Terrorism and Technology

Technology plays a crucial part in any effective assessment of terrorism and the strategies required overcoming it. This used to be the case in the past years especially in the 19^th century. During this period, dynamite was the most weapons that were highly advocated for by various groups such as French anarchists.

Terrorism is a form of violence that encourages the use of weapons and tactics in certain situations or even campaigns of terrorism. Terrorism is intimidation done in a more coercive manner. In addition, it is a premeditated acts or threats of violence that are systematically intended to instill such fear in the target that it will make the target change its behavior in the manner desired by the terrorists. According to the research, the prehistoric man managed to achieve this effect by threatening to crush his victims by the use of boulders. Studies reveal that the concept of terrorism is probably as old as the history of human creature. Thus, because of this, certain main developments in technology have been of high importance historically in adding new weapons to the armory of terrorism.

The causes of terrorism are due to bitter ethnic, religious, and ideological conflicts and hatreds, which advocate such brutal violence and the power struggles and rivalries of the nations. However, the main significant causes of terrorism are associated with technological developments. For instance, the costs and harms occurring from the nuclear and full scale conventional war are extremely spacious that many nation and subnation actors see positive benefits in employing low cost, low risk, and potentially high yield approaches like terrorism as a better option instrument of coercion. Furthermore, the large majority of contemporary conflicts are civil or internal conflicts in which the society belligerents are most often economically and militarily extremely weak. Therefore, terrorism and other forms of low intensity conflicts are mostly all they can afford to deploy (Enderle, p. 89).

Moreover, there are a considerable number of developments in modern technology that particularly lend themselves to exploitation by a terrorist. For instance, the establishment of television satellite connections and international communication networks has made it easy for terrorists to depend their propaganda of actions around the world at the shortest time. The creation of light man portable automatic weapons with high speed of fire, portable fire, missiles and malleable, highly destructive plastic explosives like Semtex have supplied the terrorist with some strong fire power. This as a result, has led to the increase in the capability of terrorists to inflict more serious threats to life and property against a well armed and sophisticated opponents.

According to studies, modern technology has resulted into new, vulnerable, key areas in all industrialized societies. The location of large quantities of physical energy in concentrated places such as nuclear power stations, oil, and gas storage depots present the foremost aspect of modern society which makes it far more vulnerable to terrorism. Some of the areas that are vulnerable to terrorism attacks include civil airports airlines, railways, military bases and facilities, governmental offices, and embassies among others. Statistics show that the more technologically sophisticated and economically developed societies are, the more they inevitably present abundance of vulnerable terrorist targets within infrastructure. This may be in central or local government and industrial and business sectors where it is simply impracticable for authorities to offer comprehensive protection. Therefore, with the vulnerability of modern, pluralistic societies to terrorist attacks , it is vital to point out that at least one contributory indirect use of terrorism is the failure of those governments and agencies that are likely targets to take enough proactive and passive measures to protect them.

Currently, networks especially social networks are extremely exploited because they are significantly powerful things. The scientists could use mathematics of networks to demonstrate the majority of natural and manmade dynamics inclusive of terrorists before the invention of social networks. Therefore, the current terrorist groups form intricate networks in order to achieve their missions (Clarke, p. 45). Unlike the other various networks, these are exceedingly sparse with separate cells working without direct supervision of terrorist officials. The research shows, therefore, that a terrorist can use social networks such as Facebook or Twitter to establish or to find out who is connected to whom and hence establishing their intended mission.

Therefore, the current increase in technological advancement is creating more problems than though of. This can be seen through the computer technologies such as the internet which is portrayed as two way traffic in the war on terror. Technology has to some extent tried to help in providing the security forces in detecting and dealing with terrorist operations, it has largely enabled terrorists advocate their evil actions. For instance, the terrorists could use phones and the internet to practice command and control over a gunman or crowd.. In addition, they could also be used in coordinating the attacks. It was revealed that the burning of cars during the Islamic rioters outside Paris were organized and planned through blogs and executed with cell phones.

In order for any person, to be an effective terrorist he or she is supposed to be a computer literate. In addition, a person is supposed to have adequate communication skills such as encrypted algorithmic messages, which require instant feedback. Through technology, the government or the security agencies can find the laundered money used to finance operations by the terrorists. However, the advanced technology is not the only way forward for the action of digital terrorist. For instance, cyberspace itself may become the battleground. It has been predicted that the future United States attack will comprise of an act of cyber-terror where there will be more disruption with the intention of paralyzing the whole economy of the UnitedState. Therefore, this implies that as the technology develops, terrorists organization continue to invent more advanced digital infrastructures as they always have, in order to achieve their own evil intentions.

Terrorists are extremely unpredictable people because the more people try to find ways that can help prevent their actions they are flexible and thus can go around much of what has been established hence taking over. This is because the world has cunning and experienced terrorist groups, which have the ability of finding out the weakest links in the security. Technology is clearly a significant factor in determining the level of protection appropriate to the level of threat avoiding under reaction and overreaction. However, there is currently no technological quick fix that could help in dealing with terrorism. This demonstrates that, it is human factors inclusive of strength of will, intelligence, morale, and skills in mobilization of public support and cooperation, which are likely to make the differences between success and failure. According to research, technology is seen as a vital factor in any appreciation of the issues of terrorism and counter terrorism in the current society (Mandravelis, p 78).

Historically, terrorism has been viewed as the weapon of the weak. This has resulted into some individuals to make assumptions that they are inherently backward in their use of technology are incapable of innovation. Therefore, within the unavoidable constraints of limited resources and lack of access to more advanced technology and expertise, many of the more experienced terrorist squads have demonstrated readiness to innovate, often improvising new weapons such as the barometric pressure bombe to sabotage airlines in flight. It is quite harmful to try to make an assessment of the relative technological sophistication of terrorists groups by making comparison with the government (Wilkinson, p. 34).

This is because the government has infinitely greater financial resources, access to scientific laboratories and engineering production facilities and a variety of scientists and engineers to rely on in establishing technology and equipment for military and security purposes. However, the terrorist groups also make sure that they are not left behind in innovating such weapons. They thus make considerable efforts to get the services of experts in explosive firearms, missiles technology, electronic, and computers among others.

In conclusion, terrorism is a form of violence that encourages the use of weapons and tactics in particular situations or even campaigns of terrorism. Generally, terrorism is intimidation done in a more coercive manner. In addition, it is a premeditated acts or threats of violence that are systematically intended to instill such threat the area intended hence making the target change its behavior in the manner desired by the terrorists. The current increase in technological advancement is creating more problems than though of. This can be seen through the computer technologies such as the internet which is portrayed two way traffic on terror. Technology has to some extent tried to help in providing the security forces that detect and deal with terrorist operations, it has largely enabled terrorists to advocate their evil actions. Technology is clearly a significant factor in determining the level of protection appropriate to the level of threat avoiding under reaction and overreaction. However, there is currently no technological quick fix that could help in dealing with terrorism.