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Nonstate Actors, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction Author(s): Andrew Blum, Victor Asal, Jonathan Wilkenfeld, John
Steinbruner, Gary Ackerman, Ted Robert Gurr, Michael Stohl, Jerrold M. Post, Joshua Sinai, Gary LaFree, Laura Dugan, Derrick Franke, Bartosz H. Stanislawski, Gabriel Sheffer, Mark Irving Lichbach, Todd Sandler and Walter Enders Reviewed work(s): Source: International Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Mar., 2005), pp. 133-170 Published by: Wiley on behalf of The International Studies Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3699642 . Accessed: 04/12/2012 11:01
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International Studies Review(2005) 7, 133-170
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Nonstate Actors, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction

EDITED BY ANDREW BLUM
Centerfor InternationalDevelopment and ConflictManagement, Universityof Maryland

VICTOR ASAL
RockefellerCollegeof Public Affairs and Policy, at Albany State Universityof New York
AND
WILKENFELD JONATHAN
Centerfor InternationalDevelopmentand ConflictManagement, Universityof Maryland Editors' Introduction new one, theeffortto stop Whiletheterm"weapons (WMD)is a relatively of massdestruction" thespreadof armsand weapons thatcan inflictmassharmis byno meansnew.Indeed, systems and possibleuse of thesemost effortsto stoptheproduction fatal weaponshave beensuccessful I to ban mustardgas to the esWar World by many accounts.Fromagreements following tablishment of the InternationalAtomicEnergyAgency to the nearly universal acceptance Conto the inaugurationof the ChemicalWeapons of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty states' ventionin 1997, the international in strides made has limiting ability great community to pursue, and interestin pursuing, WMD. Libya'srecentdecisionto dismantleand allow internationalinspections of of its own WMDprogramservesas evidenceof the effectiveness today's nonproliferation regime. are and institutions at the core of this nonproliferation The agreements regime,however, designedto affect the decisionsand policies of only one type of actor in the international do not do enoughto halt thespreadof thatis, states.As such,currentarrangements community, WMDto nonstateactorsin the international that WMD And, yet, it is widelybelieved system. and secessionist nonstate as terrorist ethnic actors-such groups, proliferation among groups, years. religioussects-will be the criticalnonproliferation challengeof the next twenty Manand Conflict Withthis challengein mind, the Center for International Development and on nonstate convened a conference actors,terrorism, agement of the University of Maryland a made was mass destruction on October 2004. 15, possible by grant weapons of Theconference Peaceand Security of New York.1 from theInternational Corporation Programof the Carnegie was to gather a small group of leading social scienceexpertson The goal of the conference nonstateactors, terrorism, and weaponsof mass destructionin a setting conduciveto the
'The conference organizers would like to thank Amy Benavides, Bidisha Biswas, Derrick Franke, and especially Jane Schmitt for their help in organizing and working at the conference. ? 2005 International Studies Review. PublishedbyBlackwellPublishing,350 MainStreet,Malden,MA02148, USA,and 9600 GarsingtonRoad,Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK.
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NonstateActors,Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
generation of new ideas and approaches.We consciouslymixed substantiveand methodological expertise-comparative case studies, including ethnographicapproaches;aggregate subnational and international approaches; experimental techniques, including simulations;formal and agent-basedmodeling-in an effort to promote creative new thinking. The organizers askedeachparticipanttopreparea briefdiscussion paper of the conference or thinkpiece. The purposeof thesepapers was to serve as a catalyst for discussion,not to research.The participantswereprovidedwithfour thematicquestionsto present completed addressin theirconference of varioustypes papers:(1) How do the underlyingcharacteristics with contextual combine their nonstate with the motivations actors, of leadership, together of factors to increaseor decreasethe likelihoodthat WMD may be sought? (2) Under what circumstances, for what purposes,and against which targetsare such groups likely to use WMD? (3) Whatpolicies and strategies are mostlikelyto deter WMDproliferation? (4) To such data what is and to these what data are degree confront questions, necessary, typesof available? After the conference, participantswereaskedto distill the majorpoints of theirdiscussion we will summarize which the heart papers, form of thisForum.In the restof thisintroduction, the majoraras advance the conclusionsthat emerged as well the discussion from day of thatfollow and indicatewho makeswhicharguments.Both the gumentsin the contributions discussions can be usefullydividedinto threeinterand the Forumcontributions conference in relatedthemes: the WMD, (1) (2) group-level analysis,and (3) theenvironments conceptof can be viewed at http:// whichgroups operate.Thefull papersprepared for the conference id =37. www.cidcm.umd.edu/announcement.asp? initial discussion The Conceptof WMD.As is not unusual at such conferences, focusedon in for critcame Mass