It's a Trap

Over the past 150 years, terrorist organisations around the world have adopted a similar range of core tactics to advance their cause, including the provocation of states into an overreaction to the threat posed by terrorism. In doing so, states fall into a deliberate trap set by the terrorists, with their own actions ultimately undermining their legitimacy to govern. Tom Parker argues that terrorist groups have been remarkably open and consistently candid about their intentions to capitalise on this weakness and that it is time that governments – and the societies they preside over – begin to benefit from their candour.