Terrorism Definition Within the Military

After reading my Air Command and Staff College (ACSC) articles over the weekend, I found one that was particularly interesting. The article discusses terrorism and the definition of terrorism. Well, while reading this article, I am also reading a book called Future Jihad. The author of both articles take a different stance on why terrorism is used as a tactic.

ACSC: Terrorism is used to instill fear
Future Jihad: Terrorism is used to cause cause and collapse of an entity from within.

Now I don't know about you, but I believe the Future Jihad definition to be more accurate. The ACSC definition appears to be very superficial. The second definition makes more sense to me in how a terrorist would use terrorism to gain his ends. Now there are times when terrorism is used to instill fear and shape political outcomes, but I believe the attacks on Sept 11 were meant to divide the US, cause us to turn against our own government, and cause a collapse of the US. I also believe this is what Bin Laden and others do in their videos......attempt to polarize the people of the US against the government. Just my thoughts.