Destruction the term fundamentalconcepts. of Weapons Immediately, icism. The gist of the criticismwas that the term is misleadingin two ways: (1) chemical, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons,to whichthe termWMD often refers, biological,radiological, are not necessarilymassivelydestructive,and (2) non-CBRN weapons can be massively destructive. was too narrowto capturethe it was arguedthatthe term"destruction" Moreover, raised the range of impactson societythat terroristevents can generate.John Steinbruner eventsinducing a societalautoimmune potentialof terrorist effect,in whichthe damagethat in the societydoes to itself may be larger than the terroristact itself (see his contribution could createan Forum).For instance, a threatto attackshoppingmalls during December enormousimpacton the economics of the holidayshoppingseason. In responseto these critiques,othersat the conference(GaryAckermanand Ted Gurr) suggestedthe conceptof Mass ImpactTerrorism definedas:
a terrorist actthathasa significant on thenormal anddirect of thelives functioning impact attack in a substantial results of a dramatically largenumber of people. a massimpact .... diminution in thephysical, social,and/or group well-being of a largeenough psychological as a core characteristic observers suchthatthis ofpeople bymost feature of theactis regarded (Ackerman, 2004:2) of theattack.
thelinkedconcepts was identifying at theconference Perhapsthemostsignificantbreakthrough assentthat and societalautoimmune of Mass ImpactTerrorism effect. Therewas widespread thispair of conceptscould serve as a useful core around whichto organize future research efforts. was to examinehow to Group-LevelAnalysis. One of the statedgoals of the conference (see developbetter profilesof groupslikelyto acquire,or to wishto acquire,WMD.Ackerman his Forumcontribution) calledfor the creationof standardized methodologies for assessing threatsto use in identifyingterrorist groups likelyto employWMD. Developingsuchprofiles a betterunderstanding groups engenderbotha desire requires of terrorist of what attributes threat-assessand a capacityto acquire WMD. such a profile-based, establishing Moreover mentsystem thepriorcreationof a catalogueof terrorist and potentialterrorist groups. requires Currently,datasets on WMD terrorist incidents--which include the WMD Terrorism
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Database(http://cns.mils.edu/dbinfo/about.htm#wmdt), Base theMIPT Terrorism Knowledge Events Terrorist or Attributes the International Terrorism: of (http://www.tkb.org/Home.jsp), and the ITERATE data (http://www.apsanet.org/-conflict/newsletter/feb2002/iterate.html), Global Terrorism than datasetson potential WMD terDatabase-are morecomprehensive roristgroups. It was noted at the conferencethat, whereasthe Minoritiesat Risk (MAR) datasethas playedan important role in tracking of ethnicconflict,thereis potentialeruptions no analogous, publicly available datasetfor potential terroristgroups. The standardized used byMAR to trackethnicminorities could serve as a model for the typeof methodologies threatassessment thatAckerman describes. Severalof theForum contributions (TedGurrMichaelStohl, JerroldPost,andJoshua Sinai) a profile the interrelated issuesof motiveand capabilities as a steptowardcreating for confront to lay in an attempt terrorist a theoretical framework groupslikelyto seek WMD.Eachpresents out waysof constructing a WMDprofile. two thesesamecontributors (Gurrand Moreover, of the structure WMD a Post)touchon a thirdimportant of the aspectof profile, organizational as well. Forinstance,it structure aroseat the conference group. The question of organizational was noted that secretive,cult-likegroups are more likelyto be able to keep WMD activity but whereas transnational concealed, groupsare morelikelyto beableto obtainWMDresources neitherthe conference are less likelyto be able to concealWMD activity. In general, however, discussions devotedthe sustainedattentionto this issue that it (nor the Forumcontributions) to the size and complexity deserves-testimony of the overalltopic. have in commonis an Whatall of theframeworks in the various contributions described side not demand an exclusive on the one, emphasis, of WMDacquisition. although necessarily as theunit of analysis Thisemphasis, in turn, dictates a shift in focusfrom theweaponssystem to the terrorist or potentialterrorist group as the unit of analysis. Suchframeworks need to be assessed will eventually althoughthisis difficultto empirically, do as therehas beenno true WMD terrorist to the Forumof Victor attack.The contribution Asal and AndrewBlum as well as that of GaryLaFree,Laura Dugan, and DerrickFranke in part to createstrategies use mass casualtyterror(MCT) as a proxyfor WMD terror, for Both to establish sets serve large-N analysis. of parametersregardingthe historical pieces recordof MCTfor which mustaccount.Onefinding,for instance,is that both future research can lead to MCT Thus,future profilesand threatassessment religiousand ethnicmotivations must be able to accountfor thefact that the strategies for MCT and byproxy WMD terror, TamilTigersand al-Qaedabothengage in highlylethal attacks. in Figure1, Near theend of theconference, arrivedat theframework presented participants and on terrorism whichall believecouldserveas a usefulguide tofuture group-levelresearch WMD. Thefirst two steps have alreadybeen discussedabove. The next steps in the procdetermining if a group is ess-determining whethera