Every American knows the date September 11, 2001; it was a date when everything changed. Security, warfare, paranoia, and our entire American lifestyle were changed by several men with a daring plan. The new war that rose from the ashes of this disaster is one that had never been seen before, a world with terrorism.

Most countries in the 20th century and before followed mostly humane methods of combat. Targeting civilians instead of soldiers was never an option. Terrorism bases itself upon other ideas, ideas we deem hideous, but end up effective nonetheless. What is terrorism? What makes it different from other types of war?

The Washington sniper attacks during three weeks of October 2002 are a perfect example of terrorism. Two men, Lee Boyd Malvo and John Allen Muhammad, drove around the Washington D.C. area, sniping and killing seemingly random people off of the streets. Overall, killing eleven and wounding six. This set of fifteen sniper attacks define terrorism, despite not being attributed to a specific terrorist organization.

The Washington sniper attacks caused an unprecedented amount of fear and apprehension among the entire population, and all of this was caused by two men in a small and restricted area of the country. Imagine if fifty of these pairs operated throughout the United States. Given the reaction to just one pair in simply two states, the outcome of fifty of these pairs would cause an unimaginable amount of terror and fear in the population. Making such an impact on the population with simply a hundred men and very few resources is the entire essence of terrorism.

The point of this example was to show the true point of terrorism. Although terrorist and extremist groups are known for mass killing, but their true motives are not murder, but rather fear. These men are colossal threats to the structure of any nation, as they are a new and unheard of type of warfare. It may prove invaluable for us to understand their motives and intentions in order to combat this new and dangerous threat.