Category: Politics, Power, and Governance

DEFINE TERRORISM

The use of physical violence against civilian citizens by non-citizens as a means to alter social, economic, political, territorial, religious, or military policy in lieu of attacking infrastructure, trade, and military assets to accomplish alteration of social, economic, political, territorial, religious, or military policy.

This is to distinguish from acts of rebellion by internal members for the purpose of altering such policy.

This subject has become a problematic to define because the of the development of non state actors who are capable of using modern explosives to direct policy from weak or sponsoring states.

It has also become problematic because the people who record this data and work in the academy are paid by the state (I know them) and the state has attempted to classify rebellion as terrorism as a means of engaging in propagandism in favor of strong states.