group'sgrievancescan be addressed, and determiningif a group can be physicallyblocked deterrable, from acquiring or using WMD-provide a pragmaticframe of referenceby which to analyze a group's motives, structure,and capacities. organizational to the Forum Environments in Which Groups Operate. Several of the contributors Endand ToddSandlerand Walter GabrielSheffer,Mark Lichbach, (BartoszStanislawski, but instead on the ers) focus not on the characteristics groups themselves, of the terrorist include: in whichtheyoperate.Keyelements environments of relevancein theseenvironments and other terrorist thelackof stateauthority between in certainregions;therelationship groups and the nature of thepolicy and diasporas; typesof groups,particularlycriminalenterprises to terrorist response groups. a sustained Thecomplexity theneedfor groupsto develop weapons of producingWMDcreates In considering wheresuch authorities. programoutsidethe reach of state and international environments or criminalenclaveswherestates are located,discussion spots" focused on "black in astronomy exercise holes" minimal muchlikethe "black theseblack control; (seethe spotsoperate in suchplaces,but be sustained contribution Not only can weapons of Stanislawski). programs that weapons theseareasoftenalreadycontainpeoplewiththe skillsand accessto the materials in thatit theconcept is similarto thatoffailed states,it is important programs require. Although drawsattention to thefact thatlawlessregionscan be quitesmalland can existas part of border
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IdentifyGroup
Identify Motive/Grievance
Canmotive/grievance be addressed?
NO
YES
Can groupbe deterred?
NO
YES
Cangroupbe blocked physically fromacquiring WMD?
NO
YES
FIG. 1. Processfor Analyzingand AddressingThreats from a Group-LevelPerspective
to theimportance suchas theTri-border It alsodrawsattention Areain SouthAmerica. of regions, networks thatmayor maynot existin a failed state. existingcriminal The importanceof these criminal networksillustratesthe relevanceof terroristgroups' with othertypesof groups moregenerally.Indeed, the interactionof extremist relationships groups can greatlyincreasethe capacityof any one group to obtainthe materialsand techto produce WMD. Consideralso the impactthat diasporascan nologicalexpertise necessary have on the actions of terroristgroups. Even though diasporagroups may contributeto violence and terrorism in their homelands,thefact that the goals of diasporasare usually highlypoliticaland theiractionsare highlytacticalmakeit unlikelythattheywouldsupportthe to this Forum). use of WMD as part of a terrorist strategy(see Sheffer'scontribution other we assume a is a terrorist not in black words,thatthereis a (in If spot operating group the questionof the impactof policiesand institutionson potential WMD politicalauthority), seekersremains. Several of the contributors (Gurr, Lichbach,and Sandler and Enders) elements the terrorist interaction between analyze of groups and the basketof policies and thathave beendeveloped to confrontthem.An argumentis madethat the politicalinstitutions terrorist groupsmostlikelyto use WMDare thosewiththemostseriousgrievances.Althoughit them is theseseriousgrievancesthatare the mostdifficultto address,evenpartiallyaddressing to move WMD. a desire to seek may groupsawayfrom Alongsideongoingefforts disruptthe
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actionsof terrorist whatstrategies understand are groups,a keyresearch challengeis to better the in and extremism at radicalization effective preventing first place. In additionto lookingat specificpolicies,thesecontributors also askfundamentalquestions and whichpolitical versus repression) regardingwhichpolicies (for example,appeasement thefact that two different institutions shouldbe effectivein undermining terrorism. Consider rational choice models-the bargaining theoryof war and the rebel'sdilemmatheoryof of the impactof certaintypesof policies differentunderstandings" dissent--"offerstartlingly and institutions.Whereas the bargainingtheory wouldcounsela stateto increase transparency and trust, the rebel'sdilemmamodel would urge creatingpolicies that checkthe ability of terrorist groups to increasetheirpower throughthe mobilization of new resources(see the contributionof Lichbach). Viewing the interactionbetweenterroristgroups and political authorities as a strategicinteraction, it is possibleto examinethe impactvariouspolicyshifts have had, if any, on terrorist Whenonedoessuch an analysis,an intriguing finding behavior. results:thepressure 11 has causedthemto eschew"difficult on since put al-Qaeda September and costlyattacks withhigh bodycounts"(see [particularly for simplebombing hostage-taking] the contribution in the WMD context of Sandlerand Enders). This conclusionis interesting we view this becausesuch terrorismis inherentlydifficult and costly.How optimistically is WMDterrorism conclusion relatesbackto theconceptual issuesdiscussed above;specifically, theproblemor is masscasualty/mass theproblem? impactterrorism More generally,it is this dynamic,interactiverelationship that terrorist groups have with theirenvironment that led Ackerman to call for the development in his contribution of new or nonlinorder "second Second-order, analytictechniques capableof addressing questions." ear;analysis is necessaryto understandwhetherthefuture transitionto WMD by terrorist or a moresudden, tipping-point-like groups will be slow and incremental phenomenon. In