strategy of tension

{{short description|Political policy encouraging violent struggle}}

File:Strage di piazza Fontana.jpg in Piazza Fontana, Milan, after it was bombed in 1969]]

{{Behavioural influences}}

A strategy of tension ({{langx|it|strategia della tensione}}) is a political policy wherein violent struggle is encouraged rather than suppressed. The purpose is to create a general feeling of insecurity in the population and make people seek security in a strong government.

The strategy of tension is most closely identified with the Years of Lead in Italy from 1968 to 1982, wherein far-left Marxist groups, far-right neo-fascist extra-parliamentary groups and state intelligence agencies performed bombings, kidnappings, arsons, and murders.{{cite book|last=Campani |first=Giovanna |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mDelDAAAQBAJ&dq=-italy+%22strategy+of+tension%22&pg=PA32 |chapter=Neo-fascism from the Twentieth Century to the Third Millennium: The Case of Italy |title=The Rise of the Far Right in Europe: Populist Shifts and 'Othering' |date=4 July 2016 |editor-first1=Gabriella |editor-last1=Lazaridis |editor-first2=Giovanna |editor-last2=Campani |editor-first3=Annie |editor-last3=Benveniste |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-137-55679-0}}{{cite journal |last1=Drake |first1=Richard |date=1999 |title=Italy in the 1960s: A Legacy of Terrorism and Liberation |url= |journal=South Central Review |volume=16 |issue= |pages=62–76 |doi=10.2307/3190077 |jstor=3190077 |quote=More than twelve hundred people died or suffered grievous injury from this violence, which from 1969 to 1984 included thousands of terrorist attacks. Dozens of groups on the left and the right were involved.}} Some historians and activists have accused NATO of allowing and sanctioning such terrorism, through projects such as Operation Gladio,{{Cite book |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338700813 |title=The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest, Chapter: Italy, Gladio 1970s-1980s |date= |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-1-4051-8464-9 |editor-last=Ness |editor-first=Immanuel |edition=1 |language=en |doi=10.1002/9781405198073.wbierp1700}}{{cite book | last=Ganser | first=Daniele | title=NATO's Secret Armies | publisher=Routledge | date=2005-06-21 | isbn=978-1-135-76785-3 | doi=10.4324/9780203017777}} although this is disputed by other historians and denied by the intelligence agencies involved.{{cite journal|first=Peer Henrik |last=Hansen |url=http://www.intelligence-history.org/jih/reviews-5-1.html |title=Review of NATO's Secret Armies |journal=Journal of Intelligence History |date=Summer 2005|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070826145603/http://www.intelligence-history.org/jih/reviews-5-1.html |archive-date=2007-08-26 }}{{cite journal|first=Philip H.J. |last=Davies |title=Review of NATO's Secret Armies |journal=The Journal of Strategic Studies |date=December 2005 |pages=1064–1068}} Other cases where writers have alleged a strategy of tension include the deep state in Turkey from the 1970s–1990s,{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EhqpAgAAQBAJ&dq=-italy+%22strategy+of+tension%22&pg=PA49 |title=Iran-Turkey Relations, 1979-2011: Conceptualising the Dynamics of Politics, Religion and Security in Middle-Power States |publisher=Routledge |first=Suleyman |last=Elik |isbn=9780415726238 |date=7 October 2013}} the war veterans and ZANU–PF in Zimbabwe which coordinated the farm invasions of 2000,{{cite web|last=Carver |first=R. |date=2000 |url=http://www.refworld.org/pdfid/3ae6a6c70.pdf |title=Zimbabwe, a Strategy of Tension |website=UNHCR}} the DRS security agency in Algeria from 1991 to 1999,{{cite web | last=Imposimato | first=Ferdinando | title=Preface to 'The Dirty War' by Habib Souaidïa |publisher=Algeria-Watch – Informations sur la situation des droits humains en Algérie | date=13 December 2009 | url=https://algeria-watch.org/?p=61551 | language=en}}{{cite web | last=Schindler | first=John R. | title=Two Decades Later, Algeria Protects Mystery of Bentalha Massacre | website=Observer | date=22 September 2017 | url=https://observer.com/2017/09/two-decades-later-algeria-protects-mystery-of-bentalha-massacre/}} and the Belgian State Security Service during the Belgian terrorist crisis of 1982–1986.{{cite journal |last1=Jenkins |first1=Philip |author-link1=Philip Jenkins |date=1990 |title=Strategy of tension: The Belgian terrorist crisis 1982–1986 |journal=Studies in Conflict & Terrorism |volume=13 |issue=4–5 |pages=299–309 |doi=10.1080/10576109008435838 }}

According to the sociologist Franco Ferraresi, the term "strategy of tension" was first used in an article on the Piazza Fontana bombing in The Observer newspaper, published on 14 December 1969.Ferraresi, Franco (1997). Threats to Democracy: the Radical Right in Italy after the War. Princeton, N. J., Princeton University Press, p. 87. {{ISBN|9780691044996}}The Observer article deployed the term while describing the alleged efforts of Giuseppe Saragat, then leader of the Italian Democratic Socialist Party (PSDI), to undermine the sitting centre-right Christian Democratic government, which had prompted accusations from others that he had "indirectly encouraged the far Right to go over to terrorism." See Neal Ascherson, Michael Davie and Frances Cairncross, 'Italy: Fear of revolt returns,' The Observer, 14 December 1969, p. 2. Neal Ascherson, one of those responsible for that article, later clarified that the expression had been suggested to him by the journalists Antonio Gambino and Claudio Risé, both of L'Espresso, who had been in conversation with him in the days immediately following the explosion of the Piazza Fontana bomb.{{in lang|it}} Biscione, Francesco M. (2020), [https://www.bibliomanie.it/?p=5267&pdf=5267 "Strategia della tensione. Genesi e destino di un’espressione"]. Bibliomanie. Letterature, storiografie, semiotiche. 50 (12): 2. doi:10.48276/issn.2280-8833.5267.