Orgins Of New Terrorism

The Origins of the

New Terrorism

MATTHEW J. MORGAN

Mr. Morgan is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and completed graduate his work at Harvard Business School and the University of Hawai'i. He served six years as a U.S. Army Intelligence Officer, including one tour in Afghanistan where he was awarded the Bronze Star. Mr. Morgan worked in an array of teaching positions since 2002, to include Assistant Professor of Government, Bentley College. He has authored over 30 articles on strategic and organizational issues. Currently he is working on a new book "The American Military After 9/11" publisher Palgrave-Macmillan due out 2008. He has also written "A Democracy Is Born". Mr. Morgan is currently employed as an Associate for McKinsey & Company. McKinsey & Company is a management consulting firm which advises leading companies on issues of strategy, organizations, technology, and operations.

The main point of the article was to convey that "today's terrorists are ultimately more apocalyptic in their perspective and methods." In short, their mindset changed from; a means to an end to becoming the end in itself. Most recently studies have shown that terrorism changed from the ideas of the past. Paul Wilkinson, Professor of International Relations and Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV) at the University of St Andrews, showed an increase in the activity of terrorists and offered three ideas to account for the increase. First, the saturation of the media with images of terrorist atrocity has raised the bar on the level of destruction that will attract headline attention. With the "in-bedded" correspondents and the ability to transmit quicker if not instantaneously, has allowed the terrorist message to get to their attended audience with ease. Second, terrorists have realized that civilian soft targets involve lower risk to themselves. One suicide bomber can have just as great of a body count as an entire hit-squad attacking a police force/station. Finally, there has been a shift from the politically-minded terrorist to the vengeful and hard-line fanatic. It's not just about money and freeing prisoners anymore.

The argument that cultural, political, and technological factors have influenced its' development, is prevalent throughout the article. Mr. Morgan has gone on to say that the governmental collapse has led to a breeding ground for terrorists. In part, globalization has provided even more motivation for terrorist organizations. The intrusion of the Western beliefs and values into the Islamic culture due to globalization has threatened their way of life.

Communication and information technology advances had increased the capability of terrorist groups to form and stay in contact. Using this same technology terrorist had increased their ability to conduct mass-casualty attacks. Anytime information is presented that tries to either address or focus on a reason behind mass-casualty attacks, is always worth doing. The more that we can learn about whom our enemies are or how they operate affords our government an avenue to prevent or minimize these attacks. The same technology that terrorist organizations are using for planning and their execution of attacks is being used to prevent them. Interception of transmissions and the ability to locate a person or a group by satellite has minimized if not all together stopped the attack from taken place. In the news of late, several terrorist's cells have been exposed and caught before their plans were executed.

One can not call the article "unique" in any sense. However, what it did was present not only new information but also linked previous ideas and other notions that have proved to be on track. Many experts in the field, have written articles, books, papers, and given testimonies on events and expectations of things to come. But can one really know what diabolical scheme is being planned without having collaborating information? Or is just pure speculation?

Mr. Morgan presented several articles from periodicals and books on which he based his research. He cited many authors from not only present time but from earlier decades adding creditability to the information. The collection of his information was not specifically discussed but it was apparent that he spent a large block of time in researching. Based on the reading of not only this article but on other background information and the way it was compiled, the method