International Terrorism

International Terrorism

Expect plenty more attacks by hundreds of different groups campaigning on different issues - despite every effort of governments around the world to prevent terrorism. Expect an intense effort by ambitious terrorists to beat recent Hollywood-style disaster images with something even more dramatic, more awful, more panic-inducing. The power of terrorism comes from fear of the unseen as well as the seen. A mighty act which also perhaps unleashes biological weapons, bacteria, or viruses or radiation.

Fear is the greatest weakness of the "free" Western world, in a media-dominated age where people no longer trust government experts nor scientists. Scare stories of terrorism travel fast and inflame the mind.

As I wrote in the first edition of Futurewise, Tribalism feeds terrorism. Tribalism is the most powerful force on earth, more powerful than all the atomic bombs on earth, the US, Russian and Chinese armies combined. What happened at the World Trade Towers is unfortunately only one expression of a wider and deeper tribalism which will continue to impact the lives of billions of people over the next twenty years.

The roots of terrorism were sown long in the past and the branches will dominate our future.

Tribalism is intimately connected with terrorism: when one mass of people identify only with themselves and their values, and see others as lesser beings, then the ground is set for permanent conflict.

Most wars for the last twenty years have been wars inside nations rather than between them: wars over culture and ideology, conflicts that affect tribal groups and loyalties rather than national boundaries and identity, where one or both sides often resort to terrorism. Expect that pattern to continue regardless of the response the US and other countries make to recent events, and the inevitable counter-reactions that are provoked.