Terrorism

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Terrorism Political Violence

• Deterrence/Rationality/War
• The Terrorist Mindset

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Lecture Outline

• Deterrence Theory
• Game Theory
• Nature of Conflict
• Rational Choice versus Conditioning Agents
• V. The Calculus of Terrorism
• VI. Strategic Objectives
• VII. Tactical Objectives
• VIII. Misdirection, Deception Strategies,
  Tactics
• IX. Target Selection Strategies
• X. General Target Categories
• XI. Specific Target Categories
• XII. Summary of Target Selection
• XIII. Why Talk About Strategy Targeting?
• XIV. Discussion Questions

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Counter-insurgency

• In the context of an occupation or a civil war,
  counter-insurgency is a military term meaning
  combat or other efforts against a rebellion
  (insurgency) by forces aligned with the
  controlling government of the territory in which
  the combat takes place.
• It refers to suppression of a rebellion and is
  not exclusively used against terrorists.

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Civil War Revolution

• A civil war is a war in which combatants within
  the same culture, society or nationality fight
  against each other for the control of political
  power.
• Some civil wars are categorized as a revolution
  when major societal restructuring and emphasizing
  of alternative dominant values is a possible
  outcome of the conflict.

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APPEASEMENT

• Appeasement means give the enemy whatever they
  demand in the belief that it will keep the peace.
  
• It is based on the view that peace is worth more
  than anything else. So, it leads to a policy of
  peace at all costs.

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DETERRENCE

• Deterrence is about how to get an opponent to NOT
  do something due to some threatened consequence
  for doing it, or vice versa. That is, influencing
  choices of another by affecting expectations of
  how his or her adversary will behave.
• As such, in the world of international affairs,
  deterrence is NOT about the effective application
  of force, but instead about the exploitation of
  potential force.
• Deterrence strategies are often meant to create
  common ground for disputantsthe avoidance of
  worse outcomes for both. That is, to get to a
  mutually advantageous outcome.

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Principles of Effective Deterrence

1. Clear Communication of threat.
2. Threat must be credible.
3. Adversary must be rational.
4. A face-saving way out of suffering the threat
   must be made available to adversary.
5. Threat must not include possibility of all-out
   retaliation or devastation.
6. Credible assurances given to adversary of no
   surprise first strike.
7. Convince adversaries that it is in their own best
   interest to comply with demand.

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An Example of Successful Deterrence

• Iraq admitted to UN officials that it was
  prepared to use deadly toxins and bacteria
  against US and allied forces during the 1991
  Persian Gulf War.
• In December 1990 Saddam Hussein loaded 3 types of
  biological agents into 200 missile warheads and
  bombs that were then distributed to air bases and
  missile sites.
• They decided not to use them when the US made it
  clear, in an unambiguous strongly worded
  assertion on Jan. 9, 1991, that any use of
  unconventional warfare would provoke a
  devastating response.
• The Iraqis interpreted this as a nuclear threat
  and it forced them to stand down from their
  planned biological attack.

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The Court of International Justice has Undermined
Nuclear Deterrence

• The Court of International Justice has issued
  rulings asserting that a nation cannot retaliate
  by targeting civilian areas with a nuclear
  response, even if the retaliation is a response
  to a nuclear attack or a deliberate attack on
  civilians.
• In fact, US threats of nuclear retaliation
  against Iraq helped uphold the UN Charter and
  various Human Rights Accords -- by deterring CBRN
  attacks. To be effective, a threat has to be
  credible.

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Why Deterrence Fails

1. Communication breakdown (mistranslation?).
2. Threat is not credible
3. Adversary is not rational.
4. A face-saving way out of suffering the threat
   is not made available to adversary.
5. Threat was all-out retaliation or devastation.
6. No credible assurances given to adversary of no
   surprise first strike.
7. It is not made in the adversarys interest to
   comply with demands or for them to rely on
   diplomacy.

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What does it Mean to be Rational?

• The first version of rationality meant that a
  person seeks to maximize utility.
• In other words, it is cost-benefit (or
  risk-benefit) analysis, where a rational act is
  one where the benefit of the action outweighs its
  costs.
• Some options provide more benefit (a greater
  positive value) than others.

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Consider how you choose dessert at a cafeteria.

• How do you go about it?

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UTILITY THEORY

• John von Neumanns contribution to economics and
  game theory (along with his Minimax Theorem).
• Utility theory asserts that people, when faced
  with a decision, rank the options in the order
  from most favored to least favoredand presumably
  choose the most favored (the one that provides
  them with the greatest utility).

