Yuval Noah Harari: the theatre of terror

Terrorists have almost no military strength so they create a spectacle. How should states respond? The author of Sapiens, a history of humanity, reflects on the past, and alarming future, of the fear factor

As the literal meaning of the word indicates, terror is a military strategy that hopes to change the political situation by spreading fear rather than by causing material damage. This strategy is almost always adopted by very weak parties, who are unable to inflict much material damage on their enemies. Of course, every military action spreads fear. But in conventional warfare, fear is a byproduct of material losses, and is usually proportional to the force inflicting the losses. In terrorism, fear is the whole story, and there is an astounding disproportion between the actual strength of the terrorists and the fear they manage to inspire.

It is not easy to change the political situation through violence. On the first day of the battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916, 19,000 members of the British army were killed and another 40,000 wounded. By the time the battle ended in November, both sides together had suffered more than a million casualties, which included 300,000 dead. Yet this unimaginable carnage hardly changed the political balance of power in Europe. It took another two years and millions of additional casualties for something finally to snap.

There is an astounding disproportion between the actual strength of the terrorists and the fear they manage to inspire

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