The tragic loss of the lives of a large number of the hostages in the Moscow theatre is testimony once again to the vulnerability of all societies to terrorists who are determined to lay down their own lives and have scant regard for the lives of civilians.
The potent mix of Islamic fundamentalism and a beleaguered nationalist cause has fed recruitment from Palestine, to Afghanistan, to Indonesia, and now Chechnya, among brutalised young people who have lost hope in traditional means and believe they will be redeemed in a martyr's death.
They had promised many times to bring the war home to Russia's people, and the Chechen rebels have done so with a vengeance. Fighting a bloody war at home, with no quarter given on either side, and which they could not win militarily against 100,000 Russian troops, the rebels decided they needed another stage and, with a gruesome appropriateness, they took a Moscow theatre.
Terrorism is ultimately a theatrical act, "the propaganda of the deed", as the Russian revolutionaries of old used to call it. It is about transforming an unequal, unwinnable military conflict into a political struggle for hearts and minds. If the oppressor cannot be defeated by frontal assault, then, by sapping at his political base, he can be undermined.
At least that's the theory, a rationale well understood by the IRA when it launched bombing campaigns against England. But, as the IRA found in its 1970s campaign, such tactics can have precisely the opposite effect to that desired, hardening the will of the colonial power to resist. And few in Moscow this weekend believe the hostage-taking will either increase sympathy for the Chechens or feed a war-weary desire to get out of the troublesome province.
Tentative recent attempts to develop a political track in the Chechnyan conflict have been dealt a resounding blow.
For President Vladimir Putin, the siege has been the greatest test yet, but on familiar ground. War in Chechnya made an obscure prime minister's name as a man of brutal resolution. In 1999, it was he who ordered the troops back into the battered province after a rebel bomb killed 300 in Moscow.
Although polls show Russians growing wearier of the bloody war - and the official, certainly understated, military casualty toll of some 4,500 - they also reflect no significant fall in Mr Putin's personal popularity, despite repeated announcements on his part that the war was over and won.
His decision to order the taking back of the theatre by force is likely, initially, to be seen as proportionate to the threat - albeit costly in human lives - and will enhance his domestic standing. At this stage, although there are still questions to be answered about the nature of the gas used in the attack, and precisely how the hostages died, it would appear that Mr Putin had little option but to act as he did to end the crisis.