Terrorism: How

Does it End?
Dr. Rashmi Singh
rsingh@pucminas.br
 Topics

01 02 03
INTRODUCION HOW TERRORISM ENDS CONCLUSIONS
• DECAPITATION
• NEGOTIATION
• SUCCESS
• FAILURE
• REPRESSION
• REORIENTATION
 Terrorist campaigns may seem endless - but they always end

Why?

A long history of the rise and demise of terrorism

Introduction We need to analyse that experience if we are to inoculate ourselves

against the psychological manipulation of terrorist violence

To break cycle of attack and counter-attack = look back into the past
to understand how individual terrorist campaigns have ended

Then move towards that aim

 Introduction

Lots of work on specific groups –

Studies of terrorism are event driven organisational structures, leaders, tactics, AQ post-9/11!
leadership etc.

Stop being paranoid!

• As groups before, AQ and IS will end
• Ending terrorist campaigns is difficult and often
movements are at their most dangerous before they
Less effort at looking at terrorism within a die
• But how groups end reflect CT measures – so best to
wider body of knowledge look back into history when formulating policy
• In CT experience matters – history provides centuries
of practice with terrorist movements
So how does terrorism end?

•Decapitation
•Negotiation
•Success
•Failure
•Repression
•Reorientation
Decapitation
• Leaders often killed or captured in final months of terrorist
campaign
• Seen as death-blow
• Types of targeting vary
• However, long- term effects of decapitation are inconsistent
• Some campaigns end
• Others barely falter
• Others gain strength
• Immediate effects of removing leader – depend on if group
fosters a cult of personality, availability of viable successor, nature
of its ideology, political context, if leader was killed or imprisoned
• Cronin – clear finding that capturing and imprisoning a leader is
much more damaging to terrorist group than killing
 Decapitation

Role of leader – narrative providing Of course, not all leaders are Not all groups require creation of a
legitimacy to acts of terrorism charismatic narrative – some pick up old
grievances
- Attacks, irrespective of political
motivation, must have a rationale that
overshadows moral qualms
- Supports must believe that there is no
alternative to killing
- Followers must believe in objective
criminality – no innocent killed
- A compelling personality moves followers
beyond self-doubt
 Decapitation
Decision to kill or capture
What is decapitation?
depends on:
• Removal by arrest or • Local conditions
assassination the top • Reflects classical dichotomy
leaders or operational between law enforcement
leaders of a group and war models
Ideal world – would use law
enforcement model. Benefits
–
• Emphasises rule of law and
helps develop legislation
• Irrespective of legitimacy of
political cause a fair trial
frames act of terror as illegal
and immoral
• Removes venire of
‘combatants’
• Provides valuable
intelligence on the
remainder of the group
 Decapitation

Sometimes – continue to
But we don’t live in an Often terrorists go free -
communicate from
ideal world lack of legislation
prison

Repercussions – hostage Sometimes – are more

taking (e.g. 1973 – Black radicalised post-prison
September took 10 (e.g. 1970 - RAF when
hostages at KSA Embassy Ulrike Meinhof helped
in Khartoum) free Andreas Baader)
Example: The Shining Path
 Decapitation

Assassination or targeted killing

Ethical debate – assassination is

ambiguous moral territory

Problematic from law

enforcement perspective as
assassination is extrajudicial killing

Problematic from war-fighting

perspective as laws of war can grant
terrorists protection under Geneva
Conventions
Killing a leader is seen as pre-emptive & Governments are at serious disadvantage and leaders open to assassination – so policy can backfire
akin to terror so even if debate seems Counter- productive to a state which is trying to show terrorism is illegal and immoral
naïve several issues Long –term repercussions – who is the replacement?
Cult of martyrdom?
Negotiations

Democracies do not negotiate with terrorists …

Where does idea come from?

• Negotiation will harm safety of future targets
• So lack of negotiation is removing incentives from future acts
• Avoids granting recognition to a group
• Makes sense as talks are risky and often unsuccessful

But all major governments have negotiated with terrorists at one point or another

Many have made concessions

But do negotiations end terrorist campaigns?

 Negotiations

Some empirical patterns: So then, why do governments negotiate?

• Direct relationship between age of group • Multiple reasons – sometime intertwined or
and probability of talks (this does not mean even contradictory
all groups negotiate; rate is 1 out of 5) • Potential exit strategy from violence
• Majority of negotiations do not yield a clear • Talks that don’t get media attention have
resolution or cessation of conflict (most many more benefits for governments,
occupy middle ground between stable including deniability)
ceasefire and high levels of violence)
• About half the groups that negotiate today
tend to continue using violence as talks
unfold (generally lower intensity and
frequency)
 Why do governments negotiate?
• Multiple tactical motivations
• Negotiations hold potential for short-term pause in violence (if only
because its hard to carry on attacks if attention is focussed elsewhere)
• Making contacts with terrorist groups can yield intelligence, particularly
about structure, hierarchy, connections among members, disentangling

Negotiations social networks that enable group to operate

• Hence, often intelligence agents used for first contact (also denial)
• Primary aim of terrorist leader is to appeal to his constituency and build
support so hard to figure out motivation – talks can help here
• Talks can divide followers of cause into factions (divide & conquer)
• De-legitimise the terrorist refrain that no alternative to violence
• A way to shift public opinion in group’s constituency

Criticism: “groups can bomb their way to negotiations”

hence talks legitimise them and they win
• Evidence shows concessions to a terrorist group are not correlated with
subsequence increases in terrorism (Martha Crenshaw)
Negotiations

Why do groups negotiate?

