Deterring Terrorism: It Can Be Done

Abstract

Many scholars and policymakers argue that deterrence strategies have no significant role to play in counterterrorism. The case against deterrence rests on three pillars: terrorists are irrational; they value their political ends far above anything deterring states could hold at risk; and they are impossible tofind. Each pillar is either incorrect or its implications for deterrence have been misunderstood. Under certain conditions, deterrence is preferable to the use of force. Analysis of the structure of terrorist networks and the processes that produce attacks, as well as the multiple objectives of terrorist organizations, suggests that some deterrence strategies are more effective than those of the past. In particular, many terrorist groups and elements of terrorist support networks can likely be deterred from cooperating with the most threatening terrorist groups, such as al-Qaida. Although the use of force against multiple groups creates common interests among them, an appropriate deterrence strategy could fracture global terrorist networks. The current policy of the U.S. and Philippine governments toward the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Abu Sayyaf Group illustrates the potential of this approach and the risks of using force. Not only can groups such as the MILF be deterred from cooperating with al-Qaida, they may even be coerced into providing local intelligence on operatives linked to it.

T-Test for Terrorism: Did the Introduction of Proportional Representation Reduce the Terrorist Threat? A Time-Series Case Study of Algeria and Northern Ireland

“…Indeed, research in Studies in Conflict and Terrorism has previously suggested that lack of genuine democratic input into the political system can engender a process of radicalization 66 . But somehow this connection has been lost on policy-makers who seem more attracted to deterrence as a mechanism for combating terrorism 67 .…”

Great expectations: the use of armed force to combat terrorism

“…When primary local groups are put out of reach, militants may shift their focus to secondary global goals'. 113 Not only local and global changes can be witnessed, substitution occurs between regions, types of attacks and sometimes even between groups. The seemingly successful actions of counterterrorism today create problems for the future; 'The danger now lies in the fact that the looser the operational connections become and the less Islamic terrorism is instigated by a single figure, the harder it will be to uncover exploitable links and the more likely that the instigators of future terrorist attacks will escape the notice of US intelligence.'…”

“…85 Military force 'fails to achieve political objectives'. 86 These observations, however, are too often anecdotally substantiated, theoretically flimsy and/or incompletely argued through or quantified. It is unfortunate that to date they cannot be substantiated by large-scale database analysis or comparative case studies, with the exception of the Richardson and Art volume.…”

The malpractice of “rationality” in international relations

“…This is especially troublesome for the nuclear peace thesis, which postulates the universality of nuclear deterrence (Sagan et al, 2007: 137). Deviant behavior such as suicide terrorism-which, on average, is executed by the relatively well-off-may still conform with instrumental rationality (Caplan, 2006;Trager and Zagorcheva, 2006) but seems to fly in the face of universalizing claims regarding optimal and substantive rationality: "Notions of maximization of anticipated benefits cannot account for such behaviors, and ad hoc moves to maintain rational utility at all costs result in a concept of rationality or utility doing little explanatory work" (Atran, 2003: 1539; see also Caplan, 2006). Consequently, the universal proposition of the nuclear peace thesis has been substantially challenged from the cognitiveprocess perspective, evincing the limitations of rationality (Morgan, 2003;Stein, 2009), as well as from a refined RCT perspective (e.g.…”