Chapter 7

Terrorism

Although terrorism has served _as a political tactic for well over a century,
its status as a major problem of international security is a more recent
trend. In fact, no other contemporary problem so effectively demonstrates
one of the core arguments of this volume: the role of politics in setting the
int ional security agenda. The US Rear ce ieal lee
regard, as it elevated its view of terrorism from a relatively minor threat
to a major international concern following the attacks by al-Qaeda on
American soil on 11 September 2001. This response was supported to
various degrees by several American allies and led directly to US military
attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, plus a host of other, often controversial,
domestic and foreign policies whose aftershocks persist. This increased
attention by policy-makers has been accompanied by more activity on the
part of security scholars and other experts, making the study of terror-
ism one of the major growth areas in the field since the end of the Cold
War (Anderson, 2004). Before 9/11, the study of terrorism had been quite
marginalized by many universities, book publishers and major academic
journals (Jentleson, 2002; Cronin, 2002-3).
Unfortunately, however, much of this work is polemical or sensation-
alistic in nature, and often does not involve rigorous empirical research
or sharp conceptual distinctions. Works that attempt to paint Islamic ter-
rorism in particular as an uniquely violent or abhorrent type of political
behaviour, as with studies of ‘Islamikaze’ attacks (Israeli, 2003) or the rise
of ‘Islamofascism’ (Podhoretz, 2007), are especially suspect in this regard,
even when such views are embedded in broader treatments of terrorism
(Burleigh, 2008). In addition, even the more credible studies reveal a fairly
high degree of discord involving some basic aspects of terrorism: how to
define it, what causes it and whether to treat it as a criminal activity requir-
ing a legal or judicial response, or as a form of asymmetric warfare — a
‘weapon of the weak’ — that requires or justifies far more aggressive meas-
ures (Silke, 2004; Carter 2016). However, and despite these analytical
disputes, there is some degree of consensus that terrorism wallsemen a
threat to international security for the foreseeable future for a number of
reasons, which may be framed as root, or permissive/passive, causes. These
might include the continued domin itics by the developed
states of the North in general, and of the US and its allies in particular;

L777,
178 International Security

the utility of global networks to organize attacks, circulate weapons and

supply ideas/funds/recruits for terrorism;.a growing backlash against glo-
balization and its proponents/effects/instruments; the existence of weak
sc gece a of major demographic changes, such as

tesources and so on that can contribute to the politics of extremism an

terrorist violence (Bjorgo, 2003).
That said, it is also important to recognize what may be the single most
critical factor in considering terrorism as an existential security threat: how
the political targets of terror — typically national governments — interpret,
and respond to, a terrorist attack. The goal of terrorism is to provoke
a response by the targets in the form of national policies based on the
politics of fear. If national go ents do not show fear and do not over-
rédct to terrorist HRCI, theytert velEe tila oskeeaaetreo
nell
tactic. Unfortunately, however, fear is all too often an emotional response
‘tather than a measured choice and can very easily be manipulated by both
terrorists and their targets, as well as by the media. This is why it is very
important to subject terrorism to the same rigorous political analysis that
we apply to the other modern security problems covered in this volume.

Terrorism and international security

As always, we begin with some definitional issues, and right from the start
it becomes clear that terrorism is a highly contested concept. There is no
agreed universal definition of terrorism; in fact, many international trea-
ties avoid defining it and instead adopt different terms or euphemisms,
such as crime, low-intensity conflict, insurgency, asymmetric warfare or
guerrilla/unconventional warfare. A new Comprehensive Convention on
International Terrorism, proposed by the UN, is also deadlocked over the
question of defining terrorism. The literature on the topic reveals well over
100 definitions of terrorism; a selection is summarized in Box 7.1.
As we can see, some definitions are fairly straightforward; the Ameri-
can view in particular seems relatively focused and concise compared to
those of other states. The official and long-standing (from 1948) Israeli
version simply focuses on ‘violence’, which can be perpetrated by any
groups (including state actors) for any reason, while the British view is
so broad as to include not just violent action but also other non-violent
political behaviours if they cause a risk to ‘health and safety’ or ‘damage
property’. Indeed, in the UK a number of collective political actions might
straddle the line, such as it is, between terrorism and intimidation: boy-
cotts, strikes, protest marches, civil disobedience or politically motivated
vandalism. The official UK definition (2006) also includes attacks against
IOs and attacks against electronic systems, or cyberterrorism. Despite this
 Viloue ASrine+ Wihwre Terrorism 179

: Box 7.
7 1 Over 100 definitions of terrorism:
t a summary
: 1 US view Any premeditated politically motivated violence perpetrated
against non- combaan targets by sub- national a or Se
agents.
2 British view Use or threat of an action Ge [Link] serious violence —
against a person, serious damage to property, endangering a person’s
life, creating a serious risk to the health or safety of the public, or one
designed seriously to interfere with or seriously disrupt an electronic —
system) which is intended to: (1) influence the government or inter-
national governmental organizations, or to intimidate the public or a
section of the public and(2) advance oe a religious or ee
cause.
3. UN view Criminal acts,including against civilians, commited with the
intent to cause death or serious bodilyiinjury, or taking of hostages,
with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public or —
in a group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a population
or compel a government or an international organization to do or to
abstain from doing any act. -
4 EU view Terrorist offences may seriously damage a country or an
international organization where committed with the aim of: seriously
intimidating a population, or unduly compelling a government or inter-
national organization to perform or abstain from performing any act,
or seriously destabilizing or destroying the fundamental political, con-
stitutional, economic or social structures of a country or an interna-
tional organization.
5 Arab League view Any act or threat of violence, whatever its motives or
purposes, that occurs in the advancement of an individual or collective
criminal agenda and seeks to sow panic among people, cause fear by
harming them, or place their lives, liberty or security in danger, or seeks
to cause damage to the environment or to public or private installations
or property or to occupy or seize them, or seeks to jeopardize a national
resource.
6 Israeli view A terrorist organization is a body of persons resorting in
its activities to acts of violence calculated to cause death or injury to a
person or to threats of such acts of violence.

range of opinion, however, there are at least four common features or

debates regarding most definitions of terrorism.
Siege terms of whether violent acts
or the mere threat of violence must be involved for an action to ‘qualify’
as terrorism. Most official definitions stress violent acts, and in fact_six
tactics comprise about errorist incidents: bombings,
assassinations, armed assaults, kidnappings, barricade/hostage situations
and hijackings. The second aspect concerns the nature of the terrorists
i ed eg ge
180 International Security ,

themselves, namely whether they involve states or non-state actors, or

some combination (state-sanctioned or state-sponsored terrorism), and
whether they might involve nationals of more than one state (interna-
tional or transnational terrorism). Although states have used terror as a
tactic, the modern treatment of terrorism tends to stress non-state actors
thetar
as the main perpetrators. Thethirdaspect involves thenature of
gets, or (again) the treatment of civilians/non-combatants versus military
‘targets. Most definitions of terrorism stress the role of crass tales
yet the discussions in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 remind us that the concept
of a civilian is becoming increasingly problematic, as is the nature of a
combatant. For example, are off-duty military personnel or armed PMC
guards in a conflict zone considered civilians or military combatants? In
other words, are they legitimate targets of military violence, or innocent
victims of terrorist activity? In the US view of terrorism, for example, the
phrase ‘non-combatant targets’ does in fact include unarmed and/or off-
duty military personnel, even if serving in a conflict zone. Finally, there is
some debate over the motivation/objectives of the terrorists. The specific
or tactical motivation, of course, is to generate fear on the part of the
target; broader or political motivations behind terrorism, however, can
be far more complex. We shall return to this point throughout the rest of
this chapter.
Overall then, most definitions of terrorism tend to incorporate these
core elements: organized and premeditated violence against people in
oper tosowfearOrterrorfor
OFthe
thepurposes
purposes of
Ofgaining
gaining political
political or
orcri
criminal
objectives. A number of definitions also mention the targeting of innocent
victims (i.e. civilians) in order to influence a broader audience or attract
attention (i.e. a form of ‘political theatre’). However, each of these factors
can be interpreted to produce a specific definition of terrorism, which has
often been the case over the years.

