Integrative Summary for Definitions of War, Torture, and Terrorism

Abstract

War, terrorism, and torture can each be thought of as a manifestation of political violence—that is, violence used as a means to achieve some group end. In theory, the violence that characterizes modern warfare is tactical and directed. In contrast to the indiscriminate or symbolic violence that characterizes terrorism, warfare has traditionally been carried out by national militaries against each other. However, the continuation of weapons-as-aid from the developed to the developing world, the irresponsible regulation of its distribution and the recirculation of Cold War munitions stockpiles on the black market have contributed to the growth of asymmetric warfare involving non-state actors. Despite the periodic romanticization of both battlefield and guerilla warfare, observers have for centuries commented on the awful, inertial power of violence to blur these categories, begetting wanton pain, suffering, and death, the “senselessness” of which calls into question violence’s very instrumentality. Torture—the controlled, if surreptitious, application of force that frequently spirals into something more sadistic—is emblematic of this terrible transformation.