Osher Lifelong Learning Institute
Terrorism: The History of Political Violence From the 1880s to September 11 to Today
non-state actors in the modern world, who engage
in political violence, otherwise known as terrorism.
Much of this series will be based on the earlier
work of UCLA Political Science Professor David
Rappaport’s Four Wave model of the iteration of
terrorism, published in a 1999 article Terrorism in the
Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace and Conflict.
April 8: The Anarchist Wave
In the late 1880s, the first war on terror was the
result of transnational secular non-state actors,
motivated by the modern ideology of anarchism.
Beginning in Russia in the 1880s, the most
glaring examples of the anarchist wave were
the assassination of President McKinley in 1901,
the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand,
precipitating World War I, and others.
April 15: The Secular National Wave
Ironically, the second wave was precipitated by the
Versailles Peace Treaty which broke up the empires
of the defeated states. Terrorist groups developed
in all the defeated empires and terrorist activity was
crucial in establishing the new states of Ireland,
Israel, Cyprus and Algeria, among others. During
the Cold War, other secular violent non-state actors
emerged in Latin America, the Middle East and
South Asia.
April 22: The Religious National Wave
When the Vietnam War ended in 1975, the Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO) replaced the Viet
Cong as the “heroic model” to challenge the existing
systems of governance. The PLO originated after
the extraordinary collapse of three Arab armies
during the 1967 Six-Day War. In the aftermath it
was argued that only terrorists could remove Israel.
Religious violent non-state actors committed to
the destruction of Israel emerged, including Islamic
Jihad, Hizballah, Hamas and the Houthis.
April 29: The Transnational Religious Wave
As the Cold War came to an end, transnational
violent non-state actors again emerged. Al-Qaeda
and its affiliates had an estimated 5,000 members
in 72 countries, whose leaders declared a “holy
war” against the U.S. Its members engaged in
numerous terrorist attacks including the destruction
of U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya; Dar es Salaam,
Tanzania; and a suicide bomb attack against the
U.S. warship Cole in Yemen. In 2001, 19 militants
associated with al-Qaeda staged the September 11
attacks against the U.S.