Reflex responses are very often counter-productive. In a fight, this can be fatal.
One of the most important rules in boxing is that you should not be emotional; you should not fight angry, you should fight smart.
Your opponent will always try to get into your head, provoke you, and make you abandon your strategy so that you fight by reflex instead of technique. Unless you are actually incredibly strong and resilient, this usually means you will lose, because most of us are not really as strong or resilient as we think we are when we get angry.
This applies to jihad as much as it does to a one-on-one fight. Many of us have a reflex response to resort to violence, because we are victims of violence; and, since our access to the means of violence is limited, terrorist tactics seem the most viable. We may, therefore, rationalize these tactics, not because they are actually strategically wise, but because they satisfy our emotional reflexes.
This is like a boxer rationalizing his abandonment of technique because his anger at his opponent makes him believe that the only thing he has to do is keep punching, and somehow, he will win…even if he is a featherweight fighting a heavyweight. Of course, he is wrong. This is one of the false hopes Shaytaan whispers into the heart of an angry person.
With very few exceptions, terrorism simply does not work. Any objective analysis will notice this.
Let me reiterate here, before anyone criticizes me for using the term terrorism in the context of jihad: terrorism is just a tactic of warfare; it is not synonymous with evil. It is an acceptable tactic in certain situations, and has been used ever since human beings began fighting each other. But, in the modern era, you can find extremely few examples of this tactic achieving the results its advocates promise