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Maximizing Utility versus Minimizing Loss

• Which is more rational maximizing utility or
  minimizing loss?
• That is, is it better to reach for the maximum
  payoff or to minimize potential loss? Which one
  is more realistic of what people do?
• If it is minimizing loss, then people conform to
  the Minimax Theorem (i.e., minimize maximum
  regret). It became the new definition of
  rationality.

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Expected Utility versus Raw Utility

• Expected utility takes into account the
  likelihood (probability) of success when
  determining the rationality of an act or
  decision.
• Expected utility is obtained by multiplying the
  raw utility by the probability of success in
  getting that (raw) utility. The result is the
  expected utility to be derived from the act.

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An Example of how Expected Utility can effect the
outcome (or ones behavior)

• RAW UTILITY
• Ralph Nader 10 units of utility
• John Kerry 7 units of utility
• George W. Bush 2 units of utility.
• EXPECTED UTILITY
• Ralph Nader has a .05 probability of winning (so
  10 x .05 0.5).
• John Kerry has a .45 chance of winning (so 7
  .45 3.15).
• George W. Bush has a .45 chance of winning (so 2
  .45 0.9).
• Expected utility changed the vote from Nader to
  Kerry for this voter.

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Rational Choice Utility Theory Game Theory

• Rationality (Rational Choice) and Utility Theory
  provides the foundation for an approach to doing
  analysis called Game Theory.
• Much of American foreign policy, especially the
  war on terror, is based on assumptions of
  rationality.

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GAME THEORY

• Game Theory is a branch of mathematics (applied
  mathematics). It is a way of using math to study
  social situations.
• Many psychologists call game theory, The Theory
  of Social Situations.

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GAME THEORY

• 1. Participants are treated as Players who act
  simultaneously or take turns.
• 2. There is a benefit (payoff or prize) measured
  in utility, which may be different for each
  player.
• 3. There may be costs (and usually are) for
  playing game.
• 4. There may be risks (and usually are).
• 5. Assumes players are rational that is, seek to
  maximize expected benefit (or minimize loss).

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The Prisoners Dilemma

• PLAYER A
• Silent Confess
• P
• L
• A
• Y
• E
• R
• B

A 0 B 0 (Mutually Advantageous) A 5 yrs B 25 yrs
A 25 yrs B 5 yrs A 15 yrs B 15 yrs (Max Loss for both)
Silent
Confess
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An Example of a Prisoners Dilemma

• UNITED STATES
• Diplomacy Attack
  (Retaliate)
• T
• E
• R
• R
• O
• R
• I
• S
• T

A 10 B 10 (Compromise) A 25 B -25
A -25 B 25 A -50 B -50 (Max Loss for both)
Peace
Attack
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US Foreign Policy 1787 - Present

• US policymakers have mostly been rational for our
  entire history and our foreign policy has
  generally been based on the rational choice
  approach.
• That is, we try to deter our enemies by
  increasing the risk and cost to them for
  terrorism or waging war with us, assuming that
  our enemies are rational.
• For 200 years they generally were, but in the
  last 3 decades or so we have made enemies that
  are not rational (or, alternatively, what we
  think is the benefit they derive from violence is
  not the benefit that they actually derive).
• What kind of utility are our enemies seeking?

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What if war is what the enemy wants?

• Traditional deterrence will not work if conflict
  is what the enemy wants.
• If dealing with an apocalyptic group seeking a
  showdown between good and evil, whose members not
  only do not fear death but seek it as martyrdom,
  then traditional deterrence theory will not work.
• To get deterrence back on track, the threatened
  penalty must be in units of something they care
  about.
• Can Al-Qaeda even be deterred?

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Whose Rules Shall Prevail?

• We cannot make irrational enemies rational.
• That is like sitting down with them and inviting
  them to play a game, but according to our rules.
• Our rules benefit us, and our terrorist enemies
  know it, so they do not want to play by our rules
  (i.e., Geneva Convention, etc.). They would lose
  in a straight-up military confrontation limited
  by international rules of warfare.
• Our enemies play by rules that favor them
  irregular warfare and terrorism, plus they are
  motivated not by political gain, but by
  destroying their evil enemies, even if it costs
  them everything.

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So, How do we deter them?

• Having irrational enemies does not rule out the
  military means of counter-terrorism.
• It does mean, though, that we will have to track
  the terrorists down and kill them.
• This is perhaps the only policy that will work
  against the new modern type of (religious
  motivated) terrorists.
• They are not afraid of being treated as criminals
  (or even as POWs) because of our procedural
  safeguards and rights. They are not afraid of
  death. But, killing them does mean that they will
  not do terrorism any more.

