ose failures being repeated in the future. Machiavelli tried unsuccessfully to use this treatise to gain an advisory appointment either to the papacy or the court of the Duke. He was not concerned with moral virtue, if it meant the destruction and defeat of his state POLICY OF TERROR AND WESTERN VIRTUE IN EUROPEAN INSECURITYBy Anssi K. Kullberg, August, 2000‘Terror’ means extreme use of horror and fear, ultimately backed by violence or threat of violence, in order to force one’s action or opinion upon others – merely by coercion, without legitimacy by the consent of the subjects of this power. ‘Terrorism’, thereby, is defined as an ideology or pattern of political behaviour, the ultimate goal of which is to generate fear, horror, violence or disorder, in order to pressure others to give in to the will of the terrorist.If we agree on these basic objective definitions of what terror and terrorism really are, it will be possible for us to discuss how terror and terrorism influence in today’s world. There is also of course a demagogic interpretation of the concepts ‘terror’ and ‘terrorism’, highly prevalent in certain countries where the word ‘terrorism’ is simply used as a synonym of any dissidentism or disobedience towards the centre’s rule, or aspiration to achieve larger autonomy, or national liberation, or decolonisation. If we, however, adopt such an interpretation of the concepts, we will inevitably fail in discussing the problem of terror in an international context. The failure is inevitable because a certain type of regime generally and traditionally prefers to use the word ‘terrorism’ in a rather Orwellian sense: implicating that all those who disagree with, let alone disobey or even directly oppose, their power, should be named terrorists.Used as a justification for various violent means to impose coercion and tyranny upon the disside...