Destructive scale

Relative to the number of deaths caused by other threats to international

security, such as war or infectious disease, international terrorism actu-
ally ranks very low in terms of its destructive scale. The 9/11 attacks in
the US, which resulted in nearly 3,000 fatalities, are the major excep-
tion to this fact. This event aside, one problem in the analysis of terror-
ism follows from the definitional disputes noted above: different sources
count different types of political violence as terrorism, which then skews
measures of the destructive scale of such violence. Including ‘threats’ as
well as actual violence confuses the measurement even more. One widely
cited source, the US State Department’s annual list of terrorist attacks,
has been prone to criticisms of political bias based on the variable ways it
defines such attacks. Complicating this issue even further are the cases of
 Terrorism 181

Afghanistan and Iraq since the US invasions of those states in 2001 and
2003 respectively, where analysts simply cannot agree on what types of
political violence should be counted as terrorist attacks (made for the pur-
pose of sowing fear) rather than as armed resistance to a foreign military
occupation (as a type of insurgency or asymmetric warfare). If attacks in
these states are counted as terrorism, which number in the hundreds each
year, then the annual number of such attacks has increased markedly since
2001, especially in Iraq. If not, then the scale of terrorist destruction since
2001 falls accordingly.
With these caveats in mind, most terrorist attacks tend to result
in deaths ranging from a few dozen to 100 or 200 fatalities, which is
extremely low relative to other major threats to international security.
Instead of its actual destructiveness, then, terrorism is more often framed
in terms of its ntial destructiveness — which is, ironically, precisely the
response terrorist groups hope to provoke: a general fear that they could
strike anyone, anywhere and anytime, with no warning or opportunity
for countermeasures. The speed and extent to which this fear can manifest
itself could be seen in a very dramatic fashion in the US after the 9/11
attacks, and it still informs policy-making to this day. When coupled with
the fear that terrorists might use WMD, particularly nuclear weapons, the
dread of death by terrorism becomes that much greater no matter how
unlikely it really is. In fact, some analysts argue that nuclear terrorism is
one of the most widely feared threats facing the international community
today, and should demand an equally comprehensive response (Allison,
2006). The fact that foreign terrorists have struck a state as powerful as
the US, on its own territory, also greatly amplifies perceptions that ‘no one
is safe’? from this threat.
Overall, then, in terms of its objective destructiveness it is difficult to
view terrorism as a major existential threat to the survival of major pow-
ers, although it may of course play a role in destabilizing weak states,
as we saw in Chapter 5. Even if terrorists had access to a WMD, par-
ticularly a nuclear weapon, and a reliable way to deliver it, undetected,
to a major population centre, the resulting damage would still pale in
comparison to some of the other threats examined in this volume, such
as a major power war, a deadly pandemic or the consequences of unre-
strained global climate change. The threat of terrorism thus owes far
more to the subjective emotions and politics of fear and uncertainty,
particularly among citizens who believe themselves to be secure in the
developed world, than to its objective destructiveness, whether real or
potential. As such fears can be manipulated or inflated by terrorists and
their targets (especially the media), a kind of ‘echo chamber’ effect can
occur as the problem takes on a new life of its own as a security threat,
which seems to be precisely what has happened in international security
affairs since 9/11.
182 International Security

Geographic and temporal scope

As suggested above, terrorism 1s primarily’a domestic or regional phenom-
enon, and occurs most often in the less developed_regions of the planet.
Statistical analyses also indicate that terroristattacks within a state gener-
ally decline as economic development and foreign trade increase (Li and
Schaub, 2004). Most terrorist groups are in fact concerned with national,
and even sub-national, rather than global, political goals, and their
attacks are usually confined to the territories they hope to influence or
control, and in which they maintain a base of recruits and a supply chain
of resources to be used in their attacks. These factors lead terrorist groups
to favour operations in areas in which they feel relatively safe, which again
points to a fairly restricted geographic scope. The one major exception,
of course, is al-Qaeda (‘the base’) and its associations with other Islamic
extremists (such as the rise of Islamic State), which apparently operate as a
truly global network of terrorist cells (Anonymous, 2002; Byman, 2003).
However, it is not possible to determine precisely whether such groups are
being controlled by al-Qaeda, or are instead acting merely in sympathy
with its aims. There are in fact numerous terrorist groups, as well as so-
called ‘lone wolf’ attacks by individuals, associated with extremist Islam,
and the difficulty of disentangling the relationships between them can eas-
ily lead one to misconstrue or overstate the nature of al-Qaeda as a threat.

Likelinood
Terrorism is now such an entrenched part of the discourse on international
security affairs that it seems as if we should expect a spectacular terrorist
attack, even one on the scale of 9/11, at almost any place and time. Some
dia also contribute to this percepti hen they_devote disproportion-
ately more attention to the aftermath of terrorist attacks than to the death

As noted above, this is precisely what some terrorists are trying to achieve,
and political and media elites seem only too willing to elevate terrorists and
their activities to a much higher political status than they probably deserve
relative to other contemporary threats to international security. In fact,
given this attention and the range of potential terrorist grievances against
powerful global actors, as well as the more general cultural and political
backlash against globalization, we might well ask why terrorist attacks do
not occur more often, rather than why they occur in the first place.
Some scholars have attempted to address this-question in an indirect
fashion, by examining the possibility of terrorist waves or cycles, yet there
is no consensus on such an approach. Some argue that attacks peak on the
basis of two-year cycles (Enders and Sandler, 2004), while others adopt a
‘generational’ approach and identify cycles as long as 40 years (Rapoport,
 Terrorism 183

2004), which involve more general transitions starting in the form of a

backlash against empires (Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman) and
then colonial powers (mainly European); to a more focused attack on the
US/West and its allies (such as Israel) and the current Islamic jihad era of
global ‘sacred’ terrorism (Rapoport, 2001a).
From a purely statistical perspective, however, these fears are either
overstated or misplaced. As with the threat of war more generally, most
terrorist attacks tend to occur in poor countries, even though the targets
might be the symbols of rich countries, such as their embassies or busi-
nesses. The odds_of someone located ina_rich state becoming a victim
of terrorism are extre and ison to other real
dangers, such as death or injury in an automobile accident. Some analysts
even argue that the likelihood of a US citizen being victimized by terror-
ists is about as same as being struck by lightning —- very long odds indeed
(Mueller, 2005). Indeed, before 9/11, the US believed that terrorism was
a moderate or manageable threat compared to problems such as nuclear
proliferation and the epidemic of intrastate violence since the end of the
Cold War. Throughout the 1990s, one of the most dangerous domestic
terrorist organizations in the view of the US government was the Earth
Liberation Front, a decentralized environmental movement known for
property damage rather than for spectacular and deadly terror attacks.
What security specialists really need, of course, is more precise informa-
tion regarding the nature of future terrorist attacks: when, where and made
by whom. Except for rare groups, such as the Irish Republican Army (IRA),
which often — but not always — warned the public a few hours before its
attacks, most terrorist organizations tend to rely on shock and surprise in
their operations. Predicting the likelihood of aspecific attack (or forecast-
ing) isthus extremely difficult in the absence of intelligence provided by indi-
viduals with direct knowledge of the group. This is precisely why the US and
some of its allies, including the UK, were willing to engage in or support
the kidnapping (or ‘extraordinary rendition’) and torture of suspected ter-
rorists and their supporters as a way to gain this valuable intelligence (ICRC,
2007). I shall return to these policies in the sections below; here we need only
note that the fact that they were used, and by states who normally proclaim
their support for human rights and the rule of law, indicates the intense des-
peration and fear felt by these states in the aftermath of 9/11. Before these
attacks, terrorism was treated by the US and its key allies as a fairly low-level
threat: annoying but relatively manageable even though terrorist attacks had
occurred against US interests on a fairly regular basis since the 1980s. Dur-
ing the 1990s, the CIA began issuing warnings that al-Qaeda might launch
attacks on US soil, as did the US government’s chief counter-terror official,
Richard Clarke, in the months just before 9/11 (Clarke, 2004), yet these offi-
cials could not identify the precise target and date of such attacks. The threat
was downplayed accordingly by the Bush administration until it was too late.
 184 International Security .

Recovery
«
Finally, the small-scale nature of most terrorist attacks — so far — means
that recovery efforts are quite manageable relative to other wider-scale
threats discussed in this volume. Even in the exceptional case of the 9/11
attacks, the US economy and transportation system resumed functioning
very soon after the event, and the stock market opened with no major
problems a few days later thanks to the intensive public—private coordina-
tion between major stock exchange firms and the federal government. The
attacks left a gaping hole where the World Trade Center used to stand,
yet businesses in the surrounding area resumed their operations as soon
as possible after the event, as did officials in the Pentagon (the US Depart-
ment of Defence, or DoD) which had suffered an attack by one of the four
aeroplanes on 9/11. Obviously this situation could change in the case_of
a protracted terrorist campaign against a single target, as in states such as
Peru with attacks by the SenderoLuminoso (‘Shining Path’), or with an
attack involving WMD, particularly a nuclear weapon.
Still, our experience with most terrorist attacks suggests that ordinary
citizens and firms in stable, developed states can not only return to busi-
ness as usual after an attack, they can almost learn to live with terrorism
as a normal threat in their everyday lives, provided that reasonable pre-
cautionary measures are taken, as with protecting oneself against any vio-
lent crime. This has been seen with protracted terrorist campaigns in the
UK and Israel, which failed in both cases to either disrupt normal civilian
activities or even to disrupt the political machinery charged with dealing
with terrorism. This fact, as well as the points above regarding the over-
all destructive nature and likelihood of the average terrorist attack, also
suggests that this problem probably receives a disproportionate amount
of attention by citizens, politicians, the media and perhaps even some
academics relative to other, far more likely and destructive, international
security threats. To determine why this is so, we need to make a more
focused political analysis of the phenomenon of international terrorism.

Stakeholder factors

As terrorism is a specific behaviour of stakeholders who take it upon

themselves to threaten (that is, ‘terrorize’) other stakeholders, particularly
ional governments, many of the disputes regarding the nature of ter-
rorism as a policy problem are often rooted in disagreements about the
nature of terrorists as individuals. Any credible analysis of terrorism
therefore needs to be as clear as possible in terms of its assumptions about
the goals and power resources of these individuals, especially in terms
of the situational and dispositional causes of terrorism. Supposed
 Terrorism 185

situational causes include the nature of the international system (US or

Western-dominated, or merely ‘unjust’), while supposed dispositional
causes include individuals who hold certain views about ideology, religion,
ethnic identity/nationalis d grievances against the prevailing order, as
well as (to a much lesser extent) those who possibly have a psychological
pathology. Distinguishing between, and then measuring, these multiple
factors is precisely where various analyses of terrorism start to disagree, if
not break down completely.

