Reflections on Modern Terrorism

Most 20th-century discussions on terrorism seem to me to have missed the point that, short of an unlikely act of international will, we have passed irreversibly through an historic transition... To understand the potential of this form, one must not stop with a prognosis of likely technical means. The new technological capabilities in the present context ? e.g., nuclear and other spectacularly destructive physical means, or biological and chemical (binary) weapons ? form only one part of the context. Neotechnic means can vastly increase the scale of damage, and through television can almost instantly and repeatedly spread the news and imagery of the act; but by themselves they need not coerce a determined people. One should be equally concerned with the other components that are essential to the successful act of terror. For whether it is carried out by individuals, a group, a state, or a coalition of these, terror succeeds or fails on a "stage" that has four components, each of which is subject, in our time, to the enlargements of opportunity or scope...
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/holton/holton_p2.html