The first step in coming to grips with terrorism is defining the term. It is an important consideration, because so many phenomena in the contemporary international arena are labeled terrorist. This makes a definition particularly important as means to measure whether a particular movement or act is terrorist or not.
So, who was a terrorist? What was a terrorist? By what criteria we were going to use to identify individuals, groups and/or nation-states as terrorist?


Having an agreed definition of terrorism would help answer this and similar questions about other potentially terrorist activities, but unfortunately, such an agreement do not exist. Rather, there are virtually as many different definitions as there are people and organizations making the distinctions. There are also some commonalities that recur across definers and will allow us to adopt a definition for present purposes. Such as U.S. Department of State offers the official governmental definition, which is applied in its annual survey of international terrorism. Its definition of terrorism is “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience” (quoted in Kruger and Laitin). In Attacking Terrorism, coauthor Audrey Kurt Cronin says terrorism is distinguished by its political nature, its nonstate base, its targeting of innocent noncombatants, and the illegality of its acts. Jessica Stern, in Terrorism in the Name of God, defines terrorism as “an act or threat of violence against noncombatants with the objective of exacting revenge, intimidating, or otherwise influencing an audience.” For me, terrorist depends to who tell first or from who’s talking. Like Palestinian-Israel case, Israel said that Palestinian is a terrorist with their Jihadist troop, suicide bombers, Intifada movement and etc. In opposite position, Palestinian said that Israel is a terrorist because they occupied Palestinian land and try to genocide Palestinian race. Who is the correct one? It’s depending to who’s talking right? Exactly, for all of the definitions contains these three common points: terrorist act (illegal, often hideous and atrocious), terrorist targets (usually innocent noncombatants), and terrorist purposes (political persuasion or influence).
Another one, we need to define state-building. State building is an increase in mobilization and extraction capacity of the central state institutions as it relates to other social actors. State building is primarily concerned with increasing the power of the central executive. This entails the ability of the state builders to eliminate or neutralize rivals thereby creating a monopoly of collective violence inside of the state’s territory. State building can be further defined with three activities state builders use to strengthen their position: penetration, mobilization, and extraction (Coaty, Patrick C., 2002).
Since 9/11 tragedy, the world view was change. There was a major trauma for the U.S. and the world at large, thrusting international religious terrorism onto center stage. Efforts to respond to the actions of Al Qaeda (the principal international terrorist group) have, in turn, caused the nature of the threat itself to change, a process of terrorism suppression and terrorist group adaptation that is likely to continue. It is harder for the normally state-centric realists to explain why the world’s only superpower announced a war against Al-Qaeda, a non state terrorist organization. How can realist theory account for the importance powerful and violent individuals in a world states? Even if realists acknowledge the importance of non state actors as a challenge to their assumptions, the theory still has important things to say about the behavior and motivations of these groups. The realist scholar Robert A. Pape, for example, has argued that suicide terrorism can be rational, realistic strategy for the leadership of national liberation movement seeking to expel democratic powers that occupy their homelands. What Bush react after, for me, was very over-reacted. Even I understand how angry he was, but what they did after is totally unforgiving by attacking another country without any clear reason with the name “war on terror” (with two target states, Afghanistan and Iraq) with the reason that so many Al-Qaeda troops in that countries. Bush pursue to maintenance American hegemony back. America is the only state in the international community that can provide both a military and a cultural response to the challenges of the war on terror. Realists have criticized this concept. When a state grows vastly more powerful than any opponent, realists expect that it will eventually use that power to expand its sphere of domination, whether for security, wealth, or other motives. Neo-Realist argue no state is unique. Neo-Realist contend the American perception of uniqueness comes from the lack of a balancing power in the international environment today.
So, what the relations between these two parties, state building and terrorist? Indeed we need to identify with three core elements of Realism – statism, survival, and self-help. Statism is the term given to the idea of the state as the legitimate representative of the collective will of the people. Yet outside the boundaries of the state, realist argue that a condition of anarchy exists which representative by terrorist attack. Because terrorist make state in unstable condition, realist correctly assume that all states wish to perpetuate their existence. On the opposite side, terrorist see that state building (example U.S) as a threat and they want to removal state building from their area/land to maintain their existence. Both of these parties are need to survive by neutralize or eliminate their rivals. According to Realism, each state actor or non state actor is responsible for ensuring their own well-being and survival, or in other word is you need to self-help yourself. Realist do not believe it is prudent for a state, especially non state, to entrust its safety and survival to another actor or international institution such as the League of Nations or the United Nations. States and of course terrorist (non state), in short, should not depend on other states or institutions to ensure their own security. That’s why state building and terrorist consider going war rather than peace. Because you need to survive and self help yourself to achieve your goal. State building need terrorist to make the anarchy concept exists. So state building can make it as justification to increasing their power (especially military force) and eliminate their rivals.