Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-b6zl4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-15T09:48:55.819Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

21 - Terrorism and Insurgency

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 January 2025

Isabelle Duyvesteyn
Affiliation:
Universiteit Leiden
Beatrice Heuser
Affiliation:
University of Glasgow
Get access

Summary

All too often, the terms terrorism and insurgency are used interchangeably, just like tactics and strategy. But terrorism is indeed a tactic while insurgency is a strategy, and the two concepts are far from synonymous. This chapter details the differences between terrorism and insurgency, and hence, terrorists and insurgents, by tracing the evolution of each of these terms and placing them in the proper context, while providing numerous examples of terrorist chieftains and insurgent leaders, and how these individuals thought about strategy over time. The chapter will also investigate the considerable overlap between terrorism and insurgency. After all, militants pursuing an insurgent strategy may seek to use terrorism as a tactic toward achieving their objectives. Size can be a useful distinguishing characteristic, because terrorist groups often consist of a small number of individuals. By contrast, insurgent organisations, such as Lebanese Hizballah or the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), number in the thousands. Indeed, many of the most important ‘terrorist’ groups in the world – including Lebanese Hizballah, LTTE, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) – are better described as insurgencies that use terrorism than as typical terrorist movements.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×