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The Calculus of Terrorism

• R P B C D
• R is the terrorists reward for committing an
  act of terror.
•  
• P is the probability of a successful mission.
•  
• B is the set of tangible benefits to the
  terrorist.
•  
• C is the cost paid by the terrorist.
•  
• D is the terrorists psychic benefit derived
  from an act of terror. This is the most critical
  factor for modern religious motivated
  terrorists.

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The Dollar Auction

• A dollar being auctioned will go to the highest
  bidder.
• The second highest bidder does not get anything,
  but still has to pay his or her bid.
• No other bidders will pay.
• Are there such games in reality? How about the
  Israeli-Palestinian Conflict?

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HOW GAME THEORY EXPLAINS THE MIDDLE EAST

• Game Theory offers a logical explanation for why
  each party to the Middle East conflict is acting
  the way it is, and how their "payoff grids"
  relate.
• In essence, according to Game Theory assumptions,
  Israel, The USA, and the Arabs are each acting in
  their own self-interest (and for rational
  objectives).
• Given these assumptions, the present situation in
  the Middle East is a Prisoners Dilemma and the
  resulting continuation of violence is practically
  inevitable.

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The Middle East as a Prisoners Dilemma

• Unfortunately, one of the most common results
  from prisoner's dilemma games is to produce a
  worse (or possibly the worst) possible joint
  result for everyone, even though each participant
  to the conflict may be acting rationally on their
  own.
• That is what is happening in the Middle East
  Each player to this game is ending up with a
  sub-optimal outcome. This is the result of them
  being rational, not irrational.
• The overall dynamic encourages anti-Israeli
  terror groups (and the Palestinians as a whole),
  and badly undermines Israels (and the USAs)
  ability to apply deterrence and prevent further
  escalation.

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The Middle East Game
PALESTINIANS
Fight
Negotiate
-2 A -2 -4 B 4
4 C -4 2 D 2
I S R A E L
Fight
Negotiate
Whether the players maximize utility or minimize
loss, the outcome is the same (outcome A both
fight).
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The Sums of the outcomes.(Fight-Fight is Nash
Equilibrium)
Fight-Fight -4 Negative-Sum Worst Collective Outcome 0 Zero-Sum
0 Zero-Sum Negotiate-Negotiate 4 Positive-Sum Most Rational Outcome
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Stuck in a Rut

• Israel prefers negotiation to fighting, and the
  Palestinians know this, so the Palestinians are
  more likely to choose to fight because if the
  Israelis choose diplomacy, the Palestinians gain
  4 if the Israelis choose to fight, the
  Palestinians only lose -2 (rather than -4).
• Now the Israelis know the preference of
  Palestinians to fight, so their most rational
  choice is to fight too (and lose -2, but they
  would lose -4 if they choose negotiation, given
  the Palestinians are likely to fight). But every
  now and then, Israel offers a truce (negotiates)
  to break out of the rut.

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Individual Rationality Often Leads to a
Collective Irrational (or a sub-optimal) Outcome

• In a classic Prisoners Dilemma situation,
  individual rationality by all players often leads
  to a collectively irrational (or at least a
  sub-optimal) outcome.
• Both Israel and the Palestinians are each acting
  rationally, but it leads to a collectively
  irrational (or at least a less-than-optimal
  outcome.
• This is why the Middle East conflict is so
  intractable, and why Palestinian groups want to
  fight and use terrorism. They derive
  psychological utility.

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Tit-for-Tat

• Tit-for-Tat is a strategy for dealing with
  rivalry in an iterative (or repeat play)
  situation.
• It is when a player cooperates on the first move
  (i.e., negotiates), but then for each successive
  round does what the opponent did in the previous
  round.
• Israel is playing Tit-for-Tat while the
  Palestinians are almost always playing the
  strategy of always defecting from cooperation
  (i.e., they are always fighting).
• Sometimes the Palestinians negotiate for long
  periods and then attack as a way to gain
  advantage (i.e., maximize utility).

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Robert Axelrods Famous Contest

• Axelrod invited various social scientists to
  submit computer programs for a contest in which
  each entry would be matched against every other
  entry in the indefinitely repeated Prisoners'
  Dilemma. Points would be totaled after every
  round and the winner proclaimed after the final
  round.
• Contestants submitted 63 computer programs that
  implemented possible strategies of the game. For
  example, TIT-FOR-TAT was submitted by the
  psychologist, Anatole Rapoport. It cooperated on
  the 1st round and then for every following round
  did what the opponent did in the previous round.
• The GRIM strategy, which punishes any deviation
  from co-operation by switching permanently to
  defection, was submitted by the economist, James
  Friedman. And so on.
• TIT-FOR-TAT was the most successful strategy
  (i.e., earned the most points).