• Evidence shows most groups do not negotiate
• MIPT dataset of 457 groups – only 18% negotiated
• Certain types of groups negotiate – older groups, those whose causes are related to the
control of territory

When entering negotiations it’s important governments:

• Determine exactly what the group wants – often groups have Marxist claims that only
later evolve into arguments over land
• IOWs, ensure leader’s characterisation of aim is not an exaggerated rallying point
• Also not stop at a snapshot of the group’s demand but look in depth at the shifts in aims
Example: Oslo Peace Accords
 Problems for Negotiations

Strong
Stalemate Sponsors
Leadership

Suicide
Splintering Spoilers
Campaigns
Success
Sometimes terrorism ends because
the group achieves its political aim
and is disbanded or stops engaging in
violence
Back to the issue of what
success means:
• Hard to determine what this
means in the case of terrorism
• Terrorist leaders often know about
previous failed campaigns and
their choice to engage in terrorism
(like remarriage) is a “triumph of
hope over experience” (Samuel
Johnson)
• However, terrorism is altruistic,
and success also determined on
the basis of if it yields benefits for
the constituency
• Often survival is seen as the base
for terrorist success
 These are short-term or ‘process’ goals

Incentivise members
Purpose can be internal or Garner support and recruits
external Competition and spoiler
Satisfy donors etc.

Success:
Tactical Wide range of audiences

Goals Tactical success is regularly achieved and can lead to

those in group to a sort of bounded rationality which
leads to continuation of violence

Tactical goals tend to perpetuate vs. end campaigns

 Longer term, ‘outcome’ goals

Can be political, economic, religious or some combination of these

Success: Very few groups achieve strategic success – MIPT dataset < 5%

Strategic Terrorism often fails because its shocking nature provokes popular

Goals revulsion and sweeping retaliatory force

Sometimes over-reaction undermines democratic institutions and give

rise to military or authoritarian rule (e.g. Peru, Argentina, Algeria)

But while states may be weakened by terrorism over the long run,
terrorist groups are weakened even more
Example: ANC and MK
 Terrorism can be self-defeating

Most terrorism ends because groups fail and disintegrate

Indiscriminate killing creates a backlash and undermines its

staying power
Empirical evidence suggests that terrorism works against the
Failure desired outcomes and eventually has to be disavowed
But what makes terrorism fail?

Often CT given too much credit (government funding for

research)
But hard to maintain momentum of terrorist movement
without implosion
 • Failure to pass the cause to the next
Implosion: generation - RAF
mistakes, • Infighting and factionalisation – PIRA
burnout, • Loss of operational control – Ulster
Volunteer Force (rogue killings)
collapse • Accepting an exit – ETA

Failure
• Ideology becomes irrelevant – Soviet
support to PFLP
Marginalisation: • Loss of contact with ‘the People’ – Red
diminishing Brigades (underground)
popular support • Targeting errors and backlash –
Omagh bombing and RIRA
 Repression

Use of overwhelming force on part of state – natural

CT strategy is heavily influenced by the success of the strategic bombing during WWII

But this is a thinking mired in conflict between two equals – with terrorists asymmetry is the name of the game

Terrorists seek to instigate wars of attrition and annihilation:

• Operations that undermine state’s contracts with its citizens (attrition)
• Operations that elicit action counter-productive to the interests of the state
• IOWs – strategies of leverage

Terrorists want to polarise, provoke, mobilise

Examples:
Narodnaya
Volya, LTTE,
Munich
Reorientation

Can be good or bad:

Groups can • Good: State better Examples:
transition out of equipped to deal with Criminality
preliminary reliance criminal behaviour
• Bad: group gains (Columbia and
Terrorism can end when the on terrorism
strength and no longer FARC); Insurgency
violence continues but towards either
relies only on terrorism (Algeria and GIA);
takes another form criminal behaviour – guerrilla warfare, Terrorism as a
or more classic insurgency, major
Catalyst for War
types of regular or conventional war
(India-Pakistan)
irregular warfare
Conclusions

Need to look back in history –

Understanding how terrorism ends terrorism is inseparable from its
is the first step in developing any context and reflecting on our
major strategy against any group experiences will help us today and
in the future

At the same time, terrorism has

changed and we need to transition
This framework will allow us to do
from liner, two-dimensional
this
strategic concepts to dynamic,
multi-dimensional concepts