As is often the case, when it comes to security stuff, I found this through Bruce Schneier’s blog.
The paper he talks about is a study by Max Abrahms, for MIT Press, called Why Terrorism Doesn’t Work (PDF). In it, the author analyzes how effective (or not) terrorist organizations are at attaining their professed political objectives. All terrorist groups have one thing in common: they provoke terror to force governments into making certain policy decisions that the terrorist group wants.
Mr. Abrahms goes on to analyze the results obtained by 28 organizations that the U.S. Department of State has branded as terrorists since 2001.
The results are extremely interesting, and it’s well worth reading. It completely contradicts “common knowledge” that terrorism is an effective tool, and blames the ineffectiveness of the terrorist groups in…their target selection.
You really should read this paper, it gives you lots of food for thought.
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Tags: Security
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