Principal stakeholders
Most definitions of terrorism stress the highly organized nature of ter-
rorist groups and their attacks; in other words, it is generally a social or
collective, rather than a personal or individual, phenomenon (unlike, for
example, serial murder or ‘lone wolf’ terror attacks) inspired by shared
political goals (Rapoport, 2001b). This fact strongly encourages the
creation of ‘watch lists’ of certain terrorist organizations as a first step
in hunting them dowi>as we shall see later. However, terrorism appar-
ently violates the sensibility of so many people that some researchers have
closely examined the idea of a terrorist mindset or psychological person-
ality that (supposedly) distinguishes such individuals from other normal,
law-abiding, peaceful citizens (Crenshaw, 2000; Horgan, 2005). Some
argue, for example, that terrorists have a martyr or vengeance complex,
and that they organize their activities like a religious cult, even to the
extent of requiring sacrifices, initiation rites of guilesharin behaviours,
all of which keep the sesdaivation EisaionevaelodeFccraieidew inanabeta
Others have attempted to create a personality profile of the average terror-
such as: an
oversimplification
ist, which might include traits of issues; frus-
ion about an inability to change society; a sense of self-righteousness;
a utopian belief in the world; a feeling of social isolation; a nee assert
his/her own existence (narcissism); and a cold-blooded willingness to kill
(Davis, 2001).
This argument, however, can be problematic for the simple reason
that there really is no such thing as an average or typical terrorist, or
a ‘terrorist mentality’. History and research clearly show that individual
terrorists, like criminals more generally, have varied widely in terms of
their socio-economic classes, education levels, cultural backgrounds, per-
sonality types, religious beliefs, ideological views and so on. However, it
also seems that better educated individuals with a higher socio-economic
status than others in their community might be more prone to all types
of political involvement, including terrorism (Lee, 2011). Even so, and
based on the list of all factors above, it would seem that almost any politi-
cally concerned individual could be capable of terrorism if circumstances
allow, while other terrorist attributes - such as being ‘cold-blooded’ — are
186 International Security .

difficult if not impossible to measure. In fact, it could be argued that most

adolescents share the first six personality characteristics noted in the pre-
vious paragraph, yet (fortunately) they do not engage in terrorism.
More recent psychological studies have attempted to shed light on a
more focused type of political violence: the phenomenon of ‘suicide _ter-
rorism’ (Bloom, 2005; Gambetta, 2005; Oliver and Steinberg, 2005; Pape,
2005a; Pedahzur, 2005; Hafez, 2006). As always, we see major defini-
tional and conceptual problems right from the start (Crenshaw, 2007),
such as whether all attacks that result in the death of the attacker should
be counted as suicide and as terrorism. For example, what about Japanese
kamikaze attacks during WWII, or cases where the attackers did not real-
ize they would die or were otherwise duped into their attacks? Many stud-
ies of suicide terrorism also focus on the Islamic variant when such attacks
in fact have been perpetrated by a variety of groups, and not just religion-
oriented ones, well beyond the Islamic world and the Middle East. The
major example is the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE, in Sri
Lanka, which helped to pioneer the tactic. Even within this smaller class of
‘Suicide terrorists, as opposed to all terrorists, we can still find a wide range
of motivating emotions, such as ‘pride, anger, rage, frustration, humilia-

the perception that terrorism in general, and Islamic or suicide terrorism

in particular, tends to involve religious fanatics or similar disturbed indi-
viduals, is highly mistaken, a conclusion also reached in a comprehensive
report by the behavioural science unit of MIS, the UK’s domestic security
service (MI5 Behavioural Science Unit, 2008).
It is also worth keeping in mind the stakeholders responsible for
responding to terrorism, and in doing so either elevating or marginalizing
it as a threat. This involves primarily national government officials and,
to a lesser extent, IOs that may have some counter-terror responsibili-
ties, such as the UN, and the media. For example, studies of the media
have shown that they devote disproportionately more attention to attacks
in rich countries, which helps, to amplify the threat perception relative
to the situation in poor countries. As noted above, it is also not self-
evident that all terrorist organizations pose an existential threat to either
a specific national government or to the international community, so the
stakeholders responsible for counter-terror policies must bear in mind the
consequences of inappropriately inflating the threat posed by any single
terrorist group, a task much easier said than done. However, the problem
of treat inflation must bebalanced against someevidence shatincreasing
exposure to terrorist attacks (or the threat of such attagks) may increase
public opinion in favour of ‘get tough’ policies often associated with con-
servative or right-wing parties (Getmansky and Zeitzoff, 2014), which
can put pressure on public stakeholders responsible for counter-terrorism.
Finally, we should note that terrorist organizations tend to have a fairly
 Terrorism 187

short life span; according to one study (Rapoport, 1992),20 per cent
of terrorist organizations are active for less than one year; of those that
Tast for more than a year, more than half disappear Within a decade.
Although some more recent organizations, such as Islamic State, might
demonstrate greater staying power, the odds that any single group will
persist as a major global threat are still extremely low given the counter-
terror resources now available to many states in the aftermath of 9/11
and the tower degre e support for terrorism ompared to the
Co ar era.
———

Interests and preferences

Given the difficulties associated with analysing terrorists as flawed or even
pathological individuals, it is possible to make more progress if we focus
sis of terrorist organizations, and on their political
goals. One critical debate regarding this issue is whether terrorism actually
works as a political tactic, and here it is important to recognize that ter-
rorist organizations, like states and other major stakeholders, have both
external and internal interests. External interests are oriented towards the
political targets of the terrorist attacks, such as changes in the policies of
a specific national government, and can influence a group’s decision to
pursue smaller-scale terrorist attacks rather than more violent guerrilla
warfare campaigns (Carter, 2016).).Internal interests are oriented towards
the needs of the organization itself, which in most cases simply means
the desire to keep the ‘movement’ alive as a political force and, in doing
so, outlast its political opponents. This latter objective is a key feature of
terrorist campaigns and insurgencies, and many analysts fail to recognize
that as long as the movement is alive and threatening, it is arguably ‘win-
ning’ as a political force no matter how much the authorities may claim
otherwise. Most studies of the effectiveness of terrorism therefore focus
on its external objectives, and although some scholars continue to assert
that terrorism ‘does not work’ (Abrahms, 2006; Fortna, 2015), others
argue that terrorism can in fact result in significant political concessions
by the target governments (Pape, 2005a; Kydd and Walter, 2006), which is
precisely why it persists. The fact that the state of Israel was created after
series of terrorist_attacks by vario wi sa ritish
in Palestine is just_one critical example_of how terrorist campaigns can
ac olitical obj
More specifically, the preferences of most terrorist organizations tend
to cluster around-fWve priorities: regime change, territorial chan iC
schange, socialcontrolandmaintenance [Link] change
(sometimes known as revolutionary terrorism) involves a replacement of
a government with one favoured by the terrorist organization; territo-
rial change involves the creation of new state boundaries, or even a new
188 International Security .
re ee ee

state, favouring the terrorist organization; policy change involves less

dramatic political demands, such as the withdrawal of US forces from
various places in the Middle East or the [Link] certain prisoners; social
control involves enhancing the dominance of individuals by the terrorist
organization; and status quo maintenance involves support for an existing
regime, territorial arrangement or set of policies against any stakeholders
who seek to change it (Kydd and Walter, 2006). Some groups may pursue
several of these goals at once, which further complicates the question of
whether any single terrorist group is effective or not: for example, it may
be effective in facilitating policy change but not regime change.
This is why al-Qaeda is so difficult to evaluate as a political threat; some
observers claim it Secksinaton Cranetee while
others argue that it wants to provoke an apocalyptic, existential struggle
between the West and the Islamic world, which justifies an equally dramatic
response by the West. Specific concerns of al-Qaeda and most Islamist ter-
rorist groups about American ‘offences’ include: its military presence in the
Middle East, which is blasphemous in their eyes; its bias towards Israel at
the expense of the Palestinians; its support for a range of corrupt and often
authoritarian regimes in the Muslim world; its destruction of Afghanistan
and Iraq; its subordination of the Muslim world to the interests of the US
and its allies; its attempts to maintain cheap and steady flows of oil from
Muslim states and its willingness to tolerate or inflict deaths in the Muslim
world, as in Chechnya, Kashmir, Indonesia, Nigeria, Uzbekistan, the Phil-
ippines, the Xinjiang province in China and elsewhere (Anonymous, 2002;
Benjamin and Simon, 2002; Berger, 2002). As more than one observer has
noted, this list ‘is not completely baseless’ (Byman, 2003), and the US might
want to reconsider some or all of these policies in an effort to combat ter-
rorism. However, such an agreement, whether tacit or explicit, would also
require al-Qaeda to determine which of its own goals are non-negotiable,
and then to modify, if not abandon, them. Such a move might also fatally
weaken the movement itself, which might be unacceptable to its grass-roots
supporters. In fact, such a deal would almost certainly create a range of
more extreme splinter groups, as has happened with several other major
terrorist groups. Islamic State is just one example of such an_al-Qaeda
splinter Broup, and has arguably achieved a higher status than al-Qaeda as
a major threat in Syria and Iraq, as noted in Chapter S.
As always, preferences also can change depending on the response of
targets and other factors, such as political windows of opportunity that
might allow a terrorist organization to increase its status. Examples of
groups with these various types of goals are summarized in Table 7.1.
Thus, of the 42 groups designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations
(FTOs) by the US State Department in 2005, 31 sought regime change,
sought
territorial-change,
19 four sought policy change and one sought to
“maintain the status quo (Kydd and Walter, 2006).
 Terrorism 189

Table 7.1 Major goals of terrorist organizations, with examples

Regime change FLN (Algeria); Shining Path (Peru)

Territory change LITE (Sri Lanka); Irish Republican Army
(Northern Ireland)
Policy change al-Qaeda (global)
Social control Ku Klux Klan (US); anti-abortion terrorists (US);
Taliban militants
Status quo maintenance United Self-Defense Forces (Colombia);
Ulster Defence Forces (Northern Ireland)

Source: Adapted from material in Kydd and Walter (2006).

