Strategy of tension

A strategy of tension (Italian: strategia della tensione) is a political policy where 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, in which extra-parliamentary far-left Marxist groups, far-right neo-fascist groups, and state intelligence agencies performed bombings, kidnappings, arsons, and murders. Some historians and activists have accused NATO of allowing and sanctioning such terrorism through projects like Operation Gladio, although this is disputed by other historians and denied by the intelligence agencies involved. Other cases where writers have alleged a strategy of tension include the deep state in Turkey from the 1970s–1990s, the war veterans and ZANU–PF in Zimbabwe that coordinated the farm invasions of 2000, the DRS security agency in Algeria from 1991 to 1999, the Belgian State Security Service during the Belgian terrorist crisis of 1982–1986, and violence instigated by paramilitary forces such as the Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the Trump administration in the United States.

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. 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.