Sum. Reviewsof the literature on WMDterrorism suggestthatthereis a needto rethink what we know and to revisit the ways in which we are interpretingwhat we know. The it is true on whichthisForumis basedwas an attempt to dojust that.Nonetheless, conference that we, as editors,left the conference moreimpressed byhow muchthereis left to do than by how muchhas beenaccomplished. thatfollow shouldnot be viewedas Thus, the contributions providing some sort of comprehensive understandingof the relationshipbetweennonstate and WMD. Instead,we see each as a spotlight,illuminatingonepart of a actors,terrorism, complexlandscape. This result is not ideal but, as was articulatelystated by one of the we maynot have theliberty buildinga body conference participants, of slowlyand methodically mustalwaysremaina long-term goal, it is of knowledge. Althoughsuch a bodyof knowledge also necessaryto createpractical knowledgein the short term that can help prevent the proliferationof WMD to terrorist groups. The contributions to the Forum appear in the following order by theme:the concept of WMD-Steinbruner;Ackerman; group-levelanalysis-Gurr; Stohl,Post, Sinai Asal and in whichgroupsoperate-StanisBlum, LaFree,Dugan, and Franke;and the environments and Enders. Sandler Lichbach, lawski,Sheffer,
Terrorism: Practical Distinctions and Research Priorities

JOHN STEINBRUNER
Centerfor Internationaland SecurityStudies, Universityof Maryland Terrorism is obviously a term that is widely used and poorly defined. As best I can judge, the existing literature does not provide either a generally agreed
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upon definition of the term or a categorization of the meaningfully different circumstances to which the term has been applied. There are nonetheless some commonsense distinctions that can be used in considering an appropriate research agenda on the topic. Relevant Distinctions Assuming that the fundamental concern of terrorists has to do with deliberately initiated violence judged to have broader social consequence than ordinary crime, one can argue for organizing analysis according to the following distinctions among the imputed purposes for the activity: (A) Violence perpetrated for its own sake. Actions falling into this category are basically the work of serial killers. It may be questionable whether there are any exclusive manifestations of this phenomenon distinguishable from ordinary crime, but such behavior is probably a significant feature of most sustained terrorist episodes. The assessment of this type of violence, it would seem, might best be done by specialists on psychopathology, social pathology, and criminal justice. (B) Violence done for specific, readily imputable bargaining reasons. Most episodes of terrorism encountered to date fall into this category; the more consequential of them are embedded in the general problem of civil conflict. Valid assessment of this type of terrorism presumably should be considered part of the appraisal of civil conflict with all its many subspecialties. (C) Violence done for strategic reasons. Conceptually drawing a distinction between this and the previous category may be difficult, but there clearly is a widespread, and at least plausibly valid, impression that the events of September 11 and al-Qaeda activities in general reflect an underlying purpose that could not be resolved by any imaginable political bargain. The apparent intention of strategic terrorism is to provoke self-destructive reactions in a society that are too strong to be directly defeated. This type of violence depends essentially on inducing a decisive societal autoimmune effect. (D) Violence done to achieve catastrophic social destruction. As far as imputed intention is concerned, this category would be a combination of the first and the third, but its distinguishing feature is the use of means that can achieve massive social destruction directly without depending on autoimmune effects that in principle could be controlled by the target societies. To date there are no instances on record of this kind of violence, or even any serious attempts if long-standing nuclear deterrence practices are exempted from inclusion. It is nonetheless a legitimate concern given that, in principle, a clandestine organization capable only of small-scale operations might achieve massive social destruction by using nuclear explosives or a virulent biological pathogen. One can also argue for a complementary set of organizing distinctions having to do with the protective reactions of terrorist victims: (1) Actions designed to prevent the formation of terrorist operations. Presumably this set of actions includes analysis of the individual motives and social incentives that generate terrorists as well as assessment of the measures required to mitigate such determining conditions. (2) Actions designed to limit or to eradicate those terrorist organizations that do form. To the extent that these actions extend beyond standard criminal justice, they have mainly to do with the exchange of information. Terrorist operations can be eliminated if they can be identified. The core problem obviously is distinguishing them from legitimate activity and exercising prudent judgment in doing so. Inducing attack on innocent victims in attempting