Finally, we must note the interests and preferences of counter-terror

stakeholders. As always, these can vary widely, even among the main
political targets of terrorists: national governments. Some government
interests are more narrowly constructed, such as stopping the attacks
and protecting lives and property, while others might be much broader in
scope, such as completely eliminating the terrorists and their sympathiz-
ers as a political force. To protect these interests, however, governments
have increasingly debated the appropriate policy preferences, which can
involve virtually all the power resources of the state: rhetorical, legal, eco-
nomic, police and military. Moreover, the citizens they mean to protect
often expect counter-terror officials to use all resources necessary to stop
the attacks and bring the terrorists to justice, which can give officials an
unprecedented amount of leeway when deciding how to respond. This
tendency regarding the perceived nature of the terrorist threat brings us to
the next element in our analysis: preferences about the use of force.

The use of force

To be defined as such, terrorist organizations obviously see the use of
force, mainly against civilians, as necessary to achieve their objectives,
particularly when matched against the superior resources of states. As
noted above, one problem in the analysis of terrorism is the tendency to
confuse the tactical use of force with the strategic political interests or
“preferences of terrorists. As a tactic, force can be used by terrorists for a
variety of purposes, for example to: sow fear, send a message (‘political
theatre’ or the ‘propaganda of the deed’), exact concessions, build morale,
advertise for recruits and supporters, disrupt order, provoke repression,
discredit authority, exact revenge or enforce obedience (Crenshaw, 1981).
However, acts of terrorism may be more effectively analysed in terms of
190 International Security
si SO a Eh a a ee

their strategic political ends, which mainly involve influencing two pri-
mary audiences:-their own supporters or'sympathizers, and the stakehola-
ers whose behaviour they hope to influence. Accomplishing these goals
simultaneously usually requires a strategy of attrition, where the terror-
ist organization attempts to survive while demonstrating its ability and
willingness to attack its target indefinitely, which, in principle, will raise
the cost of non-compliance on the part of the target government to unac-
ceptable levels.
If terrorists are willing to use deadly force against both civilians and
state stakeholders to attain their objectives, the same cannot always be said
regarding their political opponents, who must decide whether these highly
visible tactics require an equally forceful response. In fact, the history of
counter-terrorism shows that the response to terrorism can take a variety
of forms and produce a variety of outcomes. As with the discussion about
civil war in Chapter 5, the main targets of t ism — usually national
governments — have a choice: whether to negotiate with the terrorists or
to attack them with various degrees of force. This is a crucial decision, for
lati itimi olitical interests of
the terrorists, and even the terrorists themselves, in the view of the public
and other stakeholders, such as foreign observers. This process may then
make it difficult for the government to resort to force or to discredit the
political goals of the terrorists. The first rule of US counter-terror policy,
for example, is to make no concessions and strike no deals, and many
other advanced states that suffer from terrorist attacks also seem to share
this view. However, the reality is much more complicated, and states, even
the US, have been known to make deals with or otherwise comply with the
demands of terrorists, either implicitly or explicitly (Bapat, 2006). Equally
controversial is the recent resort by some states, such as the US and the UK,
to adopt certain policies as noted above, such as extraordinary rendition
and torture, to gain intelligence about future attacks.

Public—private domains and levels ofjurisdiction

One very interesting but often overlooked aspect of terrorism, and counter-
terrorism, is the simple fact that most targets of terrorist attacks (not the
targets of their political goals) are actually private in nature, mainly firms
such as foreign-owned businesses. This ‘achecanseiauchmalsers are much
‘softer’ than the hardened facilities controlled by states, such as embassies
and military bases. Thus, the first responders here, as with other con-
temporary threats to international security like infectious disease, are
typically private stakeholders rather than public officials. In other words,

second line of defence might often be S OF secur s hired by the

state or private stakeholders, plus larger paramilitary units composed of
 Terrorism 191

private citizens who take up arms to defend their local territories against
the acts of terrorist organizations (Pelton, 2007). As with our discussion of
rebel movements in Chapter 5, terrorism and counter-terrorism activities
often occur in the increasingly complicated grey area between ‘purely pub-
lic’ and ‘purely private’ domains, which is precisely why such movements
can be so difficult to defeat with normal legal and police methods. This
task becomes even more difficult if the terroris elves ca it or
draw support Seo esl anise eae rma ei
Klux Klan in the American South, or if, conversely, the terrorists explicitly
target the judicial officials and witnesses who attempt to bring them to
justice using legal means, as occurs with various narco-terrorist groups, as
well as organized criminals, in Colombia and elsewhere.
These considerations regarding counter-terror campaigns further com-
plicate the issue of determining an appropriate jurisdiction, whether
domestically or internationally. At the domestic level, local officials might
be either sympathetic to, or direct targets of, terrorist campaigns, which
might require greater national or federal attention to the problem. Things
become even more complicated at the international level when multi-
ple states attempt to coordinate their activities. Assuming a formal legal
approach is adopted, states are typically expected to comply with bilat-
eral extradition treaties or even broader mutual legal assistance treaties
(MLATs), which can be very difficult to negotiate and which might not
always be in place, particularly between states with difficult diplomatic
relationships, such as the US and Libya. This is precisely why some states,
including the US, are so easily tempted to bypass formal legal measures
altogether and kidnap and even torture their suspects, or allow them to
be interrogated and tortured in third countries such as Egypt or Pakistan,
rather than pursue a frustrating, time-consuming and possibly unsuc-
cessful extradition request (Gourevitch and Morris, 2008; Sands, 2008).
Other states have pursued equally questionable tactics, such as the UK’s
unsuccessful attempt in 2005 to allow its police to hold terror suspects for
up to 90 days without charging them, as well as a similar attempt in 2007
to extend the limit to 42 days; this type of extensive grant of state power
was rejected by Parliament in favour of maintaining the current limit of
28 days without charge, which is still the highest legal limit for detention
without charge in the Western world, where most states have a limit of
less than a week.

International terrorism as a policy problem

Based on the considerations above, it should be clear by now that analys-

ing terrorism as an international security problem is extremely complicated
and contentious,
eine
even if the actual threat in terms of
Ey
damage to lives or
192 International Security

property is small relative to other major threats. It also should be clear that
the main threat posed by terrorism, in fact, is precisely to the legitimacy and
au i tates themselves, rather than to other referent objects such as
lives and property. Thus, even though states may agree on the need to pre-
vent the physical damage created by terrorism, they may strongly disagree
about whether terrorism poses an existential threat to their national inter-
ests. This tendency in turn then undermines the potential for international
counter-terrorism cooperation, as we shall see throughout this section.

Agenda-setting
The problem of terrorism in general has been on the international security
agenda since the early 1970s, yet attention to specific groups or targets
can vary widely depending on the context. Obviously the most overt and
direct aspect of agenda-setting involves the choice of targets made by the
terrorist organizations themselves; some states clearly suffer more than
others from terrorism and therefore will adopt a different view about it.
The degree of official international attention to certain terrorist groups
also varies in terms of whether they are viewed as domestic or transna-
tional/international terrorist organizations. In other words, then, there is
still some contention over whether terrorism is really an international or
more regional/local threat.
Duri old War, for example, the US and its allies were especially
concerned with state-sponsored terrorism c e
communist world in general 0 Soviet Union and its allies in particular.
For terrorist groups that were not directly linked to communist activities,
such as the IRA in Northern Ireland, the US took a much more passive
view, even as its own allies such as the UK were struggling to defeat such
groups. This situation has changed to some degree in the years since Qigas
which encouraged the Bush administration to put counter-terrorism at the
top ofthe contin Re
— the US and its major allies, the UN and the EU for example — all include
terrorism as one of their top security priorities, there is still a high degree
of contention over the best way to counter that threat.
One way around this problem is simply to identify and focus on the spe-
cific foreign terrorist_or anizations (FTOs)_as the main targets of global
policy, = then encourage other major global stakeholders to bring the
individuals associated with those organizations to justice. The US in par-
ticular does this through its annual official designation of FTOs. The most
recent such list of 59 FTOs is given in Table 7,2; this is an increase of
about 30 per cent relative to the list of 45 FTOs released in 2009:
These FTOs vary extremely widely in terms of how lethal they are; some
groups, such as the Revolutionary Nuclei in Greece, have been responsible
for just a few attacks or deaths. As a result, they do not receive an equal
 Terrorism 193

amount of attention by the major international stakeholders, yet the regu-

lar updating of a list such as this — as well as securing some international
consensus regarding the inclusion of certain groups on it — is a necessary
first step down the path of effective international counter-terrorism coop-
eration. As the majority of the groups on this list are Muslim-related, and
as nearly all of the new groups identified sinc are Muslim as well,
this type of terrorism naturally receives the bulk of attention by most
policy-makers and scholars. A second step along these same lines involves
the identification of state sponsors of terrorism, another US priority that
has resulted in some cooperation by other like-minded states even though
some have questioned whether such state ‘sponsorship’ actually helps
terrorist groups survive (Carter, 2012) or why it occurs at all (Salehyan,
Gleditsch and Cunningham, 2011). Even so, this designation makes it eas-
ier for state targets of terrorism to impose sanctions on other states as a
way of deterring their support for terrorist activities. Currently, only Iran,
Sudan_and Syria are designated as state sponsors of terrorism; Afghani-
stan and Pakistan were considered for the list before 9/11 but were not
included, while Iraq was on the list before the 2003 US attack on that state
and has been taken off it since then, as have Libya (2006), North Korea
(2008) and Cuba (2015).

