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Suicide Terrorism and Strategy

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Title: Suicide Terrorism and Strategy


1
Suicide Terrorism and Strategy
  • Understanding the Dynamics of Suicide Terrorism
  • Dr Peter R. Neumann, Kings College London
  • 3 November 2006

2
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.

3
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.

4
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.

5
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.

6
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

7
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?

8
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.

9
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

10
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

11
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.
12
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.

13
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)

14
III De-Escalating Suicide Terrorism
  • THE MILITARY
  • By making them more difficult to carry out.
  • See Ami Pedahzur, Suicide Terrorism (Cambridge
    Polity Press, 2006)

15
III De-Escalating Suicide Terrorism
  • THE GOVERNMENT
  • ( POLITICS)
  • By locking organisation in a political process
    which rewards engagement and sanctions
    escalation.

16
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.

17
Suicide Terrorism and Strategy
  • Understanding the Dynamics of Suicide Terrorism
  • Dr Peter R. Neumann, Kings College London
  • 3 November 2006
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