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to eradicate terrorists is one of the principal methods of achieving a societal autoimmune effect. (3) Actions designed to prevent destructive access to critical social assets, particularly those whose destruction might have some substantial cascade effect. The basic problem in this regard is the exercise of prudent judgment. Inducing excessive efforts to protect critical assets is another major method of promoting an autoimmune effect in society. (4) Actions specifically designed to contain the autoimmune effect. This category is the most poorly conceptualized and least developed of all the relevant categories. To the extent that it goes beyond the exercise of good judgment with regard to the previous two categories, it presumably has to do with calibrating public fears and managing attitudes about risk-very difficult matters indeed. (5) Actions designed to prevent terrorist access to mass destruction technology. In this case, there is a strong presumption that extremely high standards of protection can and must be achieved; the corresponding dangers of promoting a societal autoimmune effect are a less prominent consideration. In principle, nuclear explosives can be more effectively sequestered than they currently are. Biotechnology is much more demanding. Chemical agents and other technologies that are commonly given the mass destruction label do not belong in this category.
Priority Research Topics The intersection of these distinctions (types of deliberately initiated violence and kinds of protective reactions of terrorist victims) can be used to argue for certain research priorities. My own judgments in this regard are as follows. First, in terms of magnitude of risk, the threat of deliberate mass destruction (the intersection of D and 5 from above) is clearly the matter of greatest concern. The actual probability is difficult to judge, but it is prudent to assume that the danger is serious enough to justify the overriding priority that would be required to develop dramatically higher standards of managerial control over the two technologies of greatest destructive potential--nuclear explosives and virulent biological pathogens. The practical implications are very different for these two applications, but they share some common features, most notably, the application of advanced monitoring techniques on a global scale. High standards of protection are technically feasible in each instance, but their development and application would require a conceptual and institutional revolution in existing international security arrangements. Although the basic idea is specific and compelling, the extended implications are very broad and very poorly understood at the moment. Second, in terms of potential probability, the most urgent concern in the aftermath of the September 11 events has to do with recognizing and controlling the societal autoimmune effect. The US political system has demonstrated itself to be quite susceptible to provocation and so far has essentially refused to acknowledge this problem. This refusal, of course, provides substantial incentive to those who want to exploit such a vulnerability. In this case, it is less evident what a responsive and effective research agenda would be, but the development of such an agenda is clearly an urgent matter. The topic, representing the intersection C and 4 in the array of motives and actions listed above, might usefully be termed immunization. Third, most of the terrorist incidents that have occurred to date have been generated by active civil conflicts--that is, by forms of warfare largely contained within a single, at least nominally, sovereign jurisdiction (the intersection of B and 2 in the categorization scheme). There is a strong presumption that any successful policy for dealing with terrorism of this type would have to be embedded in policies
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for mitigating the underlying conflict. At the moment, the most demanding variant of this problem has to do with achieving viable social reconstruction in the aftermath of a conflict whose major combat phase has been terminated by international intervention. Civil conflicts have, in fact, provided the principal combat experience for the major military establishments in the world for several decades. In the aftermath of the Cold War, the topic has emerged as a preoccupation of security policy as well. Extensive efforts have been made to develop analytic assessments of the problems involved in civil conflicts, and major instances of intervention have produced formative practical experience. Despite such extensive attention, however, virtually no one considers the problem to be adequately understood or operationally mastered. Very few would care to argue that either analytic comprehension or practical mastery are likely to emerge from a simple continuation of past efforts. It is evident that some productive innovation is needed; but far from evident, of course, is what innovation would be productive. My own suggestion in this regard has to do with perspective. Extensive engagement in Afghanistan and Iraq, in particular, is generating some localized innovation among those who are involved in military, reconstruction, and humanitarian relief operations. Moreover, preliminary work applying adaptive agent models to civil conflict situations suggests that localized interactions may be substantively more significant and analytically more comprehensible than yet realized. There is considerable promise in treating terrorism embedded in civil conflict as an emergent phenomenon more susceptible to adroit localized response than has yet been appreciated.
