in the world.  I give you three words that we use in English – zealot, assassin, and thug.  Zealots were people who used terrorism means in the period of the Roman conquest of Judea.  Assassins where terrorist in the period of the [IB] in the 12th, 13th, and 14th century and what is now Syria, Iran and Iraq and thugs were an Indian group who used violence of this sort in India of the 17th and 18th and early 19th century and there was only three.  But here we have three historic examples which would become generic words in English and in many languages.  Terrorism is always attracted inordinate attention but the modern world with modern globalization with modern communications has mean that what would once had been a local incident.  Assassination of a government official, assassination of an opponent now has worldwide implication because everybody knows about it to a degree they wouldn’t have known before.  The most striking early example of this phenomenon of course was the murder of the Austrian Archduke in 1914 which [IB] to the first – which kicked off the First World War because the event then resonated throughout Europe.

Nowadays nothing happens anywhere that doesn’t resonate throughout the whole world all the time.  Another aspect of the situation which I mentioned – referred to earlier was the end of the Cold War has led to expand the acceleration of the process of globalization politically, economically, technologically and in communication.  Globalization is pervasive.  It’s everywhere.  This had meant that for those who wished to use political terrorism, the effectiveness of their acts are expanded; have grown because the stage of terrorism is drama.  The stage is bigger and the stage is now global.  You can reach out across the world in a way that is not possible before the invention of modern communication before the globalization of the world and the implications of what you do and transnational global groups who have now reaching into each other’s field of activity, to share activities, marriages of convenience and also seeking for support.  So we have global groups who do political terrorism which is in some circles more respectable than just being a criminal.  But terrorist groups who have gone into global criminal activities because it’s a source of money and funds.  And where do you get your fake documents and where do you get your ability to move people and how you get your ability to move funds – it’s through the criminal worlds.  So we have a melting at least on the borders of transnational criminal groups and transnational political groups.  This is very serious because of the problem – both of these groups have greater scope, greater ability to work in countries of weakened administrations, weakened economies.  So weak states provide a greater opportunity for these groups to operate and in the process they weaken these governments and states even further.  So we are having the phenomenon which we are now talking about so much of failing governments, failing states, and in some cases actual failed governments and failing states providing areas of basically of chaos which then provide places where transnational terrorist groups and transnational criminal groups can expand their activities.  I’m jumping from subject to subject and another one I want to mention which I think is terribly important is the rise of religious conservatism or religious fundamentalism.  Interesting enough, this process begun probably in the second part of the last century, 20s, 30s, 40s and they are expanding a lot in the 50s, 60s, and 70s.  Interesting enough nobody noticed it.  Nobody noticed that.