Terrorism is violence or the threat of violence with the aim of influencing political decisions by inducing fear. Terrorism, because it is militarily weak compared to State military armament, attacks weakly protected civilian targets, creating in the citizenry a sense of fear and vulnerability. This in turn causes citizens to place demands on their government for protection and retaliation. Protection of every citizen in every circumstance would be impossible, however, and retaliation with the use of force is likely to produce a cycle of escalating violence. States targeted by terrorists must guard against revising their democratic values to counter terrorism and must also adopt a policy of diplomacy and international cooperation in addressing the causes of various manifestations of terrorism.