Security measures are unlikely to defeat terrorism.

IT has been a year since the dramatic events of "9/11", as the Americans have taught the rest of us to call it, made terrorism the defining dread of our age. Of course, as Indians know well, terrorism — and the desire to end it — are not new. So we need to ask, what is new?

I would suggest three things — two bad, one potentially good.

First, September 11 proved the direst predictions of the terrorism experts and others correct. With modern technology, terrorist groups can plan, finance and carry out much larger assaults, and inflict massive loss of life and significant property damage using the very tools of globalisation from international jet travel to mobile phones. And that same technology has extended the reach of terrorists. Terrorist groups are now our near neighbours, wherever we live.

Second, September 11 proved that no one is entirely safe from determined terrorists. Not even inside the military command centre of the world's sole remaining superpower. Third — and here's the part that's potentially good — the universal shock and revulsion at the attacks of September 11 have united the world in a new determination to stamp out this scourge.

After September 11, there can be no easy retreat into isolationism, no comfort in the illusion that the problems of the rest of the world need not trouble the rich and tranquil. The world now understands viscerally the old cliche of the global village. Because, as I wrote in this column at the time, 9/11 made it clear that a fire that starts in a remote thatched hut or dusty tent in one corner of that village can melt the steel girders of the tallest skyscrapers in the opposite corner of the global village.

Interdependence is now the watchword. The terrorist attack was an assault not just on one city but, in its callous indifference to the lives of innocents from 80 countries, an assault on the very bonds of humanity that tie us all together. To respond to it effectively we must be united. Terrorism does not originate in one country, its practitioners are not based in one country, its victims are not found in one country — and the response to it must also involve all countries. Out of the solidarity that the world has demonstrated with the victims of this horror, a unity may yet emerge across borders that will also mark the new battle against terrorism as different from the ones that preceded it.

That's reassuring, because there are things that can be done. Despite the world's inability to agree on a consensus definition, there are some things we know about terrorism that can help us explore strategies to combat it. International terrorism is a method, rather than a political ideology. It has, at various times in the last 100 years, been used by the right and the left, by sub-national groups and internationalists, by secessionists and nation-builders, both successfully and unsuccessfully. But if we are to succeed in combating terrorism, we must not mistake the method for the cause, or we run the risk of merely adding to the cadre of would-be martyrs.

For all but a few fanatics, terrorism is a method born of weakness. Those with the capacity to achieve their political ambitions by more conventional means seldom feel the need to resort to terror. It's a technique of asymmetrical warfare, when you can't hit the enemy where he is strong, hit him where he is vulnerable.

Terrorism is unpredictable in its outcomes. Yes, it has sometimes furthered at least the short-term aims of its perpetrators. But it is a blunt and horrible weapon, and the more universally it is condemned, the more likely its use will promote powerful antagonisms towards the very aims it serves, the less useful it will be as a method, and the less we need fear it. Terrorist groups require a steady flow of new member-martyrs, and they need the support of non-terrorists, to survive. Support in terms of money or sanctuary from those sympathetic with their avowed political ambitions. Support from those who feel alienated from non-violent means of political change. And support from those who live in fear of its perpetrators but are unable to successfully face them down.

Terrorism seldom thrives where alternative methods of redressing real or perceived ills exist, just as it seldom thrives where people feel comfortable about their prospects, or hopeful about their futures. Terrorism is bred from alienation and nurtured by hopelessness, deprivation and the frustrations of those who feel powerless.

While I do not agree with those who would offer simplistic explanations for the "root causes" of terrorism, there is no denying that the scourges of poverty, of famine, of illiteracy, of ill-health, of injustice, and of human insecurity contribute to the conditions in which terror is allowed to flourish. The pilots who hijacked the planes on September 11 were not born of poverty. But they could not have acted without the support or at least the complicity of many others who shared their worldview and partook of their resentments. Tackling this is the hardest part of the battle we must win. But logic demands that measures be taken to reduce the flow not just of people and money, but also of moral support to terrorist organisations. Security measures alone may defeat a terrorist, but are unlikely to defeat terrorism.

Whatever the motives of the leaders of terrorist organisations, alone they pose little threat. Rather, they take advantage of desperate people. We need to ask what leads surprisingly large numbers of young men, and sometimes young women, to follow the desperate course set for them by fanatics and ideologues. We have to confront the sources of despair and alienation. No one should be forced to choose between violence and continued suffering.

A related point: If a State cannot even offer its people hope for a better life for their children — by providing access to basic education — then how can we expect those people or those children to resist the blandishments of terror? It should come as no surprise that the Taliban recruited its foot soldiers from the religious schools that were the only source of nurture and education, or indoctrination, for the many children who learned not science or mathematics or computer programming, but rather only the creed of the Koran and the Kalashnikov, the Koran crudely interpreted, the Kalashnikov crudely made.

Now that the world has resoundingly declared terrorism an enemy, all the weapons we have used to fight it are suddenly more powerful than they were on September 10 last year. Warnings that seemed mere disguises for noble ambitions — warnings that peace without justice, failed states and oppressive regimes, and hopeless poverty hurt us all (the kinds of warnings the United Nations has been issuing for years) — can no longer be easily dismissed. Perhaps all I am calling for is more of the same — more of the very principles and commitments enshrined in the United Nations Charter. But now we have seen those graphic images, again and again, of the World Trade Towers collapsing. Now we all know what only some countries have known. Now we all know the price of failure.

Shashi Tharoor's new novel, Riot, is published by Viking Penguin. Visit him at www.shashitharoor.com.