Framing policy alternatives

Assuming there is some agreement on the main FTOs and state sponsors
to be targeted, which is not always the case, the question then turns to
the tension between unilateral and multilateral responses, as well as the
related problem of what policy instruments should be deployed. If ter-
rorism really is a global threat, as most major powers and IOs agree it
is, then it must require multilateral efforts to combat it. And it most cer-
tainly would benefit from a combination of passive/defensive measures and
active/offensive measures given the overall complexity of the phenomenon.
Most states in fact have enacted a wide range of defensive measures since
9/11, such as hardening potential targets, improving passenger screening
at transportation facilities, working to deny dangerous weapons or materi-
als to terrorists, issuing travel warnings to certain states, training civilian
first responders to deal with terror incidents and enhancing public-private
cooperation. There is relatively little discord regarding these approaches at
the international level of analysis and they will not be considered further
here, although the issue_of airline passenger data privacy has provoked
ome transatlantic tension (along with some aspects of cybersecurity; see
Chapter 8). The situation becomes far more difficult regarding efforts to
improve multilateral counter-terror cooperation, and/or to enact more
offensive measures, given the diffuse and varied nature of the threat. Thus,
although multilateral cooperation on terrorism-related issues has existed
194 International Security

Table 7.2 US-designated foreign terrorist organizations, 2016

Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations

Month/Year Designated Name

10/1997 Abu Nidal Organization (ANO)

10/1997 Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG)
10/1997 Aum Shinrikyo (AUM)
10/1997 Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA) —
10/1997 Gama’a al-Islamiyya (Islamic Group) (IG)
10/1997 HAMAS
10/1997 Harakat ul-Mujahidin (HUM)
10/1997 Hizballah
10/1997 Kahane Chai (Kach)
10/1997 Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) (Kongra-Gel)
10/1997 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
10/1997 National Liberation Army (ELN)
10/1997 Palestine Liberation Front (PLF)
10/1997 Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)
10/1997 Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLF)
10/1997 PFLP-General Command (PFLP-GC)
10/1997 Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
10/1997 esi iat People’s Liberation Party/Front

10/1997 Shining Path (SL)

10/1999 al-Qa’ida (AQ)
9/2000 Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU)
5/2001 Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA) 2
12/2001 Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM)
12/2001 Lashkar-e Tayyiba (LeT)
3/2002 Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (AAMB)
3/2002 Asbat al-Ansar (AAA)
3/2002 al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)
8/2002 A CEE NE of the Sy People’s

Ls ey eat be gl lt ae ae aa Tg en
 Terrorism 195

10/2002 Jemaah Islamiya (JI)

1/2003 Lashkar i Jhangvi (LJ)
3/2004 Ansar al-Islam (AAI)
7/2004 Continuity Irish Republican Army (CIRA)
12/2004 Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (formerly
al-Qa’ida in Iraq)
6/2005 Islamic Jihad Union (IJU)
3/2008 Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami/Bangladesh (HUJI-B)
3/2008 al-Shabaab
5/2009 Revolutionary Struggle (RS)
7/2009 Kata’ib Hizballah (KH)
1/2010 al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)
8/2010 Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami (HUJI)
9/2010 Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP)
11/2010 Jundallah
5/2011 Army of Islam (AOI)
9/2011 Indian Mujahedeen (IM) ~
3/2012 Jemaah Anshorut Tauhid (JAT)
5/2012 Abdallah Azzam Brigades (AAB)
9/2012 Haqqani Network (HQN)
3/2013 Ansar al-Dine (AAD)
11/2013 Boko Haram
11/2013 Ansaru
12/2013 al-Mulathamun Battalion
1/2014 Ansar al-Shari’a in Benghazi
1/2014 Ansar al-Shari’a in Darnah
1/2014 Ansar al-Shari’a in Tunisia
4/2014 ISIL Sinai Province (formally Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis)
5/2014 al-Nusrah Front
8/2014 eta Council in the Environs of

9/2015 Jaysh Rijal al-Tariq al Naqshabandi (JRTN)

1/2016 ISIL-Khorasan (ISIL-K)

Source: US Department of State, Bureau of Counterterrorism.

 196 International Security

since the 1960s, until 9/11 these measures usually played a subordinate
role compared to the efforts made by certain states (particularly the major
powers) to deal with terrorist organizations that threatened them directly.
While a more unilateral legal approach is still in place for most major
states, since 9/11 the range of options has expanded considerably thanks
primarily, but not exclusively, to US leadership. There is now much more
multilateral cooperation against terrorism in general and against specific
terrorist activities, as we shall see in more detail in the discussion of policy
effectiveness, as well as the use of more aggressive policies to deal with ter-
rorism. These policies involve the greater use of military force to combat
terrorism, whether in the form of covert action oFOver TIry attacks,
including bombi ist training facilities, targeting individual terror-
ist suspects with aircraft or drone strikes (sometimes known as ‘decapita-
tion’ when terrorist leaders are targeted; see Jordan, 2009), and full-scale
invasion and oc ion, as with Afghanistan and Iraq. These methods
“also extend to the use of various extra-legal if not illegal measures, such as
extraordinary rendition, torture and the imprisonment — without charge or
trial — of terrorist suspects. Israel has also used such measures in attempt-
ing to stop terrorism campaigns, and has even resorted to the indiscrimi-
nate bombing of civilian populations during the 2006 war in Lebanon
against ollah) and the 2008-9 war in Gaza (against Hamas). The
efeat in Sri Lanka of the LTTE in 2009 also involved a high civilian
death toll, while 300,000 others were left homeless. Taken together, these
measures clearly indicate that these states believe that terrorism deserves
the highest possible status, almost similar to interstate war, as a threat to
domestic and/or international security.
Some analysts have advocated more positive, though still proactive,
measures. One option is to negotiate to discourage terrorists from attack-
ing; this option is often highly contentious, especially in states that have
suffered from major terrorist campaigns. Another, and somewhat more
acceptable, suggestion is that governments try to avoid overreacting to
terrorism (Mueller, 2005; Kydd and Walter, 2006), even to the extent of
using government educati mes to explain why terrorism isnot
as threatening as the public might otherwise think it is. Some analysts
would apply such an approach to terrorism’s possible root causes; for
example, by undertaking a general ‘c offensive’ throughout the world
in general and the Muslim world in particular, whereby the US would
deliberately attempt to improve its image as a protector of human rights
and friend to Islam. This effort could be enhanced through related poli-
cies regarding development and humanitarian aid policies. Some further
advocate se of financial aid to states where terrorist roups operate,
which could function kind
of ‘Middle East Marshall Plan’ similar to
aeUScorto rebuilgence economies after - While these sug-
gestions are creative and potentially effective, they are difficult to
evaluate
since the US and its major allies, as targets of terrorism, have
very strong
 Terrorism 197

political incentives to inflate the terror threat and use more visible means
to deal with it rather than try these less aggressive, and supposedly less
well-proven, measures. These measures are also far too easily exploited
by opposition arties and leaders in democratic states, which is wh they
ages of academic articles rather than in formal
icy st ernment officials.

* Policy choice
We have seen that the nature of terrorism often encourages states, espe-
cially the major powers, to take matters into their own hands, typically
through the adoption of unilateral measures. This tendency also follows
from the fact that terrorists are highly selective when linking the targets
of their attacks to their political objectives. In other words, the terrorist
threat is quite discriminatory, so states vary widely in their vulnerability
to attacks by various groups. And most states are not prone to attacks by
any groups, a condition which may decrease their willingness to assume
the risks of joining a major counter-terror campaign. These factors, as
well as the diffuse nature of the entire war on terrorism, mean that there
is no dominant multilateral forum or approach to the problem. Instead, it
is dealt with on multiple fronts, with multiple tools and varying degrees of
commitment, and thus effectiveness, by the major players.
In terms of unilateral policies, some states with adequate power resources
will act almost with impunity to counteract terror attacks. Here the US has
clearly played a major role in enhancing the status of terrorism as a major
global threat, with much support by some of its key allies, such as Israel
and the UK. Among the advanced liberal democracies, most have tended
to adopt a more legal/judicial approach, which involves police forces, due
process of law and criminal trials. Before 9/11, for example, America’s offi-
cial counter-terrorism policy involved four elements: make no concessions
and strike no deals; bring terrorists to justice for their crimes (that is, the
prosecution and extradition of foreign suspects); isolate and apply pres-
sure on states that allow or sponsor terrorism to eliminate the safe havens
where terrorists hide out; and bolster the counter-terrorist capabilities of
states that cooperate with the US, which has led to the training of over
20,000 police and military officials in over 100 states.
This more legal approach also involves the payment of rewards for infor-
mation on terrorists, and the use of civil suits against state sponsors of
terrorism under the 1996 US Anti-Terrorism Law. To help stem the financ-
ing of terrorism, the US Treasury Department created a new Foreign Ter-
rorist Asset Tracking Center, which is linked to other measures regarding
money laundering (see Chapter 9). The threat of bioterrorism in light of the
anthrax attacks in the US after 9/11 has encouraged a greater role for pub-
lic health officials in counter-terror policies (see Chapter 12). Finally, the
US government quickly passed a controversial series of measures to permit
198 International Security

