Technology and Terrorism

In this volume, thirteen authors from all points of the English-speaking world provide a tour of the entwined labyrinths of technology and terrorism. They describe terrorism as an epistemological contact sport. With espionage, one can often deduce from a few pieces of the puzzle a plan’s goals and its roots, its sources. But the goals of terrorists are both vague and hopelessly specific, while their means are restrained by rational, institutional thought. Thus, terrorists can be equally expected to flail out without any thought at all, as a child might exhibit in a temper tantrum, and to be hyper-rational, probing at the edges of the target for any weakness. Therefore, how terrorists use technology may not be determined by any particular level of technology but in the probabilities for the target’s expectation and defense regarding particular technologies.