The Internet is both a means of combating terror and an aid for extremistsIn the XXI century, the threat of international terrorism has reached a new stage: the use of communication capabilities by extremist organizations Al-Qaeda (banned in the Russian Federation) and the Islamic State (IS, banned in the Russian Federation) has increased the threat to public security.
The weak combat capabilities of the groups are compensated by recruiting new members, receiving financial support, forming the agenda of the media, state authorities and international organizations. Philosophers and experts in the field of the study of terrorism note the tendency to move the confrontation of the "world evil" and anti-terrorist structures into the virtual space.
Abroad, along with the use of traditional forms and methods of countering terrorism, various new means and methods of communication are being used. Practice has shown that the approaches used make it possible to successfully counter terrorism where force methods are ineffective. Their study is of interest to specialists in theoretical and practical terms, allows them to understand the state and prospects of the development of the phenomenon of terrorism and the fight against it in a new way, including from a philosophical point of view.
FACTORS SHAPING TERRORConducting scientific research in the field of anti-terrorist activities is conditioned by the very development of the phenomenon of terrorism.
The main factors of the growth of the terrorist threat are:
1. The increase in the number of supporters of reactionary ideologies and the growth of interethnic tension, the active formation of transnational terrorist organizations that use discontent in society for their own purposes.
2. Active involvement of terrorist organizations in the struggle for spheres of economic and political influence. Currently, terrorism is becoming one of the tools in the geopolitical struggle and is used to influence political opponents.
3. Development and support of terrorist groups by individuals and organizations from the 1990s to the present. The Internet allows non-State actors in places of protracted armed conflicts to fill the political, economic, and social vacuum and participate in terrorist acts as mercenaries.
4. The network structure of modern international terrorism. It does not have a clear structure of a transnational network, has a high degree of closeness to outside penetration; important communication is carried out using coded messages over the Internet or from hand to hand.
5. Increasing the number of technical capabilities for terrorist activities. The likelihood of terrorists accessing databases, including weapons of mass destruction, is increasing.
The main issue in studying the phenomenon of terrorism remains the development of a unified approach to its understanding, which differs in individual states and is covered differently in the assessments of experts in the field of military political science and international relations.
At the present stage of development, specialists in the field of philosophy give different assessments of this phenomenon, noting the changes taking place in it. The philosophical understanding of terrorism helps in the political and socio-philosophical study of this phenomenon, which we can trace from a number of authors.
DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO THE CONCEPT OF "TERRORISM"Experts see the difficulty of developing a common approach to understanding terrorism in ideological differences:
who should be considered a terrorist, and who should be considered a "freedom fighter". Thus, the Palestinian movement "Hamas" opposes ISIS, is not included in the Russian list of terrorist organizations, but is considered terrorist in a number of European countries. Such ambiguity is reflected in the communication aspect of anti-terrorist activities, since it is difficult to coordinate the rhetoric denouncing terrorists.
Assessments are implemented in political practice. For example, they become the basis of legislative acts, often reflecting the views of the political leadership of individual countries on the current needs of national security. In doctrinal documents, terrorism is described as a specific action for which punishment is provided.
Next, we will consider the definitions of terrorism in the doctrinal documents of some countries.
In the Russian Federation, the Federal Law "On Countering Terrorism" states that "terrorism is the ideology of violence and the practice of influencing decision–making by state authorities, local self-government bodies or international organizations related to intimidation of the population and (or) other forms of illegal violent actions."
In the United States of America, the Code of Laws defines international terrorism as "acts of violence or actions dangerous to human life that violate criminal law and pursue the goals of intimidating or exerting pressure on the civilian population, influencing government policy through intimidation or coercion, influencing government decisions using weapons of mass destruction, murder or kidnappings."
In the UK, terrorism means "committing or threatening to commit brutal violence against a person, causing serious property damage, endangering human life, public health or safety, serious damage to an electronic system in order to influence government actions, intimidate the public, guided by political, religious and other motives."
PHILOSOPHICAL UNDERSTANDINGDomestic and foreign political scientists note that the philosophical understanding of terrorism reveals new trends in it.
Thus, an attempt to work anonymously for a mass audience inevitably leads to the search for new ways of agitation and ways of manipulating human consciousness.
For a mass audience on the Internet, a consciously intellectually simplified, universal product of ideological propaganda is offered, capable of reaching representatives of the most diverse segments of the population. In this regard, huge opportunities open up by appealing to the depths of the unconscious in the human "I". As a result, hidden forms of destructiveness are easily activated, the ideologists of extremism can only direct them in the right direction.
The study of the behavior of carriers of extremist ideology requires an interdisciplinary approach. Argumentation, if present in their sermons, has as its ultimate goal an appeal to human emotions, feelings of dissatisfaction, boredom.
Of great importance is the emphasis on the infringement of the basic existential of human existence – freedom. The relationship between freedom and destructiveness is very complex and ambiguous. Suppression of a person's desire for freedom inevitably leads to a sense of alienation and can provoke various forms of destructive behavior.
Consequently, it can be assumed that the causes of the mass spread of extremist ideologies, including terrorism, must be sought much deeper: in the human psyche, in his social position, in the imperatives of behavior caused by a wide range of factors of individual and social existence.
Currently, a "new terrorism" is being formed, which seeks to maximize the number of victims. Previously, terrorist groups expected that after the terrorist attack there would be a sufficient number of intimidated people who could influence public opinion, force the government to adopt a policy beneficial to terrorists. It is the communication aspect that plays a special role in the formation of the "new terrorism", since global information networks allow instant dissemination of messages about terrorist acts.
The Internet is one of the factors in the fight against the terrorist threat. Modern means of communication allow anti-terrorist structures to effectively conduct communication counteraction to terrorist organizations and expand opportunities for intelligence at the stage of becoming a terrorist and collecting data from open sources. Under these conditions, a significant number of terms have appeared that are widely used in anti-terrorist activities.
the prospectsIt can be concluded that the main goal of terrorists at the present stage is to influence public opinion and decision–making subjects by intimidating and destabilizing the situation in the state (region).
Scientists observe a contradiction when the growth of well–being does not improve the standard of living, but, on the contrary, contributes to the development of terrorism - for example, the emergence of the Internet and its use by terrorists for their own purposes. Therefore, the study of terrorism requires the involvement of tools and approaches of a number of sciences – history, philosophy, political science, sociology, etc., as well as the analysis of political practices of the past and present.
At this stage, the communicative aspect is increasingly prevailing in anti-terrorist activities. Its purpose is to ensure the protection of the state and society from the negative consequences of terrorist propaganda, disinformation and manipulations used by terrorists in information confrontation with state structures, as well as distortions or manipulation of information that appear in the mass media after terrorist attacks.
It is particularly worth noting the need to study foreign experience in this area due to its contradictory assessments.
The vast majority of domestic counterterrorism experts, for various reasons, learn about the achievements and experience of counterterrorism activities from publications published in Western countries (mainly NATO countries). This circumstance can potentially lead to distortion of information about the results achieved, cause distrust of borrowing experience and become one of the manifestations of a hybrid war against the national interests and security of the Russian Federation.
Territorial disputes, terrorism and separatism, drug trafficking, military dictatorship and poverty – many people who are not regional experts or keen observers have such associations when they hear about the Near and Middle East.
However, the objective picture of these regions is more multifaceted. At the same time, the dominant form of presentation of material in the world media, with an insufficiently effective and purposeful policy of the governments of these countries to promote an alternative agenda, leads to the formation of a distorted perception of the realities there.
Larisa ShashokLarisa Aleksandrovna Shashok is a teacher at MGIMO (U) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.