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A Few Examples of Possible Strategies

• Tit For Tat Start with cooperation and then
  repeat opponent's last choice.
• Random Flip a coin to determine choice.
• Always Cooperate.
• Always Defect.
• Suspicious Tit For Tat - As for Tit For Tat
  except begins by defecting.
• Naive Prober - Repeat opponent's last choice, but
  sometimes probe by defecting in lieu of
  co-operating.
• Remorseful Prober - Repeat opponent's last
  choice, but sometimes probe by defecting in lieu
  of co-operating. If the opponent defects in
  response to probing, show remorse by co-operating
  once.
• Naive Peace Maker - Repeat opponent's last
  choice, but sometimes make peace by co-operating
  in lieu of defecting.
• True Peace Maker - Co-operate unless opponent
  defects twice in a row, then defect once, but
  sometimes make peace by co-operating in lieu of
  defecting.
• Grudger (Co-operate, but only be a sucker once) -
  Co-operate until the opponent defects. Then
  always defect unforgivingly.

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The Evolution of Strategies

• Axelrod then simulated the effect of evolution
  operating on the 63 strategies using an updating
  rule which ensured that strategies that achieve a
  high payoff in one generation (i.e., round) are
  more numerous in the next (via replication).
• The fact that TIT-FOR-TAT was the most numerous
  of all the surviving programs at the end of the
  evolutionary simulation clinched the question for
  Axelrod, who then proceeded to propose
  TIT-FOR-TAT as a suitable paradigm for human
  co-operation in a very wide range of contexts.

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The Virtues of Tit-for-Tat

• In describing its virtues, Axelrod (The Evolution
  of Cooperation, 1984, p. 54) said
• What accounts for TIT-FOR-TAT's robust success
  is its combination of being nice, retaliatory,
  forgiving and clear. Its niceness prevents it
  from getting into unnecessary trouble. Its
  retaliation discourages the other side from
  persisting whenever defection is tried. Its
  forgiveness helps restore mutual co-operation.
  And its clarity makes it intelligible to the
  other player, thereby eliciting long-term
  co-operation.

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Characteristics of an Effective Strategy (or
Foreign Policy)

• By analysing the top-scoring strategies, Axelrod
  stated several conditions necessary for a
  strategy to be successful.
• 1. Nice The most important condition is that the
  strategy must be "nice", that is, it will not
  defect before its opponent does. Almost all of
  the top-scoring strategies were nice therefore a
  purely selfish strategy will not "cheat" on its
  opponent, for purely utilitarian reasons first.
  Nice guys finish first.
• 2. Retaliating However, Axelrod contended, the
  successful strategy must not be a blind optimist.
  It must sometimes retaliate. An example of a
  non-retaliating strategy is Always Cooperate.
  This is a very bad choice, as "nasty" strategies
  will ruthlessly exploit such softies.
• 3. Forgiving Another quality of successful
  strategies is that they must be forgiving. Though
  they will retaliate, they will once again fall
  back to cooperating if the opponent does not
  continue to play defects. This stops long runs of
  revenge and counter-revenge, maximizing points.
• 5. Clarity Opponents must be able figure out
  from your decisions what you are seeking to
  accomplish so that they can devise a strategy of
  their own that will maximize their own utility.
• 4. Non-envious The quality of being non-envious
  means not striving to score more than the
  opponent (impossible for a nice strategy, i.e.,
  a 'nice' strategy can never score more than the
  opponent).

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Tit-for-Tat Ruled for 20 Years

• Tit-for-Tat strategy held the throne as the most
  successful strategy in iterated prisoners
  dilemma games until 2004 when an alternative
  strategy was devised. It had some contestants
  engaging in team play.

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Team-Play beats Tit-for-Tat

• Although Tit-for-Tat is considered to be the most
  robust basic strategy, a team from Southampton
  University in England introduced a new strategy
  at the 20th-anniversary Iterated Prisoner's
  Dilemma competition, which proved to be more
  successful than Tit-for-Tat.
• The contest was designed to have individual
  contestants each playing for him or her self. The
  players from Southampton University, however,
  were playing as a team.
• This strategy relied on cooperation between
  programs to achieve the highest number of points
  for a single program. The University submitted 60
  contestants (each submitting a program) to the
  competition, which were designed to recognize
  each other through a series of five to ten moves
  at the start.
• Once this recognition was made, one program would
  then always cooperate and the other would always
  defect, assuring the maximum number of points for
  the defector.
• If the program realized that it was playing a
  non-Southampton player, it would continuously
  defect in an attempt to minimize the score of the
  competing program. As a result, this strategy
  ended up taking the top three positions in the
  competition, as well as a number of positions
  towards the bottom.

