"The bridge over the river Kwai" 2.0 and the mystification of terrorism

The evolution in the modalities of the conflict and the consequent propaganda agenda that supports the reasons for both facing each other, have generated further confusion in an already quite complex situation.

I am referring, in particular, to the misuse of the term "terrorism" in relation to what they are common acts of war; whether they are to be attributed to regular or irregular formations, it does not matter.

There are many definitions of terrorism and a univocal codification that tends to define it globally is almost impossible, due to the profound cultural differences that exist between states. We are even witnessing the paradox that, in countries where the lack of respect for human rights is widespread, terrorist acts are perceived by the governing regimes as an undesirable form of opposition to authority.

Having said that, given the eminently military context in which the attacks on people and infrastructures were conducted that have led now the Russians, now the Ukrainians to refer to them as "terrorism", I want to start with the definition that is given to terrorism within NATO:

"The illegal use or threat of the use of force or violence, to instill fear and terror, against individuals or property, in an attempt to coerce or intimidate governments or companies or to gain control over a population, to achieve political goals, religious or ideological. "¹

In the absence of an expressly formulated definition in the military field, per level playing field and, above all, due to the direct involvement in the facts that I will examine, I believe to bring back the concept of "terrorism" as follows as expressed by the Duma of the Russian Federation:

According to the Law on Combating Terrorism, "terrorism is an ideology of violence e the practice of influencing the decision-making process of state authorities, local governments or international organizations associated with intimidation of the population and / or other forms of illegal violence "²

Another definition of the phenomenon given by the Russian system from the legislative point of view is the following:

The execution of an attack (lit. "explosion", ed.), Of an arson or other acts that intimidate the population and endanger people's lives, which cause significant material damage or other serious consequences, to in order to destabilize the activities of public authorities or international organizations or to influence their decision-making process, or the threat of committing such acts in order to influence the decision-making process of public authorities or international organizations.³

Before going into the merits of the topics covered by this discussion, it is necessary to give some more terminological indications, such as definition of "guerrilla":

"Military or paramilitary operations conducted in hostile territory and / or under enemy control, mainly by local irregular forces."⁴

To close the discussion on a purely conceptual level, it must be said that terrorism differs from guerrilla warfare in that it represents a secondary or complementary line of action of "subversion" and, moreover, unlike subversion, requires less support from the population.

To understand this concept, let's shift our attention to a historical-social context that is completely different from the one in question, but which offers a fairly clear example of what has been said. I am referring to the "years of lead" experienced in Italy from the early 70s to the mid-80s of the last century, so defined because of the numerous attacks committed by the equally numerous terrorist organizations both on the front of "subversion", especially on the left, and on that of"Subversion", of neo-fascist matrix.

If we consider, for example, organizations such as Power Worker and its evolution into Worker autonomy we are in the sphere of "subversion", that is, we are at a level of theoretical-conceptual activity carried out in opposition to a constituted system that founded a state, with the contribution of support from external forces to the state itself, in this case the Soviet Communist Party. The situation is different if we talk about Red Brigades, Proletarian Armed Nuclei o Armed Proletarians for Communism, the latter created precisely by exiles from Worker autonomy who chose to go to armed struggle; in this case we are faced with real terrorist organizations.

In the context of "subversion" - an activity aimed at "subverting" the institutions of a state with the support of forces endogenous to a state of which, however, they do not share the political line - I give the example of Third Position, organization indicated as the political-ideological area of ​​the "new subversive right", together with the group called We build the Action. The movement was established in Rome in the years 1978-79, qualifying itself as an organization with deliberately indefinite borders, comparable - although with smaller dimensions - to Worker autonomy. The theoretical approach was "revolutionary" and proper to right-wing radicalism and was aimed at subverting the current constitutional order and at conquering power through the creation of its own model of state, (neither Marxist nor capitalist; hence the name of Third Position ) through a people's revolution to be carried out gradually and prepared by the "avant-gardes", which had to establish within the schools, neighborhoods, factories and countryside, the appropriate structures to educate the people and lead them to the revolution. This, at least, in the idea of ​​the political structure that distinguished the group from others markedly oriented towards terrorist action, such as New Order, Mussolini Action Teams (active in the first half of the 70s) and, above all, i Revolutionary Armed Nuclei, in which the militants of Third Position they too eager to be less theoretical and more (c) active like their leftist counterparts.

