The Terror Network

by Claire Sterling

Offers documentation of a unified network of international terrorism, examining the people involved and the underlying patterns connecting seemingly unrelated incidents

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Terrorism, Politics, True Crime, Crime

357 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1981

Reviews

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read this for research because it was one of the most influential books written on terrorism in the 1980s. Sterling was a journalist who argued that the Soviet Union was the root organizer and funder of global terrorism against the West. She argues that there was a "terror network" consisting of the links between radical leftist and nationalist terrorist groups and states like Cuba, Syria, Libya, the E. Bloc, and, of course, the USSR. The Soviets, she believes, used these many proxies to destabilize the West and ultimately undermine faith in and functioning of democracy. I think 2 interpretations of this network are more plausible 1. That the Soviets funded all kinds of revolutionary subversive/guerrilla groups around the world and didn't really care if they used terrorist tactics. 2. That this was more a marriage of convenience. To be fair to Sterling, she doesn't argue that the Soviets were the master puppeteers behind all terrorism, just that most terrorism could be linked to them and their allies and that it ultimately benefitted them. This book was pretty hot for a time in the 1980s, and you could find all kinds of politicians referencing the terror network, often as a way of opposing Reagan's moves to foster better relations with the Soviets (the Reagan Admin also employed this rhetoric).

Sterling's argument is partially valid and much more interesting than the actual book. She did a lot of sleuthing and interviews with defectors and intelligence folks, and she amasses a lot of connections between terrorist groups and btw the groups and their sponsors. At times, she argues more by insinuation than proof, and in the 1980s the CIA and many other terrorism experts said she overstated the centrality of the Soviet Union in world terrorism. The bigger problem with the book is that it is a mess of details and often unreadable. There's a lot of obscure person x took money from person y, who met with person z here, who travelled here, and on and on without much contextualization or a strong argumentative string. I think she was trying to write it like a spy thriller novel, but it ends up being tedious. I can see, though, why at the time it made a big splash, as it fit with the larger conservative/neoconservative desire to fold the terrorism problem into the Cold War problem, ignoring the many local dynamics at play.

Anyways, I would only read this if you have a very specific, research-related need to do so.

[Feliks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somewhat too brisk; too glancingly written. Very much has the feel of a cub reporter's long-awaited 'first real book'. Rattling off facts and figures in an attempt to prove...what? That terror networks exist? Yes, at some point when this book was written, (prior to the nonstop cable news era) there must have been a point when the American public somehow, daydreamed otherwise. That was when terrorist news stories were still intermittent and sporadic, mystifying, and 'always happening to some other unfortunate country'.

Yet this book is still of worthwhile value. It is a handy reference for all the terrorist-related happenings of the 70s; which was the real heyday of terrorism. The author writes in that crisp, clean, forthright sophomore journalistic style, very eager and earnest. No matter--when I want quick facts about Carlos the Jackal, or Munich, or Entebbe, Algeria, Corsica, Aldo Moro, or the siege of Mecca...I hate to say it but this is the book to which I will turn. It's got it all laid out for very easy thumbing. I'm glad to own it.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terror was being practiced befor 9/11. Sterling examines the terror networks and thejustifications used as well as consequences.

[RYAN · Rating 1 out of 5]

In the 2004 Adam Curtis’ film The Power of Nightmares part 1 Baby its Cold Outside this book is noted as being a piece of propaganda to support a war with the Soviet Union. The underlying ideas from the book were used to justify an escalation of war against the Soviet Union by suggesting that they were in fact the root of different terrorist organizations, however the evidence used to draw these conclusions was created by the black propaganda machine inside the CIA.

[Zelig]

It was a fascinating book when I read it 35 years ago, it would probably be rather boring today. While terrorism is still with us, the reasons and people behind it are very different from thne