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Israel is a Naïve Peace Maker

• Israel uses the strategy of the Naive Peace
  Maker which means to repeat opponent's last
  choice, but sometimes cooperate to see if the
  opponent is willing to cooperate.

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The Palestians are Remorseful Probers

• Remorseful Prober - Repeat opponent's last
  choice, but sometimes probe by defecting (i.e.,
  fight) in lieu of co-operating (i.e.,
  negotiating). If the opponent defects (i.e.,
  fights) in response to probing, then cooperate
  once.

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The US Payoff Matrixfor the Israel-Palestinian
Conflict
Fight-Fight -3 USAs Worst Payoff Israel Fights/Palestinians Negotiate -2
Israel Negotiates/Palestinians Fight -1 Negotiate-Negotiate 2 USAs best Payoff
This is why the USA puts pressure on Israel to
Negotiate, even when the Palestinians Fight It
is the best outcome for the USA. We prefer the
bottom two cells when compared to the upper
cells, respectively.
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U.S. Pressure on Israel

• US pressure on Israel to negotiate is not good
  for Israel because the Palestinians are given an
  incentive to fight because when they do so, and
  Israel does not, Palestinian payoff is greatest.
• President G. W. Bush, however, has backed off in
  pressuring Israel to end hostilities whenever
  Israel is attacked (at least in the Summer 2006
  war)which was a change in direction for US
  policy.

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The Payoff Matrix for Arabsfor the
Israel-Palestinian Conflict
Fight-Fight 0.5 Israel Fights/Palestinians Negotiate -3 Worse Payoff for Arabs
Israel Negotiates/Palestinians Fight 3 Best payoff for Arabs Negotiate-Negotiate -0.5
This is why Iran and Syria encourage fighting,
fund the Palestinian militias, and sanction the
use of terrorism. The Arab states always do
better when Palestinians fight, regardless of
what Israel does.
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The Heart of the Middle East Problem

• The regions Arab states are doing everything in
  their power to exacerbate the conflict and to
  keep the Palestinians fightingand to keep the
  suicide bombings going.
• Meanwhile, their pressure (and UN and Europes
  pressure) on the US, in turn, makes the US
  pressure Israel to take the destructive path of
  negotiation, something that will never work as
  long as the Palestinians continue to fight. The
  Palestinians will fight so long as Israel does
  not.

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A Possible Way Out of the Entanglement

• It can be argued that the US should stop
  pressuring Israel to negotiate. This will make
  the Palestinians negotiate IN GOOD FAITH (a very
  important distinction from negotiating as a
  stalling tactic or as a strategic move).
• US pressure on Israel to negotiate encourages the
  Palestinians to keep fighting, so as to maximize
  their utility.
• In sum, the US should stop acting rationally in
  its interests, and instead move away from
  negotiation (as a strategic move on our part). It
  only encourages Palestinians to fight and Arabs
  to support fighting.
• George W. Bush, in the Summer 2006 Lebanon war,
  showed signs of doing this he did NOT pressure
  Israel much, at least not until severe damage was
  done to the Hezbollah militia.
• Europe and the UN did the same, at first, but
  then reverted to their old ways of pressuring
  Israel by accusing it of war crimes, etc.

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The Singapore Airlines Example

• Singapore Airlines SQ 117, with 123 people on
  board, was hijacked on March 26 March 1991 (10
  years before 9/11).
• There were 4 hijackers who were members of a
  Pakistani leftist group. They were armed with
  grenades and knives, and demanded the release of
  prisoners in Pakistan.
• After 8 hours of negotiations, the hijackers
  turned aggressive, issuing a five-minute
  deadline, and threatening to kill a hostage every
  10 minutes if their demands were not met.

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The Outcome of the Singapore Airlines Example

• While the terrorists still had the impression
  that the government was still open to
  negotiation, the Singapore government gave the
  order to conduct a surprise raid.Within 30
  seconds, all hijackers were shot dead and no
  passengers or crew got injured.
• The whole ordeal ended in less than 9 hours.