much greater counter-terror intelligence gathering within the US itself, in

the form of the 2001 USA Patriot Act. Although most of the Act’s provi-
sions were supposed to expire in 2005, nearly all of them were reauthor-
ized twice by Congress and the president until 2015; these mainly relate to
authority to conduct surveillance on various types of communications and
to stop terrorist-related money laundering. An even more serious expansion
of federal counter-terror authority, the 2006 Military Commissions Act,
would have allowed the detention and prosecution by military tribunals
(rather than criminal courts) of ‘unlawful enemy combatants’ in the US or
captured elsewhere. However, the Act was struck down as unconstitutional
by the US Supreme Court in 2008. In 2015 the USA Patriot Act itself was
replaced with the USA Freedom Act, which kept many of the same provi-
sions on surveillance but blocked the US National -Security Agency (NSA)
from conducting mass data collection activities (see Chapter 8).
In the UK, a legal response to terrorism has run into some difficulty in
recent years. In addition to the problems, noted above, with extending the
detention without charge period to 90 or 42 days, the British government
created a Special Immigration Appeal Commission (SIAC) to hear immigra-
tion cases involving a question of national security, namely terrorism. The
SIAC system allowed for detention without trial, but was ruled illegal in
2004; the current system of ‘control orders’ was created in 2005 to replace it
(a similar approach exists in Australia). Such control orders allow the use of
secret evidence to place terror suspects under what amounts to house arrest
for up to 24 hours a day, without a chance to defend themselves. However,
use of such secret evidence, or surveillance, informers and other forms of
intelligence that must not be compromised in the face of a public trial was
also ruled illegal in June 2009, so the government has struggled to find a way
to deal with such cases, which is why the 28-day detention scheme noted
above remains in effect. In 2011, the British government replaced control
orders with Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures, which essen-
tially involves many of the same powers.
The UK has also shown a clear willingness to negotiate with terrorist
groups, as with former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s offers of concessions
to the IRA and its political arm, Sinn Fein, in order to keep the 1998 Good
Friday Agreement peace process on track (Powell, 2008). This was the
first time a British prime minister had agreed to meet Sinn Fein’s leader-
ship since the 1920s, and the decision seems to have produced positive
results. The UK also worked with Libya (a former state sponsor of terror-
ism) prior to its civil war; the UK negotiated a prisoner transfer agreement
with that state and then released one of the Libyan bombers of Pan Am
flight 103 from prison in Scotland. Although the UK and Scottish govern-
ments claimed the decision to release and return Abdelbaset al-Megrahi to
Libya was made on compassionate grounds alone and not part of a larger
deal, it was still highly controversial as the Pan Am bombing had killed
 Terrorism 199

270 people (the majority of whom were Americans), and UK government

officials later admitted a link to a series of new oil and investment deals
between Libya and the UK. The UK was also heavily involved in the mili-
tary intervention in Libya in 2011, which is still an ongoing crisis.
Measures that are not ruled illegal in their home states are also coordinated
with America’s major allies, especially in the EU (Rees, 2006). For example,
all major IOs (including regional ones), as well as related diplomatic forums,
such as the annual G8 summits of the major powers, have discussed terrorism
as a problem and have issued resolutions and other policies regarding how
to combat it. At the international level, multilateral efforts have involved the
condemnation of various terrorist groups and acts in the form of UNSC reso-
lutions, plus specific treaties devoted to certain types of terrorist activities. As
noted above, although a general UN Global Strategy on Counter-Terrorism
was approved in 2006, a stronger UN-sponsored Comprehensive Convention
on International Terrorism has run into difficulties because of disputes about
distinguishing (for example) terrorists from liberation movements. Instead,
most multilateral counter-terror cooperation attempts to target violent or
criminal behaviours rather than the terrorist groups themselves, or indeed,
the very idea of terror as a political tactic (the ‘War on Terror’, see Box 7.4).
Some of the more important such measures are summarized in Box 7.2.

Box 7.2 Major international treaties pertaining to

the subject of international terrorism
International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), Convention on Offences
and Certain Other Acts Committed on Board Aircraft.
ICAO Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft.
ICAO Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety
of Civil Aviation.
UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Inter-
nationally Protected Persons, Including Diplomats.
UN Convention Against the Taking of Hostages.
International Atomic Energy Agency, Convention on the Physical Protection
of Nuclear Material.
ICAO Protocol for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts of Violence at Airports
Serving International Civil Aviation.
International Maritime Organization (IMO), Convention for the Suppres-
sion of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation.
IMO Protocol for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of
Fixed Platforms Located on the Continental Shelf.
ICAO Convention on the Marking of Plastic Explosives for the Purpose of
Detection.
UN International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings.
UN Convention on the Suppression of Financing of Terrorism.
200 International Security
v

As we can see, these efforts not only target terrorist acts, but also some of
the materials/weapons and support infrastructure that make terrorism pos-
sible. This strategy is very similar in [Link] the fight against transnational
organized crime, as we shall see in Chapter 9. -
We can also see various complementary efforts by regional IOs to man-
age the threat of terrorism, as summarized in Box 7.3.
Most recently, the US, NATO and the EU are cooperating against ter-
rorism, as part of a broader agenda to confront organized crime, data
protection issues, travel security and other transnational security prob-
lems. While all of these multilateral efforts are admirable, they generally
represent a kind of ‘middle ground’ consensus position regarding how
to organize international counter-terrorism cooperation. They also must
be considered in light of more aggressive measures (the War on Terror)
already noted, as well as the use of bargaining or concessions vis-a-vis
terrorist organizations, which often takes place on more minor issues,
although this usually is not admitted publicly (Sederberg, 1995). Taken
together, these measures clearly reveal a fairly high degree of global oppo-
sition to certain terrorist acts, such as bombing and hijacking, but much
less consensus regarding how to deal with the root causes or specific polit-
ical goals of terrorists.

Box 7.3 Regional counter-terror agreements

League of Arab States, Arab Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism.
Organization of the Islamic Conference, Convention on Combating Inter-
national Terrorism, __ : Coe
Council of Europe, European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism.
Council of Europe Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confis-
cation of the Proceeds from Crime and onthe Financing of Terrorism, _
Organization of American States, Convention to Prevent and Punish the
Acts of Terrorism Taking the Form of Crimes against Persons and
Related Extortion that are of International Significance.
African Union (formerly Organization of African Unity), Convention on the
Prevention and Combating of Terrorism.
South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, Regional Convention
on Suppression of Terrorism.
Commonwealth of Independent States, Treaty on Cooperation among the
States Members of the Commonwealth of Independent States in Com-
bating Terrorism. ne
EU Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ): Multiple and compre-
_ hensive measures to deal with terrorism, organized crime and similar
transnational threats in the area of Justice and Home Affairs, including
the creation of an EU-wide arrest warrant and a European Police Office
(Europol) after 1992.
 Terrorism 201

The politics of policy effectiveness

With such a high degree of discord regarding the nature of international

terrorism as a global security threat, it is not surprising that policy effec-
tiveness is equally difficult to evaluate. Beyond the problems noted above,
there is a fairly high degree of both voluntary and involuntary defection
regarding various domestic and international counter-terror policies.
Voluntary defection is most prominent in the form of disputes among
states and other stakeholders regarding whether to give terrorism a high
priority as an existential threat, even though they may agree on vari-
ous conventions and treaties about specific terrorist or criminal acts, as
noted above. Involuntary defection is always more difficult to evaluate,
yet we should be aware that some states simply do not have the financial,
administrative and other resources to implement various counter-terror
treaties, even though they may agree with them in principle. Even where
they have such resources, other policy goals, such as economic develop-
ment or public health, might take priority over the fight against terror-
ism. This is not just a problem for poor and less developed states; in
fact, one of the most striking aspects of counter-terror policy is the high
degree of involuntary defection among developed states owing to not
just a lack of resources or political attention, but also to organizational
politics and fragmentation across a number of law enforcement, military
and other agencies.
In the US, for example, counter-terrorism policy is supposed to be coor-
dinated by the National Security Council, but most major US agencies,
both domestic and foreign, have their own offices or desks devoted to
this topic, and they do not always cooperate. Domestic counter-terrorism
investigations are supposed to be handled by the FBI, while the State
Department and the CIA handle foreign ones. Large US police depart-
ments, such as the New York Police Department, also have their own
counter-terror capabilities. In addition, some agencies are devoted to “secu-
rity’ affairs while others are devoted to ‘disaster management’ or ‘emer-
gency response’ (Falkenrath, 2001). These divisions beg the question:
which agency is responsible for investigating or responding if a foreign
group (such as al-Qaeda) plans or executes a domestic terrorist attack in
the US? This is why 9/11 served as a major ‘wake-up call’ and led directly
to the creation of a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and brought
together many security-related agencies scattered across the US govern-
ment (Flynn, 2004; Shenon, 2008). However, the DHS does not possess
its own intelligence capacity, while the FBI and CIA still exist as separate
agencies and possess their original mandates. Thus, if the main leader of
the War on Terror cannot organize itself very effectively to deal with this
threat, then it can hardly expect other states, especially less developed
ones, to do much better.
 202 International Security

