SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL / AFTER SEPT. 11
The Psychology of Terrorism
Clark R. McCauley, Professor of Psychology, Bryn Mawr College
1. Terrorism as a Category of Violence
In a global war on terrorism, it is important to ask what we mean by terrorism.
The usual definition of terrorism is something like "the use or threat of violence, by small groups against non-combatants of large groups, for avowed political goals." The key to this definition is the combination of small groups killing non-combatants. Terrorism is the warfare of the weak, the recourse of those desperate for a cause that cannot win by conventional means. But it is worth noting that state terrorism against a state's own citizens--as practiced by Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol-Pot, and many smaller-league tyrants--has killed millions of non-combatants, whereas the anti-state terrorism we usually focus on has killed thousands.
The distinction between combatants and non-combatants--between people in uniform and people not in uniform--has been eroding since the French Revolution. The Revolution brought a new kind of army, a "nation in arms" that vanquished the best professional armies of Europe. Since then, the Western way of war has triumphed, and only a nation in arms has been able to beat a nation in arms. The implication of this shift is that the nation behind an army is a legitimate target of war.
The U.S. has accepted this implication on numerous occasions. In WWII, the U.S. dropped fire bombs on Dresden, Hamburg, and Tokyo, and nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These cities had relatively few in uniform; most of the dead were old people, women, and children. When the U.S. bombed Milosovic's Serbia, targets included transportation, communication, and power centers and the casualties included many not in uniform. When the U.S. and its allies embargoed Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the shortages of food and medicine killed more children than men in uniform.
As terrorism from above is not always called terrorism, so terrorism from below is not always called terrorism. At least for some Americans, the Contras were not terrorists and the Irish Republican Army are not terrorists. It seems unlikely that the U.S. will never again want to distinguish terrorists from freedom-fighters, in order to support the latter despite their attacks on civilians. Perhaps we ought to be honest in seeking to punish and interdict whatever groups are behind the attacks of 9/11, and go easy on talk about a global war on terrorism.
2. Terrorism as IndividualPathology
A common suggestion is that there must be something wrong with terrorists. Terrorists must be crazy, or suicidal, or psychopaths without moral feelings or feelings for others. Thirty years ago this suggestion was taken very seriously, but thirty years of research has found psychopathology and personality disorder no more likely among terrorists than among non-terrorists from the same background. Interviews with current and former terrorists find few with any disorder found in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Comparisons of terrorists with non-terrorists brought up in the same neighborhoods find psychopathogy rates similar and low in both groups.
Another way to think about this issue is to imagine yourself a terrorist, living an underground existence cut off from all but the few who share your goals. Your life depends on the others in your group. Would you want someone in your group suffering from some kind of psychopathology? Someone who cannot be depended on, someone out of touch with reality? Of course there are occasional lone bombers or lone gunmen who kill for political causes, and such individuals may indeed suffer from some form of psychopathology. But terrorists in groups, especially groups that can organize attacks that are successful, are likely to be within the normal range of personality.
Indeed terrorism would be a trivial problem if only those with some kind of psychopathology could be terrorists. Rather we have to face the fact that normal people can be terrorists, that we are ourselves capable of terrorist acts under some circumstances. This fact is already implied in recognizing that military and police forces are eminently capable of killing non-combatants in terrorism from above. Few suggest that the broad range of military and police involved in such killing must all be abnormal. Since 9/11, there have already been suggestions that the U.S. security forces may need to use torture to get information from suspected terrorists. This is the edge of a slippery slope that can lead to killing non-combatants.
3. Terrorism as Normal Psychology