Dr. Ajai Sahni
Terrorism in its modern form has been with us for decades and has continuously expanded its sphere of influence and operation, Dr. Ajai Sahni, founding member and executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi said.
He was speaking at the international Defence Seminar themed 'National Security in the context of Emerging Global Threats' on Tuesday.
Dr. Sahni said it yet never fails to take its victim societies by surprise when it is applied in a new theatre, however gradual or deliberate its march.
"Target states have, almost without exception, been shocked into an utter confusion of responses in the wake of each such expansion, and there is little evidence that the experience of other nations or communities has ever been absorbed into the policies and strategic perspectives of those nations that do not themselves have prior experience of terrorism," he said.
"Indeed, even where states have had significant experience with terrorism, the first impact of any dramatic escalation, the opening up of a new theatre or new form, or even adaptive transformations in the character, tactics, strategies or technologies deployed by terrorism, are often met with confusion and incoherence of response," Dr. Sahni said.
He said each new manifestation of terrorism across the globe, thus, has been met with bewilderment, strategic errors of response, under- or over-reaction, and very slow evolution of state capacities and capabilities.
A dance item at the inauguration of the Defence Seminar on Tuesday
Despite the accumulation of vast experience, responding states often repeat the entire and costly cycle of misdirected and failed responses, repeating the errors of past campaigns, virtually reinventing the wheel, before some relative stability is achieved, he said.
"Crucially, even as the timeframes of the terrorist game plan - especially where religious Millinarian terrorism is concerned - expands into the decades, if not the centuries, the state tends to remain trapped in short-term cycles and projections, often dictated in democratic societies by the electoral cycle," Dr. Sahni said.
"This approach yields grave miscalculations and a distortion of priorities. Success against terrorism demands a sustained, unwavering and consistent response on multiple fronts," he said.
"In the absence of such a response, the economies, the social and crucially the political structures of target nations suffer gradual erosion; and each phase of such progressive erosion leads to a consolidation of extremist forces. This is the cumulative process of induced collapse that terrorist actions seek to provoke," he said.
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