Using state sponsored terrorism

State sponsored terrorism aims to achieve strategic ends in circumstances where the use of conventional armed forces is deemed inappropriate, ineffective, too risky, or too difficult.

Terrorism (carried out be men and women without uniform) and state terrorism (carried out by men and women in uniform, a difference of little importance to the victims) have the following characteristics in common: they use violence for political ends; they harm people not directly involved in struggle; they are designed to spread panic/terror to bring about capitulation; they have an element of surprise in the choice of who, where, when; they make perpetrators unavailable for retaliation or incapacitation.

For many years, terrorism was perceived as a contest between two sides: on the one hand, a group of people or an organization, and on the other, a sovereign state. However, during the course of the second half of the twentieth century, various countries began to use, and indeed have expanded their use of terrorist organizations to promote state interests in the international domain. Instead of the "weapon of the weak" - minority groups, liberation movements, and revolutionary organizations - terrorism has become a tool of states and even of superpowers. In some cases, states established "puppet" terrorist organizations, whose purpose was to act on behalf of the sponsoring state, to further the interests of the state, and to represent its positions in domestic or regional fronts. In other cases, states sponsored or supported existing organizations, thereby creating mutually profitable connections.