OKAY AL QAEDA... WE WILL CHase YoU To THE ENOs

OF THE EARTH AND NO MATTER WHAT IMPOVERISHED
DYSFUNCTIONAL NATION YOU HIDE IN, WE WILL INVADE ANb
START COUNTER INSURGENCY AND TRY TO RESTRUCTURE THEIR
WHOLE Society AGAINST ALL ODDS, REGARDLESS OF COsTs.....
| MP rs ere

UmveRIAL. ViAicn ARE WE DYSFUNCTIONAL

ENOUGH TO HIDE IN GET? — Lyep

The never-ending War on Terror, thanks to a single massive attack against -

the US. oe

The terrorist attacks against the US on 11 September 2001 represent a

major turning point in international security, in terms of the nature of the
destruction but also America’s response. Prior to 9/11, terrorism was merely
one among a range of threats facing the US, and was overshadowed by |
other concerns, such as civil wars and the rise of China. In addition, the US
often adopted an inconsistent view of terrorist/insurgent groups, especially
during the Cold War if they took the form of anti-communist movements. _
Finally, America’s approach to domestic (or ‘homeland’) security was highly
fragmented, which may have undermined the possibility of predicting 9/11
despite several al-Qaeda attacks against US targets in the 1990s, including
©
one at the World Trade Center (WTC) (Zegart 2007),
=

The UK’s response is somewhat better coordinated by its long-standing

(since 1909) domestic security service, MIS, and its subordinate agency,
the
Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre. Even then these agencies must
compete to
some degree with MI6 (the Secret Intelligence Service), the Metropo
litan
 Terrorism 203

These views changed dramatically after the 9/11 attacks, which took
the form
of an extraordinary day-long global spectacle on live televi-
| sion, beginning at 8:46 a.m. when the first aircraft flew into Building
1 of the WTC. The drama did not end until 5:21 p.m., when Building
7 of the World Trade Center collapsed. The entire day was filled with
terror in the air and on land as three aircraft hit their targets on the
ground (including the Pentagon), the Twin Towers of the WTC collapsed
and a fourth aircraft — United Airlines Flight 93 — was crashed in a field
after its passengers confronted their hijackers. With nearly 3,000 dead
victims, 9/11 remains the deadliest terrorist attack in history, and it pro-
voked an equally forceful response by the US. This involved domestic
and foreign components, starting with the creation of the DHS and the
adoption of extensive surveillance/spying measures as noted in the main
text (also see Chapter 8). Internationally, the US first invaded Afghani-
stan to pursue al-Qaeda’s leader, Osama bin Laden (‘Operation Enduring
Freedom-Afghanistan’) and then extended its campaign across the globe:
to the Philippines, the Horn of Africa, into Asia and the Middle East and
eventually to more than 80 countries. The US also requested help from
its NATO allies under Article V for the first time, and they responded in
various ways.
The CIA was given a central role in coordinating this campaign, and it
quickly became apparent that highly controversial, if not completely ille-
gal, measures, such as assassinations, kidnapping (‘extraordinary rendi-
tion’), torture and detention without charge were being used. These acts
undoubtedly inspired other Muslims to join the fight against the US, which
is precisely the kind of outcome many terrorists hope to achieve. America
also invaded Iraq in 2003 partly out of fear that terrorists might obtain
WMD from that country; this act quickly destabilized the entire region
and provided more recruits for al-Qaeda. Thus, while the US has not (so
far) suffered another major attack similar to 9/11, many other al-Qaeda
attacks have taken place around the world since then, while hundreds of
thousands of civilians have been killed in Iraq and beyond. And although
bin Laden himself was killed by US forces in 2011, al-Qaeda has splintered
into, or inspired, many other extremist groups around the world, such as
Boko Haram and Islamic State. These trends indicate that while America’s
War on Terror clearly represents a major change in security strategy by the
world’s leading military power, the need for that campaign, the effective-
ness of that campaign, and its definition of ‘victory’ when (or if) it ends,
will remain contested issues for years to come (Anderson, 2004; Mueller
and Stewart, 2012).

Police of London (Scotland Yard), the City of London Police, the new
National Crime Agency (which replaced the Serious Organised Crime
Agency, or SOCA; see Chapter 9) and other bodies. Both the US and the
UK have also been criticized for their creation of a jointly aligned public
204 International Security

terror threat notification system. The US/UK terrorism threat levels (or US
Homeland Security Advisory System) are:
GREEN Low (US/UK) ~ an attack is unlikely
BLUE Guarded (US)/Moderate (UK)- an attack is possible, but
not likely
YELLOW Elevated (US)/Substantial (UK) - an attack is a strong
possibility
ORANGE _ High (US)/Severe (UK) - an attack is highly likely
RED Severe (US)/Critical (UK) - an attack is expected imminently
Beyond the obvious difficulty of distinguishing clearly between these
levels (such as the use of the term ‘severe’ at two different levels of threat
in the US and UK, and the fact that an attack is always possible, so that
the Green or low level is unnecessary), the data and criteria on which
threat level decisions are made are not available to the public and there-
fore do not inspire any confidence. In fact, the two lowest levels have
never been used in either the US or the UK since the system was created
(2002 in the US and 2006 in the UK). The system thus seemed tailor-made
for sowing fear (at best) or ridicule (at worst) among civilian populations,
and could easily be used to distract attention from other political prob-
lems. In response, it was replaced in the US in 2011 with a simpler, but not
necessarily more useful, National Terrorism Advisory System, which only
issues threat warnings when it has specific, credible information. If so, the
system uses only three categories of threat: ‘elevated’, ‘intermediate’, and
‘imminent’. The UK, however, continues to rely on the earlier five-level
warning system.
Taking a closer look at various measures of policy effectiveness, a total
victory standard against terrorism as a general threat clearly would pro-
duce a disappointing result if we take a global perspective (the War on
Terror). The simple fact that the US itself has been at an elevated threat
level or higher since 2002 clearly indicates what little overall progress has
been made in this area. As noted above, we have also seen a prolifera-
tion of Islamic-related terrorist groups well beyond al-Qaeda in the past
decade, operating across a much wider geographic scope (such as Africa).
However, a number of individual terrorist organizations have diminished
as major threats as a result of a variety of factors, only some of which
actually involve policy initiatives by the global community. In fact, there
are at least seven basic reasons why a terrorist organization would cease
to exist as such: the capture or death of its leader; failure of transition
to the next generation; achievement of the group’s aims; transition to a
legitimate political process (typically involving negotiations); undermin-
ing of popular support; repression; and transition from terrorism to other
forms of violence, whether of lesser intensity (crime) or greater intensity
(insurgency or warfare) (Cronin, 2006). These factors are not mutually
 Terrorism 205

Table 7.3 The demise of terrorist organizations

Key factors Examples

Capture/kill leader(s) Shining Path, Kurdistan Worker’s Party, Real IRA

Failed generational Red Brigades, Weather Underground, Red Army
transition Faction, Aryan Resistance Army
Achievement of the cause _Irgun/Stern Gang, African National Congress
Transition to a legitimate Provisional IRA, PLO, Moro Islamic Liberation Front
political process
Loss of popular support Real IRA, Basque Homeland and Freedom (ETA),
Shining:Path
Repression People’s Will, Shining Path, Kurdistan Worker’s Party,
J Ba
Bl
Transition out of terrorism
to criminality Abu Sayyaf, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
to insurgency Khmer Rouge, Guatemalan Labour Party, Armed
Islamic Group (Algeria)

Source: Adapted from Cronin (2006).

exclusive, of course, and experiencing more than one of them can quickly
bring a group to an end, as happened with Shining Path in Peru. This
example and others are summarized in Table 7.3.
These examples clearly indicate it is possible to reduce or eliminate
the threat posed by specific groups. This aim is most likely to be achieved
by adopting a multifaceted as well as multilateral counter-terror strat-
egy targeted at the vulnerabilities of specific groups, which can vary quite
widely. The decentralized terrorist network al-Qaeda, for example, did
not disappear following the May 2011 killing of its main leader, Osama
bin Laden, by US forces in Pakistan. However, a more hierarchical organi-
zation based on the charisma or personality of a single leader (such as
Abimael Guzman of Shining Path) may suffer greatly after his/her death or
capture, and scholars are currently debating about the true effectiveness of
a ‘decapitation’ strategy that targets top terrorist leaders (Jordan, 2009;
Johnston, 2012; Price, 2012; Jordan, 2014; Long, 2014).
A historical trends standard of effectiveness is equally mixed if recent
years are any guide. The evidence indicates that terrorist attacks have not
declined in the post-Cold War era; they are in fact either holding steady
or on the rise in some parts of the world. Similarly, while the former
Director of the CIA, General Michael Hayden, might point to a decline
in attacks by a specific group in a specific state, such as those of al-Qaeda
206 International Security
v