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The Game Matrix
Singapore Government
Meet Demands
Execute a Raid
0 A 100 100 B -50
-100 C 100 0 D -50
N O T K I L L
T E R R O R I S T S
K I L L
Note that the Singapore government prefers a raid
regardless of what the terrorists do. That makes
a raid its dominant strategy.
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Analysis of Singapore Incident

• By conducting a raid, does this mean that the
  Singapore government would be punished in the
  long run by the terror group for the governments
  decision to raid?
• Apparently, the answer is NO.
• The Singapore government, by adopting an
  extremely hard stance towards such acts of
  terrorism in 1991, actually changed this
  infinitely repeated game model into a single
  round model!
• The Singapore government believes that by dealing
  firmly with the first of such incidents,
  terrorists would be put off from attempting any
  such acts of terrorisms in Singapore knowing that
  the Singapore government will never give in to
  any of their demands.
• By doing the raid, there would never be a second
  round or second game! The terrorists quit the
  game (so far). It is irrational to continue the
  game on their part.

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All this discussion of Rationality and Deterrence
is based on traditional notions of war

• Traditional notions of war assume that an enemy
  has political objectives (land, money, natural
  resources, etc).
• Rationality also assumes that those objectives
  can be removed from the enemys agenda by threats
  and other means of deterrenceor perhaps by war
  (by imposing costs greater than the benefit).
• This notion of rationality and war may be
  ineffective for many enemies.

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How do you deter such enemies?

• If they do not mind dying, and dont mind
  sacrificing thousands of their own people, and
  they want an all out war, how can you threaten a
  greater cost that will deter them?
• That is, how do you get them to conclude that the
  cost of their action is greater than the benefit
  derived?

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Is the United Nations (and other Western Nations)
undermining the war on Terror?

• Is the United Nations using an outdated notion of
  warfare and deterrence.
• Is the UN undermining the credibility of threats
  by requiring proportionality, outlawing nuclear
  retaliation, blurring communication, assuming
  enemy is rational, and not providing an incentive
  for terrorists to deviate from terrorism.
• Is the UN Naïve?

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Strategic Decisions

• 1. Terrorists almost always take the initiative.
• 2. Terrorists prefer simple strategies.
• 3. Terrorists want actions perceived as
  random.
• 4. Terrorists are rational in target
  selection and tactical choices, but irrational in
  decision to use terrorism (unless the psychic
  benefit is included in the analysis).

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STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES

• Intimidation
• Destruction
• Acquisition
• Extortion or Demands
• Influence
• Overreaction
• Revenge
• Satisfaction
• Survival

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TACTICAL OBJECTIVES

• ACTION
• DEMONSTRATION
• DEMANDS
• MISDIRECTION
• ESCAPE (?)

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ACTION

• Attacks show that the terrorists are capable of
  carrying out the operation as planned. They want
  to carry out the attack, propagate the news of
  their success, and possibly make demands for
  concessions, influence, or some other strategic
  goal).

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DEMONSTRATION

• The objective is to attract the attention of the
  victim and society through the news media or word
  of mouth and demonstrate their power.

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DEMANDS

• Although rare for recent religious terrorists,
  the terror group will sometimes make demands
  regardless of whether the attack is successful or
  not.

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MISDIRECTION

• The objective here is to confuse the enemy as a
  prelude to another attack elsewhere (and possible
  as a means to escape). It can divide the forces
  of the counter-terrorist organization.

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ESCAPE

• Getting away alive is becoming less of an option
  for many terrorists as suicide/martyrdom
  attacks become more frequent. Escape is a
  tactical objective, not a strategic one, because
  the terrorist may want to escape but the group
  leader may be more interested in success of the
  attack (and not the life of the terrorist).

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The Bush Doctrine of Preemption

• The Bush Preemption Doctrine has mainly to do
  with threatened regime change for any nation
  that meets 3 criteria
• It is a non-Democratic Regime
• It has or seeking weapons of mass destruction
  (Chemical, biological, nuclear).
• It has ties to terrorism or terror groups.
• In 2003, it only applied to Afghanistan, Iraq,
  Iran, North Korea and Syria (and possibly Sudan).
  Regime change has already occurred in Afghanistan
  and Iraq.

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From Deterrence Toward Prevention

• The democratic world is experiencing a
  fundamental shift in its approach to controlling
  terrorism and political violence.
• We are moving away from our traditional reliance
  on deterrence and reactive approaches and
  toward more preventive and proactive approaches.

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9/11 led to Legitimizing of Preemption (and
possibly prevention) Policy

• Although the origins of this change away from
  deterrence and toward prevention (preemption)
  came long ago and grew slowly over the years, it
  was the attack on 9/11 in the US that accelerated
  and legitimated this important development in the
  minds of many policymakers and lay public.
• Even though Europe does not like the Iraq war,
  they do not challenge the right of the US to take
  preemptive action. They just disagree that Iraq
  qualified for it.