WMD Terrorism Research: Whereto from Here?

GARY ACKERMAN
Centerfor NonproliferationStudies, MontereyInstitute of InternationalStudies Despite significant contributions in the past decade to our understanding of various aspects of WMD terrorism, the topic seems to have reached something of an "interpretive impasse." A recent survey of more than 120 books, journal articles, monographs, and government reports dealing with WMD terrorism indicated that the scholarly and policy-related literature has increasingly begun to recycle the same interpretations and staid shibboleths. This is not meant to denigrate several excellent works that have emerged, merely to point out that truly novel insights into WMD terrorism are becoming few and far between. To some extent this is understandable, given the paucity of serious chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) incidents and the absence of any true WMD attacks by terrorists upon which to base studies and against which to validate assertions. The answers to some of the questions surrounding WMD terrorism must, therefore, necessarily remain within the realm of the speculative as long as we do not experience any major attacks--and hopefully this will continue to be the case. There are, however, several aspects that seem to have been overlooked or given scant attention in the research program thus far. With the hope of broadening the research agenda for WMD terrorism, I offer the following three examples.
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(1) Operationalizing WMD Terrorism Research by Informing Threat Assessments The current security situation, including recent indications of terrorist interest in using WMD, makes it untenable for scholars to act leisurely in applying their insights to practical purposes. Basic research needs to be operationalized as soon as possible in a form that analysts, investigators, and policymakers can deploy "in the field." A task that scholars should set for themselves in this regard is to actively work to incorporate the knowledge and insights we have gained over decades of study regarding motivational and other aspects of WMD terrorism into threat assessment methodologies that can be used by analysts with less experience and smaller knowledge bases than most scholars possess. One means of informing threat assessments is to develop standardized methodologies for conducting in-depth, qualitative studies of particular extremist groups so that threat assessments encompass such factors as a group's history, ideology, lifecycle status, organizational structure, organizational dynamics, resources, operational capabilities, environmental factors, cognitive and affect-based distortions to perception and information processing, and operational objectives, to mention only some. In addition, scholars should not shy away from undertaking close qualitative studies themselves, given that intelligence and law enforcement analysts rarely possess the time or resources necessary to conduct comprehensive profiles of this sort. Such efforts, even those based solely on information found in unclassified sources, can yield considerable indicators of a group's or individual's future potential for various types of violence, including the use of WMD. To provide but one example, a serious investigation of Aum Shinrikyo-which several Japanese newspapers did, in fact, carry out-should have been more than sufficient to alert domestic and international authorities to the dangers posed by the organization. If those warnings had been heeded and promptly acted upon, the 1995 sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway could undoubtedly have been prevented. As Ehwd Sprinzak (2000:5-6) has argued,
the vast majorityof terroristorganizations can be identified well in advance ... and the numberof potential[WMD]suspectsis significantly less than doomsayers seem to believe.Ample early warningsigns should make effectiveinterdictionof much easier than today'sprevailingrhetoricsuggests. potentialsuperterrorists
Another way in which scholars can leverage their collective knowledge in the above mentioned pursuit is to combine empirical research (both of the large-N and case study varieties) on terrorist motivations and capabilities with the existing body of literature relating to terrorist decision making in order to produce usable and useful analytical tools. It needs to be emphasized that, despite the intent to provide analysts with analytical aids, there is no way to predict the timing, nature, or location of future WMD attacks with any degree of scientific certainty. In many ways the threat of WMD terrorism resembles a chaotic system, in the strict sense of the term, wherein tiny perturbations in any of a myriad of factors can result in significantly disparate outcomes. Moreover, the traditional analytical methods of the past have also served us rather poorly in predicting terrorist behavior--the failures in foreseeing such events as the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin release or the September 11 attacks were not solely the result of faulty intelligence. They were in many ways the consequence of a lack of imagination and innovation in thinking about such threats. What is required is a synthesis--a marriage of the quantitative and the qualitative, the model and the empirical "actual."Combining real-world data with a new set of analytical tools--be they computational, statistical, or merely heuristic-could enable those involved in counterterrorism to reach a level of understanding that is both specific to the dangers of the terrorist group under