The "fuel" of terrorism, therefore, is constituted by the emotions it manages to arouse: surprise, disbelief, anguish, fatigue. Terrorism tends to enhance the psychological effect on the target population, with a favorable cost / effectiveness ratio.

Having made this series of premises, let's see if a certain type of actions carried out by both the Ukrainians and the Russians in October 2022 and indicated by one or the other as "terrorist acts" committed by the adversary, are to be considered truly such or if rather, we are not in the presence of an improper use of the term "terrorism" by either side. Speaking of terrorism, on the other hand, always evokes execrable situations and, by virtue of what has been said about the emotional impact that this mode of aggression produces, always represents an extremely effective tool in the activities of propaganda.

Let's start with the damage done to the Kerch bridge (opening photo), an infrastructure of very high symbolic value for Moscow, which connects the Taman peninsula, in the Krasnodar area (Russia), with the Kerch peninsula in Crimea.

The Kerch 'bridge, almost 19 kilometers long, was personally inaugurated by Putin with great fanfare in 2018, after Moscow took over the peninsula in 2014. At the time, the construction of the bridge was declared illegal by both Kiev and by its Western supporters. Since the start of the Kremlin war against Ukraine, the bridge has been crucial for the transfer of men, weapons and fuel to Russian units fighting in southern Ukraine. The bridge is also a vital artery for the port of Sevastopol, where the Russian Black Sea fleet is based.

On 8 October an explosion, in which three people were reportedly killed, caused the partial collapse of two spans. According to the Russian media, the National Anti-Terrorism Committee - not a pool any investigative - stated that a truck loaded with explosives was blown up on the bridge. Two days later, President Putin accused Ukraine of orchestrating what he called a terrorist attack on a key infrastructure linking Russia to Crimea and Security Council Vice President Dmitry Medvedev upped the ante. stating that Russia should "destroy the terrorists" responsible for the attack:

"This is a terrorist attack and sabotage committed by the criminal regime in Kiev, there is no doubt and there never has been, Medvedev said. According to him, Russia's response to this crime can only be the direct destruction of terrorists, as is customary in the world. He added that this is what Russian citizens expect.

The explosion on the Crimean bridge was an act of terrorism organized by the Ukrainian special services. Russian President Vladimir Putin was informed by the head of the Investigative Committee, Aleksandr Bastrykin. The head of the Investigative Committee stated that, according to him, there is a case under part 2 of article 205 'Terrorism', as confirmed by the data from the initial phase of the investigation."⁵

Another example:

"For Putin, if Kiev continues to carry out terrorist attacks on Russian soil, the answer will be even tougher. These bombings are just one 'first episode' in retaliation, the vice president of the Russian Security Council said Dmitry Medvedev, asking for the 'total dismantling' of Ukrainian political power. Meanwhile, in a continuous crescendo of tension, after the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, Gazprom announced that in 2015 it had found explosive devices attributable to NATO."⁶

Beyond the symbolic value, in an operational scenario such as the Ukrainian one, from a military point of view the bridge represents an extraordinary k-terrain, that is, an element of the land whose possession confers a marked advantage and to whoever holds it who, therefore, must be defended against whoever has every interest in conquering it in turn or, otherwise, in destroying it. Here, then, that I find the definition of "sabotage" acceptable, while I have strong reservations about that of "terrorism".

