Louise Richardson

"What Terrorists Want" provides a valuable academic perspective on the history and anatomy of terrorism as a social, political and military phenomenon. Relatively free of ideological posturing, Louise Richardson's analysis cites examples of terrorists movements from the middle ages through the Iraq War, across a variety of religious (and secular) traditions, and draws thereby a host of salient conclusions about the prominent motivations behind terrorist action. Along the way, she handily refutes the most common (and durable) misconceptions about terrorism generally; i.e., that it is a symptom of psychological disfunction, religious indoctrination, or the verities of disaffection, poverty or naïveté.

The latter part of the book tends to get sidetracked by the political issues and controversies of the Iraq War and the policies of George W. Bush. As the first edition was published in 2006, this is perhaps excusable to some degree, but it tends to diminish the timelessness of her central points. (It can be reasonably argued that U.S. foreign policy is subject to a cornucopia of non-counterterrorism-related influences, and any serious critique of same should at least make an attempt to acknowledge this.) The essential correctness, however, of her central thesis about terrorism is well able to withstand scrutiny. In the final analysis, Richardson gives a clear, focused and infuriating account of why terrorism is adopted as a tactic of psychological warfare and how the inability or unwillingness to acknowledge its underlying social mechanics threatens us all.… (altro)