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Nonstate Actors, Terrorism,and Weapons of Mass Destruction
consideration and sufficiently comparative to discern valuable trends and indicators that would otherwise go unnoticed. (2) The Need for Second-Order Analysis and Beyond The consensus among scholars as well as in existing empirical evidence seems to suggest that, at present, WMD will not be the first choice of, nor is it within the capabilities of, most terrorists. Yet terrorism is an inherently dynamic phenomenon, and, if recent trends have taught us anything, it is that terrorists are nimble actors who can be innovative when necessary. This is especially true when considering such a diffuse, network-centric, and eminently adaptive set of groups and individuals as today's amorphous terrorist groups. At the same time, technological development is also inherently dynamic with one of the negative externalities of this dynamism being the opportunities it can provide for malefactors. Examples of such technologies include cheap, accessible sprayers for chemical weapons; nanotech, proteinacious microspheres; aerosol vaccine delivery; bioinformatics; single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs); and Bose-Einstein condensates. A remarkable feature of the broader discussion regarding the likelihood of WMD terrorism is that hardly any commentators who believe terrorists currently lack the capacity mention anything about future developments. Even if one accepts that terrorists will eventually succeed in using WMD to cause mass casualties, how quickly this can happen is a very important question. Five years? Ten? Fifty? The speed with which a shift to possible WMD use might take place in the context of emerging technologies is a very important, yet underresearched, question. Also, many people assume that any transition to WMD use will be incremental and perceptible, with WMD incidents gradually increasing in frequency and severity. Will this necessarily be the case, or can technological or motivational developments cause a sudden shift toward WMD use? What we need to do is to consider "secondorder questions" regarding when a potential transition to WMD use might occur and by what mechanisms it might take place. Consideration of second-order questions may entail new analytical techniques and require a more diverse set of skills than scholars are accustomed to applying to the problem of WMD terrorism. One potentially fruitful source of insights in this regard is found in the business development literature that focuses on the impact of technological change on patterns of behavior. Various models of technological change, often based on a modified rational choice approach, may shed some light on the rate of WMD adoption by terrorists. As an example, consider a concept such as disruptive versus sustaining technologies (developed by Clayton Christensen at the Harvard Business School; see Bower and Christensen 1995). If WMD in the context of terrorism is likely to act as a disruptive technology (which primafacie indications suggest), then changes in terrorist behavior can be both swift and comprehensive instead of gradual and infrequent; in other words, the transition to the terrorist use of WMD as the strategic weapon of choice would be both sudden and permanent. (3) Where Extremes Touch2 Another area that has thus far remained largely unexplored in the context of WMD terrorism involves the potential for and consequences of collaboration between terrorist groups. It is generally assumed that different types of violent extremists and terrorists operate within discrete ideological and cultural milieus that are relatively insular, if not entirely distinct from one another. This simplistic assumption
2The following section is based on work prepared by Jeffrey Bale and the author (see Bale and Ackerman 2004). Thanks are due Bale for providing many of the observations noted below.
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ignores a far more complex and fluid reality, however, given that elements from different extremist milieus have frequently interacted and lent one another assistance in the past. And, indeed, there are indications that new patterns of ideological cross-fertilization and collaboration are presently emerging among terrorist groups. It is important to recognize that one of the oldest alliance patterns adopted by states within the international system-that based on the notion that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"-also influences the behavior of nonstate actors. Another potential motivation for adopting this collaborative approach would be to circumvent security measures taken against their own groups by engaging proxies to carry out attacks on their behalf. It is not necessary in this regard that the bulk of or "mainstream" factions within each milieu find common ground. All that is necessary is for a small subset, perhaps even fringe elements, within each milieu to find ways to justify collaboration with one another, even though the majority of the respective ideologies' adherents continue to regard each other with antipathy. Any type of operational cooperation between separate terrorist organizations is a potentially worrisome development, but it is even more ominous in an era in which terrorist attacks are becoming ever deadlier. Given the growing interest expressed by terrorists in using CBRN weapons, the establishment of symbiotic relationships with their counterparts from other ideological milieus and the possible combining of their efforts could result in groups that otherwise would lack the requisite capability to move beyond the WMD threshold.
