No End to War: Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century

This new book on terrorism is quick to be honest in showing that while Islamic terrorism is by no means the only terrorism, it is in fact the greatest threat to the world today. This book builds on other books on the topic of terrorism focusing mostly on the second half of the 20th century. Here we learn also about the `battlefields' of the future where terrorism will certainly bring new conflicts to China and India and Southeast Asia. Already one sees this books predictions proving themselves in Thailand and the Phillipines. A good study and a great edition to the post 9/11 terrorist literature.

Like many Americans, I'm searching for some explanation of the terrorism that has befallen us. Although I'm an avid reader of several good daily newspapers, no analysis found in those pages has provided me with any particular insight. What I was looking for, however, I found in Walter Laqueur's No End To War. Laqueur is a scholar who has devoted much of his career to studying and writing about terrorism. His book provides an historical perspective to today's terrorism, which he demonstrates differs markedly and frighteningly from the terrorism of the past. He debunks many popular myths about today's terrorists, such as that terrorism is caused by poverty, or that the peaceful settlement of disputes, which necessarily involves compromises, will stop the terrorists from further atrocities. Laqueur admits that much is not known about terrorism, and he proposes no particular one course of action on how to stop terrorism, thereby thankfully rendering his book non-political. On the other hand, there is a great deal of knowledge on the subject and much of it is contained in these pages. I read this book slowly and with a highlighter in hand. I have gained from it some understanding of terrorism, which I had previously lacked. The book is difficult reading in part because it is not elegantly written. However, what it lacks in style and organization, it more than makes up for in information and wisdom. I'm going to read many parts of it a second and third time. The one adjective that best describes my view of this is book is "important."

For facts and details this book is a marvel. You will not only learn about the situation regarding terrorism in different parts of the world but about groups and splinter groups and how they differ on their philosophy toward terror. The author's knowledge of the field is truly encyclopedic. The book is not tightly organized and several times I wondered where the author was going with his line of thought and how, exactly, it tied in to the chapter title. Laqueur doesn't like to leave an issue without a thorough examination and more than once he would pull himself back to the topic after a discourse. I got the impression that this book may have been hurried to publication. However, his thought is so interesting that I was willing to hear him out. Loaded with details, this book might be a bit hard to digest for someone looking for a good, easily readable overview of the field and recent history of terrorism. A better book for that is Jonathan White's "Terrorism: An Introduction". I finished Laqueur's book thinking what a complicated and dangerous political situation exists in so many parts of the world and how "progress" is a fragile thing, mostly a matter of people having money and lots of goodies to spend it on instead of raging at each other. You don't get overly irritated with others if you have enough money to be preoccupied with your own comfort and possessions in a place of your own. Americans such as I are truly clueless about the depth of turmoil and resentment that roils the world. Laqueur lets us see how there are many fanatics that can loosely organize for a cause, and quite a few mentally disturbed individuals who have a cause all their own. Both the groups and the individuals are using more powerful means to terrorize. The future has always been unpredictable, but now it will be more explosive than ever.

Laqueur's book is an excellent source of background information for those interested in approaching the issue of terrorism as objectively as possible. For those lacking the time to read this work in its entirety, the conclusion is a must-read. It is hoped that Bush, Powell and Rice, and their advisors, have the opportunity to share Laqueur's views as they develop foreign policy for our nation.

Academicians still struggle to define terrorism even after more than a hundred years of case studies to draw upon. The main problem, Walter Laqueur contends, is that terrorism is always evolving outside of the conceptual frameworks developed for it. Where once terrorism was thought to be mainly targeted attacks on political targets for symbolic value to highlight a particular political problem, it now has changed to include mass attacks on civilians as a tactic in low-level guerrilla warfare. While Laqueur's account focuses mainly on the present-day phenomenon of Islamist-inspired terrorism, it also spends time on other terror groups with other agendas, and it's always informed by the general history of terrorism. In his chapter on suicide, for example, he not only writes about the obvious acts like 9-11 and the Palestinian attacks on Israel, but also mentions the Japanese kamikaze attacks during WW2 and the European idea of noble sacrifice in the Middle Ages. Laqueur's purpose in providing this context is to show that while the potential devastation by terror attacks has increased, the essential motivations triggering them still have historical precedents. This is not another book on terrorism by someone who discovered the subject only after the attacks on 9-11. Laqueur has been studying the issue for more than three decades and his bibliography reveals sources taken from at least six different languages, including Russian, German and Arabic. What mars an otherwise great book are the author's clunky style and his sometimes questionable use of historical examples that he compares to modern terrorism.