As much as the Russian narrative tries to bring the use of the truck bomb back to the situations envisaged in article 205 of the Russian Criminal Code, we are absolutely not in the logic of influencing or destabilizing the will of a government or international organizations; we are in the presence of a very normal act of war, even if conducted with asymmetrical procedures - that is, not by regular forces - as is the practice in hybrid warfare, of which the Russians are also profound connoisseurs and admirers. Indeed, it was still good that the attackers did not choose to cause the explosion during the transit of an enemy convoy, an absolutely rational choice in a logic of war. Furthermore, let us not forget that, in fact, Crimea is not Russian territory, nor are the other provinces arbitrarily annexed by the Kremlin. Ukraine, therefore, is fighting on its own territory and does not want to destabilize any government at all. Ukraine achieved lightning-fast success with its offensive in the northeast, but its push in the south to eliminate a Russian foothold on the western bank of the Dnipro River was less swift. There, too, there are bridges that can arouse a certain, lethal, interest.

With regard to the explosive devices attributable to NATO and found in 2015, one wonders if those who make such statements reflect on the contents of what they say. What does "traceable to NATO" mean? What would be the distinctive element that would lead us to prefigure a para-terrorist "bombing" activity generically attributable to NATO? And the timing then ... Someone discovers the bombs in 2015 and reveals a terrorist plot against Gazprom, coincidentally, just now that gas has become an instrument of economic blackmail on a planetary level and, in this situation, yes attacks on the pipeline? Furthermore, the conditions in which this occurred have also changed and the war situation also configures these attacks as acts of war and not terrorist, paradoxically and according to a certain logic attributable to the Russians themselves, with the aim of damaging the economy. of the European Union (especially German).

On the opposite side, however, the emotional effect is sought through the improper use of the term "terrorism":

"One after the other, the vengeance of Vladimir Putin for the attack on the Crimean bridge strikes the cities of Ukraine. ... 'This is the second massive missile attack after February 24 and probably the largest bombing in history in terms of important energy infrastructure. Now it can be called energy terrorism, a continuation of nuclear terrorism and I am referring to the Zaporizhzhia power plant, continuously bombed by the Russians, said Ukrainian Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi."⁷

And yet:

"Another type of Russian terrorist attacks: targeting energy and critical infrastructures. Since 10 October, 30% of Ukrainian power plants have been destroyed, causing massive blackouts across the country. There is no more room for negotiations with the Putin regime, says Zelensky."⁸

Apart from the curious definition of "energy terrorism" which lends itself to interesting insights for the opening of new perspectives in the field of hybrid warfare - we could define "energy terrorism" a particular line of action of economic warfare - in reality we are in the presence of normal acts of war, with the attack on infrastructures that always fall into the category of k-terrain.

That said, it does not mean that the indiscriminate attacks conducted by Russian forces on Ukrainian population centers cannot be classified as war crimes, under international war law. "War crimes", in fact, but not "terrorism".

For intellectual honesty, however, there is an obligation to underline how, often, throughout the history of military operations, the massacres of civilians or the destruction of infrastructure vital for the survival of populations have been dismissed as "collateral effects" and taken into account by the winners as inevitable events. In this regard, I have always wondered how a tragic episode dating back to the 2nd World War and for me emblematic of the “trivialization” of evil should have been contextualized, without disturbing the depth of Hannah Arendt's work.

The road that led to my grandparents' house crossed the Gorla district in Milan. Once my father told me about "bombs dropped by the Americans on the neighborhood, which hit an elementary school and killed many children". This was the simplicity of the narrative of a man who addressed his young son trying to make him understand that very bad things could happen in his life, without traumatizing him. It was the "Francesco Crispi" elementary school, where 184 children, 14 teachers, 4 janitors and 1 health assistant lost their lives, when in October 1944 one of the bombs, dropped with the intent to hit the Breda, Alfa Romeo factories and Isotta Fraschini, fell on the school, causing the massacre. There were no "smart bombs" at the time, and apparently not all aircraft pilots were either. As I said, these were "side effects" and, probably, if the Allies had lost the war, perhaps someone would have had to answer for them, but not as responsible for terrorist acts against the population, but as a war crime.

