Terrorist Targeting: Tactics, Trends, and Potentialities

This article analyzes recent trends in international terrorism in the context of tactical and technological innovation. It argues that, while terrorists were undeniably more active and considerably more lethal during the 1980s compared to the 1970s, the targets they chose, the weapons they used, and the tactics they employed remained remarkably consistent. Thus radical in their politics, the vast majority of terrorist organizations appear to be conservative in their operations, adhering largely to the same limited operational repertoire year after year. What innovation does occur is mostly in the methods used to conceal and detonate explosive devices, not in their tactics or in their use of nonconventional weapons (i.e., chemical, biological, or nuclear). If, however, terrorist lethality continues to increase and the constraints, self‐imposed and otherwise, imposed on terrorists in the commission of mass murder erode further, actions involving chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons could become more att...