Provoking state repression is the core mechanism of modern revolutionary terrorism

Evidence

It is necessary to turn political crisis into armed conflict by performing violent actions that will force those in power to transform the political situation of the country into a military situation. That will alienate the masses, who, from then on, will revolt against the army and the police and blame them for this state of things. … Marighela’s essential philosophy was that a resort to blind terrorism would inevitably provoke the forces of law and order into an equally blind repression, which in turn would lead to a backlash by the hitherto uncommitted, polarise the situation into two extreme camps and make impossible any dialogue of compromise by eradicating the “soft centre”. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 368

Categorization

• DEFINE: Lays out the classic provocation tactic behind asymmetric warfare, explicitly relevant to the reader’s ‘Savage War of Peace’ concept.
• XREF: Connects to modern debates about provoking overreaction — e.g. post-9/11 terrorism literature and the ‘propaganda of the deed’ tradition since late 19th century anarchism. — connects to: Terrorism aims to provoke state repression that radicalizes the population.; Blind terrorism provokes blind repression, polarizing and hardening a conflict; Revolutionary terror designed to discredit the state often backfires into sympathy for the state. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1523 (+11 more)

Related

• Terrorism aims to provoke state repression that radicalizes the population. (similarity 0.92)
• Terror is defined by independence from opposition, not suppression (similarity 0.89)
• Secret police provoked revolutionary violence to justify their own existence (similarity 0.85)
• Blind terrorism provokes blind repression, polarizing and hardening a conflict (similarity 0.85)
• Revolutionary terror designed to discredit the state often backfires into sympathy for the state. (similarity 0.83)
• Italian Communists read mounting repression as proof of revolution’s approach (similarity 0.83)
• Repression and war are twin hypotheses about power’s mechanisms (similarity 0.82)
• Provocation terrorism backfires by accelerating the settlement it aims to prevent (similarity 0.78)