Islam as the Unifiing Force of the Atomized Structure of International Terrorism

The work focuses on establishing and analyzing the main characteristics of international terrorism, which allowed it to act as a powerful tool of influence on the global political process. It is noted, that by the beginning of the XXI century terrorism grew into a form of external armed violence, which made it possible to use an asymmetric strike (September 11th, 2001) against the central state of the modern international system. It is emphasized that despite the gradual fading of power, the USA during this period remained the most powerful actor in both the economic and military spheres. It is emphasized that the analyzed phenomenon provided almost the only possibility of indirect influence both on the US political system and on political processes in the world in general.In the process of analyzing the stated topic, it was established that the key features of international terrorism should include: the non-subordination of the activities of terrorist groups to international security systems, in particular the UN, and the limited means of the latter in putting pressure on a non-state entity. It is noted that the second feature is anti-statism and cross-border nature, which in practice is realized due to the network nature of the use of this type of external armed violence. It is indicated that Islam as the ideology of the analyzed phenomenon belongs to the third characteristic. It is emphasized that the opinions of most researchers agree that Islam is the force that subordinates the decentralized and even atomized structural components of modern international terrorism to single goals. At the same time, it is emphasized that in the academic environment there are significant differences in the understanding of the foundations of international terrorism as a phenomenon, namely in determining the primacy of the socio-economic (social stratification in the modern world) or cultural-religious (struggle for the global spread of Islam) factor. It was noted that efforts are planned to be directed to the solution of the stated contradiction in the following investigations.