Certainly it is a war crime the murder of the director of the Kherson Philharmonic Yuriy Kerpatenko, killed by Russian soldiers in his home for refusing to perform in a concert organized by the occupation forces. But it is not terrorism. On the other hand, if a pro-Russian fanatic, whether wearing a uniform or not, placed a bomb or blew himself up in the Kiev subway crammed with people sheltered from the bombs (what a macabre, ironic fate!) Or among the people in line to buy groceries. food in a supermarket in Kherson, then it would be a question of terrorism, but not for subversive purposes, but in the context of those procedures of hybridization of contemporary war of which terrorism can also be an expression.

Nor is the gesture carried out by three Muslim recruits of Tajik ethnicity in the Belgorod barracks, a training center where many of the soldiers called back into service with the "partial mobilization" desired by Putin to make up for the numerous losses suffered by Russian forces in the fighting converge. . Let us briefly recall what happened: the refusal of the three Tajiks to train to fight a war for which they did not share the reasons, was followed by an argument with the commander of the base, Colonel Andrei Lapin, on the meaning of the Jihad, with a dramatic drift of events. In short, the colonel would have asserted that the one against Ukraine is a "holy war" in all respects and the Tajiks would have replied that the "holy war" is one and it is done in the name of Allah against the infidels; the debate would have been truncated by the Russian officer with the lapidary sentence: "Then this Allah must be a coward if he does not allow you to fight for a country to which you have sworn an oath of allegiance."⁹ Words that must have sounded vaguely offensive to the hearing of the three reservists who, found themselves in the shooting range, invited the Muslim recruits to move away from the rest of the group in which they were inserted and opened fire killing eleven soldiers (including the commander from the base), as reported by Tass. The thought immediately evokes the specter of Islamic radicalism as the underlying reason for the fact of blood, in reality it was “banally” a definitive, incisive and peremptory reply, to wash away the shame suffered.

We arrive at 23 October, when on the Russian side the accusations made by the Minister of Defense Šojgu who declared the fear of the use of a "dirty bomb" by the Ukrainians against Russian troops immediately come to the fore:

"Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu today had telephone contact with his counterparts in France, the United Kingdom, the USA and Turkey. With Sébastien Lecornu, Ben Wallace, Lloyd Austin and Hulusi Aka. The issue at the top of his agenda is the fear that Ukraine might throw 'possible military provocations' using a 'dirty bomb', reads the note from the Moscow ministry."¹⁰

We are witnessing the exploitation of a stereotype characteristic of the forms of post-Cold War terrorist threat - since, that is, when the components for nuclear warheads have also become available on the clandestine arms market -, aimed at overturning a narrative that has so far systematically indicated in the Russians the possible architects of an attack with atomic weapons. Once again we are in the presence of a campaign of info-oops which sees the Kremlin engaged in an attempt to reduce its image in the eyes of the international community, which has also been deteriorated by the increasingly frequent speeches that portray Russia as the Leviathan of the nuclear holocaust. Trying, however, to pass for victims of an evil and reckless Ukraine seems decidedly excessive and, frankly, rather ridiculous.

I want to close these reflections with a touch of color, quoting the film The Peacemaker, which tells a fictional story, relating to the theft of MIRV nuclear warheads by corrupt Russian officers, in order to sell them to terrorist organizations. A heroic George Clooney flanked by a charming Nicole Kidman (and could it be otherwise?) Defeat evil, above all by preventing the character of the Serbian nationalist Dušan Gavrić from detonating the bomb he is in possession of in the center of New York. It seems that Serbian actors Predrag Manojlovic, Lazar Ristovski and Dragan Nikolic were originally approached for the role of Dušan Gavrić who, however, all turned down the part. No one likes going from terrorists, not even those who really are and who, for this very reason, from time to time call themselves "martyrs", freedom fighters "," political prisoners "... depending on the geographical coordinates, the historical periods and, above all, of the acts with which their devastating enterprises decline.