We need less Chemo and Surgery and more "Voom."

[wm]

Terrorism is, after all, merely a tactic.

I'm not so sure that terrorism is always a tactic. Saying so is equivalent to saying that terror activities are being used as a means to some end. I suspect that some terrorist acts are conducted as ends in themselves. I am thinking primarily of some of the things done by so-called anarchists in the later 19th Century, but Timothy McVeigh's exploit in OKC might also fit in that category.

Which leads to "counter-terrorism," which equally is a little more than a commitment to seek to disrupt, defeat, deny, etc those individuals and organizations that employ terrorist tactics. It is very symptomatic in nature, and as such does not much consider WHY some organization or individual is acting out, or why they have come to a position where they believe terrorist tactics are their best hope for achieving their goals.

The above categorization of counter terrrorism seems rather shallow. I see two aspects to counter terrorism. The first includes those actions one might take to prevent terrorist activity. These are what, for example, the Counter IED community calls actions to the left of the boom. Seeking to answer Bob's "why" question above, rightly belongs in this part of counterterrorism. I submit demotivating someone from the commission of terrorist acts is rather hard without knowing what is motivating him or her to engage in them in the first place.
The second aspect of counter terrorism is remediation--restoring order/cleaning up the mess after the terrorist action has occurred. How one does this may well fuel further terrorism. Knocking down the hovel next to the big hole left by the IED in the process of filling the hole, enforcing a curfew to "keep people safe" until we find the terrorists, or just leaving the restoration to the locals' own devices are probably not conducive to achieving the sort of results that the first aspect of counter terrorism is attempting to achieve.

[Steve Blair]

I remain unconvinced that terrorism is "merely" a tactic. As WM points out, there are far too many cases where terrorism is clearly an end and not a mean. Also, there are too many examples of groups that have over time spun into a cycle of violence where the attack is the end in and of itself and the why of the attack no longer has any real meaning.