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Tactics of Prevention Preemption

• The tactics that have been employed include
• Tighter Border Controls
• Profiling
• Preventive Detention
• Rough Interrogation
• Expansive Surveillance
• Targeting of terrorists for Assassination
• Preemptive attacks on terror bases
• Full-Scale Preventive war

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The Precautionary Principle

• Over the past several decades, especially in
  Europe, it has become a staple of policy. It
  asserts that a person or nation should avoid
  actions that may cause greater harm later.
• That is, do not require unambiguous evidence.
  Better safe than sorry.
• Generally applied to protecting the environment
  or natural disasters, but can apply to foreign
  policy too.

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The Precautionary Principle in the United States

• The principle has now grown beyond natural
  disasters like global warming, and has moved to
  issues of national security and terrorism,
  especially in the United States.
• How much evidence is necessary to use tactics of
  Prevention / Preemption of terror attacks?
• The US and Europe have opposite priorities when
  it comes to applying the Precautionary Principle.
  US requires strong proof of danger of global
  warming, but not Europe while Europe requires
  strong proof of imminent attack before engaging
  in a preemptive attack on a country. This gets
  Europe accused of being appeasers and it often
  emboldens our enemies.

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Politics Infects the Debate over Preemption

• All people in all eras have favored some
  preventive or preemptive actions while opposing
  others.
• The differences over which ones are favored, and
  which are opposed, depend on many social,
  political, religious and cultural factors.

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Precaution is Relative

• It is meaningless to declare support for, or
  opposition to, prevention or precaution as a
  general principle because so much depends on the
  values at stake, and on the content of the
  costs and benefits, and on the substance of what
  is being regulated.

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The Enemy May not Be Rational and WMDs are a
Severe Threat

• The shift from responding to past events to
  preventing future attacks challenges our
  traditional reliance on a model of human behavior
  that presupposes a rational enemy capable of
  being deterred by threat of punishment.
• The classic deterrence model postulates an evil
  doer who can evaluate the costs-benefits of
  proposed actions and will act (or not act) on the
  basis of such calculations.

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Assumptions of Deterrence

• Deterrence falls within the rational choice
  approach.
• Classic Deterrence theory presumes that we are
  willing, or are even capable, of absorbing the
  damage from an attack. Adding WMDs CBRN to the
  equation changes that.
• It also assumes we are willing to use the type of
  punishment that would deter future similar
  attacks. But are we willing to do what would be
  effective? Would it cause greater harm later
  (i.e., undermine the larger strategic
  objectives).
• These assumptions are now being widely questioned
  as the threat of WMDs (and in the hands of
  suicide terrorists) grows larger.

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We Cannot Provide the benefits modern terrorists
want

• It is not that modern terrorist cannot do (or do
  not do) rational cost-benefit analysis.
• The problem is that we cannot provide the
  benefits they seek (eternity in heaven) and the
  cost to them (death) is not outweighed by the
  expected benefits.
• But because this new brand of terrorist cannot be
  deterred, moving to preemption and prevention
  becomes more compelling.

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Deterring Nations Who Are on a Godly Mission

• Nations whose leaders genuinely believe that
  their mission has been ordained by God (like many
  leaders in Iran today) are more difficult to
  deter than those who base their decisions on
  earthly costs and benefits (such as North Korea
  and Cuba).

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US Policy is in Transition

• The suddenness and ferocity of the 9/11 attacks
  tore the US free from the foreign policy
  foundations that had served the nation well for
  over 5 decades, including the central notion that
  American military power could by its very
  existence and capabilities restrain the
  aggressive impulses of our enemies.
• Deterrence boils down to a brutally simple idea
  if the US or its allies are attacked, we will
  retaliate massively. The advantage to this
  approach is that it induces responsible behavior
  by enemies as a matter of their own self-interest
  (or face devastation and possibly removal from
  power). It, however, presumes rationality.

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Acting Under Uncertainty

• One great difficulty in evaluating the relative
  advantages disadvantages of deterrence versus
  preemption is that -- once we have taken
  preemptive action, it is almost never possible to
  know whether deterrence would have worked as well
  or better than preemption.

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We Can Never Know if Preemption Made a Situation
Worse

• The information at the time of preemption is
  probabilistic and uncertain, and it is difficult
  to know the nature and degree of the harm that
  may have been prevented.
• For example, if Britain had preempted Hitlers
  Germany, history would never have known the evil
  that Britain had truly prevented.
• All that history would have recorded was an
  unprovoked aggression by Britain against Germany.

