Suicide Terrorism and Strategy

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Suicide Terrorism and Strategy

• Understanding the Dynamics of Suicide Terrorism
• Dr Peter R. Neumann, Kings College London
• 3 November 2006

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I Three Basic Assumptions

• Inspired by, and derived from
• Diego Gambetta, Can we make sense of suicide
  missions? in Diego Gambetta (ed.), Making Sense
  of Suicide Missions (Oxford Oxford University
  Press, 2005), pp. 259-99.

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I Three Basic Assumptions

• (1) Its the organisations that matter
• Suicide missions are decided by and executed
  with the support of an organisation
  Understanding the organisations rationale,
  while not more interesting, is more important
  than understanding individuals motivations in
  explaining suicide missions.

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I Three Basic Assumptions

• (2) Suicide missions are part of a strategy
• None of the organisations involved in suicide
  missions is monogamously wedded to suicide
  missions All organisations that have used them
  have resorted, to varying extent, to other
  options a sign that the organisers adopt some
  kind of calculation in deciding whether to use
  suicide missions.

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I Three Basic Assumptions

• (3) Theres no strategy of suicide terrorism
• Focusing obsessively on suicide missions as a
  signature trait of certain organisations
  hypostatises a means, and risks diverting the
  attention away from the reasons why
  organisations choose suicide missions from an
  arsenal that includes other weapons.

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I Three Basic Assumptions

• If we want to understand the dynamics of suicide
  terrorism, we need to
• Look at the organisation
• Understand its broader strategy
• Locate the place of suicide missions within that
  strategy

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II Suicide Terrorism and Escalation

• Suicide missions rarely, if ever, are part of a
  terrorist organisations arsenal from the very
  outset.
• Why?
• A dramatic way of reversing a groups bad
  fortune?
• Or a deliberately chosen means of escalation?

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II Suicide Terrorism and Escalation

• Hermann Kahns Escalation Ladder
• Full-scale nuclear war would come about not
  suddenly, but result from a long list of
  carefully chosen step, each of which raising the
  stakes
• See Hermann Kahn, On Escalation
• (New York Praeger, 1965), p. 39.

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II Suicide Terrorism and Escalation

• A Terrorist Escalation Ladder?

• ? Use of nuclear bomb
• ?
• ? Use of dirty bomb
• ?
• ? Use of chemical, biological
• WMD THRESHOLD
• ? Suicide missions aimed exclusively at
  civilians
• ?
• ? Targeted suicide missions
• SUICIDE MISSION THRESHOLD
• ? Conventional attacks aimed exclusively at
  civilians
• ? Targeted attacks where civilian deaths are
  almost certain
• ? Targeted attacks with considerable risk of
  collateral damage
• ? Targeted attacks against symbols of
  repression

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II Suicide Terrorism and Escalation

• A Terrorist Escalation Ladder?
• In strategic terms, suicide terrorism could be
  seen as but one step on a ladder of escalation.
• Hence, getting terrorists to abandon suicide
  terrorism may be no different than getting them
  to de-escalate from any other level to a lower
  one.

• ? Use of nuclear bomb
• ?
• ? Use of dirty bomb
• ?
• ? Use of chemical, biological
• WMD THRESHOLD
• ? Suicide missions aimed exclusively at
  civilians
• ?
• ? Targeted suicide missions
• SUICIDE MISSION THRESHOLD
• ? Conventional attacks aimed exclusively at
  civilians
• ? Targeted attacks where civilian deaths are
  almost certain
• ? Targeted attacks with considerable risk of
  collateral damage
• ? Targeted attacks against symbols of
  repression

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III De-Escalating Suicide Terrorism

• According to Clausewitz, every campaign of
  organised violence revolves around three poles

Government
The People
The Military
See Carl von Clausewitz, On War, eds. and transl.
by Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ
Princeton University Press, 1989), Book 1.
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III De-Escalating Suicide Terrorism

• How to de-escalate a terrorist campaign that has
  escalated to and beyond the suicide terrorism
  threshold?
• By aiming ones efforts at the three poles.
• That is, by changing the terrorist groups
  incentive structures in relation to each of the
  three poles.

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III De-Escalating Suicide Terrorism

• THE PEOPLE
• By persuading the communities in which the group
  is based to withdraw their consent.
• See Mia Bloom, Dying to Kill The Allure of
  Suicide Terror (New York Columbia University
  Press, 2005)

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III De-Escalating Suicide Terrorism

• THE MILITARY
• By making them more difficult to carry out.
• See Ami Pedahzur, Suicide Terrorism (Cambridge
  Polity Press, 2006)

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III De-Escalating Suicide Terrorism

• THE GOVERNMENT
• ( POLITICS)
• By locking organisation in a political process
  which rewards engagement and sanctions
  escalation.

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Conclusions

• There is no strategy of suicide terrorism.
  Rather, suicide missions are part of a terrorist
  organisations broader strategy.
• In strategic terms, suicide attacks can be seen
  as part of a process of escalation.
• To get terrorists to de-escalate down the ladder
  of escalation, we need to tackle the three poles
  around which any military campaign revolves.
• In the case of suicide terrorism, this means
  creating incentives against using this tactic
  (1) by turning people against it (2) by making
  them less effective militarily, and if possible
  (3) by locking terrorist groups in political
  processes that sanction the use of suicide
  terrorism.

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Suicide Terrorism and Strategy

• Understanding the Dynamics of Suicide Terrorism
• Dr Peter R. Neumann, Kings College London
• 3 November 2006