Terrorists are not engaged in a war. Their actions are aimed at destruction of civil society and of nations across the globe. The Geneva Conventions exist to control wars between nations in a way which respects human dignity and minimises long-term harm. Wars between nations have a foreseeable end, and the Convention is an important means of aiding reconciliation and cooperation in the future: it is harder to build a relationship with a state which has brutally tortured your soldiers upon capture. However, a war against terrorists will often have no end: it is inconceivable, for example, either that Al Qaeda will successfully achieve the reestablishment of the Caliphate or that the West will quash all terrorist activity. Reconciliation and future cooperation are meaningless here.