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Factors that Effect Preemption Decision

• Nature of the feared Problem
• Likelihood harm will occur without preemption
• Whether harm can be absorbed or reversed
• Whether potential harm is deliberate
• Probability that preemption will fail
• Costs of a successful preemption
• Costs of a failed preemption
• Nature quality of information about threat
• Ratio of successful preemptions to failed ones
• Legality, morality, potential political
  consequences of preemption
• Providing incentive of others to preempt
  (especially against US)
• Whether harm from preemption (successful or not)
  can be reversed
• Danger from unintended consequences
  (Miscalculation of the above factors)

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Prediction is Difficult

• We can never forecast with certainty. All
  estimates are a guess, but the reliability of a
  guess decreases with the length of the future
  which it seeks to predict.
• Humans are better at reconstructing the past than
  in predicting the future. Predictive decisions
  are inherently probabilistic. Retrospective
  decisions, on the other hand, are either right or
  wrong.
• Can the factors be reduced to a formula?

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Must the Danger be Imminent

• Must the U.S. (or any nation) wait until after
  being attacked? Must it wait until there are
  citizens dead, dying and bleeding on its streets
  before it can take action?
• Can preemption be extended from war to
  humanitarian intervention, forced inoculation
  (when some will die from it), preventive
  detentions, and censorship.
• When do the needs of the many outweigh the needs
  of the few, or the one?

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Approaches to Counter-terrorism

1. The Injury (or Harm) Approach Military action
   can be taken only after some harm has been
   inflicted as a result of a violation of clear
   international law. Reaction is intended to
   punish as the means to deterrence. No harm, no
   foul.
2. The Dangerous Act Approach Even if the original
   act was not a crime against international law, it
   was such a dangerous act that preventive (or
   preemptive) measures were warranted to protect
   safety.
3. The Dangerous Person Approach No commission of
   a terror act is necessary to justify preventive
   or preemptive action, but preventive or
   preemptive action is taken because it is
   predicted that the target is likely to commit a
   violent act in the future.

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How About this as a Principle of Preemption?

• We need to find a way to limit potential abuse of
  preemption power. So, how about this idea
• The greater the stakes (i.e., the threatened
  injury or harm) the more justified a nation is to
  intervene at an earlier stage of conflict. As the
  stakes for failure of diplomacy increase,
  diplomacy moves lower down the list of approaches
  to use to resolve a conflict.
• So, if the stakes are high enough, the sooner a
  nation can act (i.e., not wait until an injury
  occurs or when there is no clear violation of
  international law).

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RISK False Positives and False Negatives

• How much risk of false positives (i.e., no danger
  existed) and false negatives (i.e., danger did
  exist, yet we did nothing) are we willing to
  assume?
• Think about the death penalty. It is better to
  let a thousand guilty persons go free than for
  one innocent to go to prison or lose his life.
• Should we require the crime to occur first before
  we lock someone up, when there is a belief that
  the person is a current or future danger to
  society. for murder, rape, etc.
• Where do we draw the line? What level of
  danger makes it more moral to preemptively
  detain someone? i.e., preventive detention

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Limiting the Abuse of Power

• Requiring a past harm as a precondition to the
  exercise of force serves as an important check on
  the abuse of such power.
• But this check, like most checks, comes with a
  price tag. The failure to act preemptively may
  cost a society dearly, sometimes
  catastrophically.

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How much Risk can we Afford in the Age of WMDs?

• Should the smoking gun be a mushroom cloud?

You should be able to see the role that
intelligence is going to play in the war on
terror.
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Reinterpretation of the UN Charter

• When the UN Charter was drafted in the wake of
  WWII, it demanded that an actual armed attack
  occur before a nation could respond militarily.
• Now, in the face of threats of WMDs in the hands
  of terrorists or rogue nations, the charter is
  being more widely interpreted to permit
  preemptive self-defense beyond an actual attack
  to an imminently threatened one.
• This, too, comes with a price tag lost
  liberties, false positives (i.e., unnecessary
  war), and other more subtle costs.

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Collective or Individual Decision?

• What should a nation do when preemption will mean
  the loss of life, injuries, civilian casualties,
  and damage to property and economies, when the
  failure to act means the same or similar losses?
• Should we set up an system where each nation gets
  to decide when it is in imminent danger and,
  accordingly, justified in preemptive war?
• If not, then how can we have a body (like the UN)
  refuse to grant permission when a nation has a
  good-faith belief in its own imminent danger?
• In the US criminal code, we allow an individual
  to kill a person when there is a reasonable basis
  to believe their life was threatened. So, we
  (perhaps a jury) will decide after the fact,
  whether the belief was reasonable. Is this enough
  to limit abuse of preemption?