Terrorism works. Lets avoid it.

Let us be in no doubt. For those prepared to practise it, terrorism or politically inspired violence works. Terrorists generate not only death and destruction but uncertainty and fear too. Their efforts affect not only innocent victims immediately in the firing line but even governments, often far away.

Governments have a duty to defend their citizens but in deciding how to do this they are susceptible to doing exactly what terrorists want; as are the civilian populations who perforce become refugees. Kid yourself not: huge increases in defence budgets, surveillance, ethnic cleansing and xenophobia are exactly what perpetrators of terrorism want. These are manifestations of fear.

ISIS may or may not be in retreat, suffering casualties, leaderless or just past its sell-by date but, relatively small in numbers that it is in comparison to its chosen enemies, it punches well above its weight when it comes to impact on governments. When the latter adopt state assassination or remote attacks affecting the innocent, ISIS wins. When every email you or I send is inspected, ISIS wins. How they must smile as those they attack join the game of violence, gainsaying the stated primacy of diplomacy. By killing a few, they invite the reciprocal killing and displacement of many more, perpetuating the cycle. The losers are not just the people fleeing for security only to find that countries they thought would shelter them slam their borders in their faces; but the governments which too readily kneejerk into doing what they criticise their attackers for.

If anyone doubts that this works or that history proves it, look no further than Israel or Ireland for precedent: diplomacy and eventual stability achieved via a violent journey. To say that violence works is not to advocate it. To acknowledge how it works could result that, instead of playing the games of the extremists, governments can redouble their diplomatic, social and intellectual efforts to deal with the issues potentially leading to the violence before they do so. A tenth of the sums spent on defence dedicated to diplomacy would seem a start.