in Iraq following the US military surge after 2007, this must be balanced
against evidence of a corresponding rise in activity in Afghanistan, North
Africa, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Nigeria,\Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Yemen
and elsewhere. As always, baseline figures for calculating these changes
are not easily agreed, and when they are, they must be analysed in light of
trends elsewhere, whether positive or negative, that would provide a true
net assessment of the impact of any given policy. Similarly, if one defines
Islamic State as a terrorist group rather than as a nationalist/insurgent
movement, then the number ofterror attacks rises much higher, especially
those involving small groups or individual ‘supporters’. Attacks of this
type have increased since 2013, and have occurred in countries ranging
across the globe, including the US and several states in Europe (particularly
Belgium, France and Turkey). A single attack such as this, the November
2015 attack in Paris by supporters of Islamic State, killed 130 people.
Moreover, and as with statistics on casualties of war, the suppression
or manipulation of data regarding terrorism trends by government offi-
cials seriously calls into question the use of any random benchmarking
approaches for the purposes of demonstrating the supposed effectiveness of
counter-terror policies. The same holds true for counterfactual approaches,
such as arguing that the absence of a terrorist attack in a given state is
due to the policies of the government rather than to other factors, as the
Bush administration claimed during its final months in office, and as the
UK government has claimed when attempting to give its police authorities
more power, as occurred after the discovery in 2006 of an alleged plot to
bomb UK airports. The only clear evidence of such government proactive
counter-terror influence involves the arrest and successful prosecution of
individuals who were actively planning an attack, as with the UK’s convic-
tion in September 2009 of the group intending to blow up several aero-
planes using liquid explosives concealed in drinks bottles.
Finally, the comparative metrics standard can be equally problematic
since there are no such common standards regarding counter-terror policy.
One standard, for example, might involve whether any terror attacks have
involved WMD; since this has not been the case, except for one or two iso-
lated examples, we could say that counter-terrorism cooperation is work-
ing well. Similarly, the US could use its own metric for success and argue
that its policies have been working as there have been no major terrorist
attacks on its soil since 9/11, as some Bush administration officials, such
as Vice President Dick Cheney, asserted on leaving office. Although this
approach is certainly appealing to the domestic US audience, it ignores
the major terror attacks in other places (London, Madrid, Bali, Mum-
bai, Paris, Istanbul-and so on) that have taken place since the War on
Terror was initiated. This focus on major attacks also downplays several
‘lone wolf? type incidents in the US and elsewhere (or ‘home-grown terror-
ism’; Brooks, 2011), such as the mass murders by armed attackers
in San
 Terrorism 207

Bernardino in 2015 (14 killed) and Orlando in 2016 (49 killed). In addi-
tion, using the absence of ‘major’ attacks on US soil as positive affirmation
of the success of a global War on Terror is extremely selfish if not outright
callous, especially in light of the many thousands killed in Africa and the
Middle East, and hundreds more in Europe noted above, since the rise of
Islamic State in particular. This kind of attitude does suggest, however,
that ‘all politics is local’, even in international security affairs.
Finally, these ‘positive’ metrics can easily be countered with other met-
rics, such as the nature of various terrorist groups: their strength in numbers
and resources, what kind of support base they have, and whether these
figures are trending upwards or downwards. Where reliable data exist on
these matters, which is not always the case, they can easily counterbalance
any claims that terrorism has declined as a threat simply because terror-
ists have never launched a major chemical, biological, nuclear or radiation
attack, or because the US has not suffered a large-scale terrorist attack in
recent years. As noted earlier, the only clear way to use comparative metrics
is to identify specific groups that have declined or disappeared as a result of
counter-terror policies (or related factors), and hope that other groups will
not rise to take their place, as seems to have happened with the emergence
of the Continuity IRA as a faction of the Real IRA, which itself split off
from the Provisional IRA —- which split from the Official IRA in 1969.

Summary
Two major trends are evident regarding the nature of international terror-
ism as a threat and as a policy target. As a threat, international terrorism
clearly has received a large, even disproportio share of attention ever
since the 9/11 attacks in the US, thanks primarily to America’s influence.
As a policy target, it is also clear that America’s own W. r rheto-
ric has been widely criticized, if not completely discredited, in light of the
more Meee eee ag eeog Leer RTT yok (some of
which, such as drone strikes, have been greatly expanded by the Obama
administration). More thoughtful political leaders seem to realize how
important it is to clearly analyse the threat rather than be tempted to
overstate and attack it blindly for political gain, which is still an extremely
difficult temptation to avoid for most politicians in competitive electoral
systems. In using the ‘global War_on Terror’ language, the US created an
expectation that a decisive victory in this realm could virtually eliminate
terrorism as a security threat. This outcome is impossible based on the
current global distribution of political and economic power, especially if
the international community in general, and the US and its key allies in
particular, continue to combat terrorism with such an ad hoc approach
that tends to deal with its symptoms rather than its root political origins
208 International Security
v

and objectives. As we shall also see with America’s war on drugs in Chap-
ter 9, these terms can be very misleading as policy goals. It is similarly
confusing to conduct a war on a political tactic used by other stakehold-
ers besides terrorists, such as states, organized criminals, and even certain
political vandals or protesters such as anti-vivisection and anti-abortion
activists, who have been known to threaten or use violence.
Moreover, the aggressive use of military resources, as well as tactics
such as torture, rendition and detention without legal representation or
trial, only compounds the problem by creating a larger pool of terrorist
tecruits and sympathizers than otherwise might be the case. This fact has
been known at least since the French war against Algeria in the 1950s
when torture was used in an attempt to break the Algerian National Lib-
eration Front, yet was quickly forgotten in the aftermath of the Palestinian
intifada and the 9/11 attacks. It is also very worrisome that US/UK counter-
terror cooperation with such measures seems to ignore the already
highly negative reputations of each state in parts of the Middle East, as
with Britain’s promise of a Jewish homeland (through the 1917 Balfour
Declaration) on land that was 90 per cent Palestinian-controlled at the
time, and with forceful Anglo-American support for their oil interests in
the region after WWII (see Chapter 11). More recent Anglo-American
tolerance regarding Israel’s aggressive counter-terror tactics, which have
been responsible for the deaths and injuries of hundreds of civilians, also
suggests ignorance of the role of Jewish militants, such as Irgun and Lehi
(or the Stern Gang), who conducted terror/sabotage attacks against Brit-
ish forces in Palestine and helped bring about the creation of Israel in the
first place.
Such tactics can also undermine more legal or judicial methods (polic-
ing and jury trials), which is precisely what happened in a 2006 incident
when the US disrupted a British counter-terror case (Operation Overt) in
Pakistan by prematurely rounding up suspects before enough evidence
could be gathered to convict the suspects of a terror plot (Suskind, 2008).
All counter-terror efforts therefore must be based on the realization that
the potential pool of terrorists is not finite, and that misguided policies
to J ture one terrorist (or to attack large areas indiscriminately)
aah sediine hundreds or thousands of new terrorists, insurgents and
local sympathizers — or ‘accidental guerrillas’ (Kilcullen, 2008) — so that
the net benefit of the policy is actually quite negative. In other words, it
does more harm than good.
The answer, then, may lie in confronting terrori rom a position of
legal and moral strength rather sianwithPitary exconee eee hae
example, torture), and focusing on the political goals of both sides rather
than (or in addition to) the specific nature of terrorist crimes. In addi-
tion, and given the nature of terrorism as a North-South and often intra-
Muslim conflict, the US and its allies in particular must remain aware
 Terrorism 209

of the counterproductive effects — or what the CIA calls ‘blowback’ — of

controversial policies. President Obama’s speech to the Muslim world
in Cairo of 4 June 2009 was specifically intended to limit the damage
caused by earlier US counter-terror (and other) policies, and could have
heralded a new nat offensive bytheUSsomarcls theMuslim world,
yet this approach was undermined by Obama’s maintenance of Guanta-
namo prison and his escalation of drone strikes in several states, which
often result in civilian deaths. US and European inattention to the situa-
tion in Syria since 2011 also has created a major window of opportunity
for extremist groups such as Islamic State to expand their reach. Some
officials, such as Tony Blair’s chief of staff Jonathan Powell, who was
instrumental in negotiating the iday agreement with the IRA,
have gone even further and argued for direct negotiations b n_the
West and al-Qaeda. As this option is still politically unacceptable in the
US, and probably across Europe as well, it may be that America and other
major powers will have to focus more attention on changing their own
attitudes (and those of their like-minded allies, such as Israel) than on
attempting to ‘pacify’ the Muslim world.

Further reading
Graham Allison (2006). Nuclear Terrorism. London: Constable & Robinson.
T. Bjorgo (ed.) (2003). Root Causes of Terrorism: Findings from an International
Expert Meeting in Oslo 9-11 June 2003. Oslo: Norwegian Institute of Inter-
national Affairs.
Mia Bloom (2005). Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror. New York: Colum-
bia University Press.
Audrey Kurth Cronin (2011). How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline
and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Audrey Kurth Cronin and James M. Ludes (eds.) (2004). Attacking Terrorism:
Elements of a Grand Strategy. Washington: Georgetown University Press.
Diego Gambetta (ed.) (2005). Making Sense of Suicide Missions. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Adrian Gulke (1995). The Age of Terrorism and the International Political System.
London: I.B. Tauris.
John Horgan (2005). The Psychology of Terrorism. London: Routledge.
John Mueller (2006). Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry
Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them. New York: Free
Press.
Robert A. Pape (2005). Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism.
New York: Random House.
Ami Pedahzur (2005). Suicide Terrorism. Cambridge: Polity Press.
David C. Rapoport (ed.) (2001). Inside Terrorist Organizations. London: Frank
Cass.
Andrew Silke (ed.) (2004). Research on Terrorism: Trends, Achievements, and
Failures. London: Frank Cass.