International Journal on Criminology Volume 6, Number 1, Spring 2018 | Page 66

International Journal on Criminology • Volume 6, Number 1 • Spring 2018
Crises and Attacks: Some Avenues to Be Explored
and Guidelines for Action
Thomas Meszaros 1
In moments of crisis one is never fighting against an external enemy,
but always against one’s own body.
—George Orwell, 1984.
Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, Europe has been subjected to a vague
threat manifested in a series of terrorist attacks of diverse nature. In France,
the 2012, 2015, and 2016 attacks gave a significant boost to the threat and
demonstrated the wide variation in the type of terrorist operations that might be
anticipated. Some of these operations aimed to bring about major crises by attacking
multiple sites or carrying out several attacks on top of one another. The
intention of this article is first of all to question the relationship between crisis and
terrorism, in order to then work out new ways of reflecting on them and to put
forward suggestions for improving existing systems for the prevention and management
of major crises.
General Lucien Poirier, in his brochure on the “principles for a theory of crisis,”
insisted on the need, in the Cold War context, “to look at the crisis-phenomenon
in a new way” so as not only to “work out what is meant by a crisis” but also to
“arm ourselves intellectually for acting in a crisis” (Poirier 1997). These reflections,
which are still relevant, were motivated by a particular observation: namely, that
the increasing number of crises is the consequence of nuclear deterrence and the
impossibility of direct conflict between the two Great Powers, which has encouraged
people to develop strategies for indirect action (Poirier 1997; Meszaros 2005).
This nuclear freeze is at the root of the self-determination of the crisis concept in
the field of conflict.
In the post-Cold War era, crisis remains an entirely strategic subject, with
its grammar and its logic. The “ending of the international system,” the growing interdependence
between internal and external environments, the increasing role of
non-state actors, and the importance of technological factors, are partly responsible
1 Thomas Meszaros is assistant professor in political science at the University of Lyon 3 (CLESID-EA
4586), and director of the Institut d’Etude des Crises [Institute for Crisis Study]. His research work
focuses on international relations and on the theories, modeling, and management of crises. The
author would like to thank Patrick Lagadec and Antony Dabila for their sound advice.
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doi: 10.18278/ijc.6.1.5