International Relations - POSC 292 Resource Guide

Employment in war of microorganisms to injure or destroy people, animals, or crops; also called germ or bacteriological warfare.

A system for maintaining peace by an agreement between several nations to resist collectively any aggression against a single member. The term became familiar in the 1920s because it was embodied in Article X of the Covenant of the League of Nations, under which member states agreed to defend each other's borders against aggression.

Organized violence that deliberately targets civilians and that is intended to sow fear among a population for political purposes. It is a deeply contested term, because many writers restrict the term to non-state actors and exclude the state from the (direct) use of such violence; they argue that since the state lays claim to the legitimate use of physical force, then by definition it is incapable of the deliberate targeting of a civilian population, which is an offence under international humanitarian law (see just war).

Despite renewed efforts by official organizations and academic scholarship to define terrorism in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, there does not yet exist a single, consensual, widely shared definition. As a term of political discourse, terrorism usually implies a value judgment equivalent to moral condemnation.

Systematic violence in the furtherance of political aims, often by small guerrilla groups.

A collection of resolutions, testimony, declarations, and other documents from a number of official sources including the United States government, other national governments, and various international conferences and organizations.

The International Crisis Group is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation committed to preventing and resolving deadly conflict.

Part of the PBS Frontline television series, this program explores America's "first war on terrorism," initiated by President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. Includes a timeline covering attacks on Americans from 1979 to 1988.

Analyses of news about terrorism and terrorist groups, from the Council on Foreign Relations, "in consultation with a wide group of outside experts."