Which Minorities Might Use Weapons of Mass Destruction?

TED ROBERT GURR
and Politics, Universityof Maryland Departmentof Government I am not aware of WMD use by any of the 300 politically significant minorities that have been tracked since the 1980s by the Minorities at Risk (MAR) project (data are available at http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/mar). Asal and Blum (2004) identify thirty-four Mass Casualty Terror (MCT) events during the last thirty years; eight of them perpetrated by ethnonationalist Chechens and Tamils. None of these MCT attacks used nuclear, biological, or chemical agents-but we can speculate that, if WMD had been available to these groups, they probably would have used them. So it is reasonable to assess the risks that some kinds of minorities might seek and use such weapons in the future. My point of departure is a four-variable framework I have used to assess the likelihood that politically mobilized communal groups will engage in disruptive political action (Gurr 2000: ch. 3). The framework is adapted here to suggest the circumstances in which such groups are at risk of using WMD. Four general variables shape the potential for group political action: (1) the salience of ethnocultural identityfor members and leaders of the group, (2) the extent to which the group has collectiveincentivesfor political action, (3) the extent of the group's capacitiesfor collective action, and (4) the availability of opportunities in the group's political environment that increase its chances of attaining group objectives through political action. The specifics of the four variables shape leaders' choices concerning strategies and tactics for political action and also determine the extent of the active support that they are likely to receive from members of the identity group they
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claim to represent. These group traits increase the likelihood that some of the leaders and members may seek and accept the use of WMD. Salience of Identity The salience of the group's identity comes into play in one essential way: some of the group holds an exclusionary, Manichean worldview by which their opponents are irremediably evil and can as well as should be opposed by all means available to the group. Such worldviews are held by some ethnonationalists, for example, supporters of the Spanish Basque ETA, Chechen rebels, and the Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers; some Islamists such as the Sunni militants in Pakistan (whose beliefs justify deadly attacks on Shi'i and Christians); and among India's most extreme Hindu nationalists. One can question how widely such worldviews are held by leaders or their followers. Whether deeply and widely held or not, the promotion of such exclusionary views by opinion leaders in a group is a necessary precondition for strategic choices to seek and use WMD. Collective Incentives The choice of any political strategy-lethal or nonlethal--depends on the shared perception that the group has valid claims that are being ignored or denied by others. Incentives may arise from resentment about losses suffered in the past, fear of future losses, or hopes for relative gains. These are not merely "collective interests," as Charles Tilly would describe them, but those that have an intrinsic affective component. Members of disadvantaged minorities seek redress not only with self-interest in mind, but with passion, self-righteousness, and in solidarity with their kindred. The greater their collective sense of loss, and the greater their hoped-for gains, the stronger their motivations to support political action. What incentives might justify a willingness to use WMD? Such a willingness follows from the Manichean ideologies mentioned above. Key is the belief that justice (or revenge) can only be attained by destroying or grievously harming one's opponents. Governments motivated by such beliefs are at risk of committing genocide and ethnic cleansing; leaders of ideologically driven ethnocultural and religious identity groups are disposed to use deadly terror against any targets associated with their enemies. In sum, the most deadly combination is an exclusionary ideology harnessed to a deep sense of grievance or injustice that needs to be remedied by attacks aimed at destroying the "other."The two traits, of course, tend to reinforce one another. Capacities for Collective Action Sustained political action requires some degree of cohesion and mobilization among members of a communal group. But WMD are not likely to be deployed by mass movements, rather they are more likely to be the choice of nuclei of activists nested within larger political movements. Solidarity and absolute commitment to "the cause" are essential for planning and executing highly risky and deadly attacks. Small and secret groups help reduce the risks of infiltration and detection. Two key points need to be made here. First, people with the skills to create clandestine organizations can function in almost any political environment. Therefore, any movement based on any kind of identity group could in principle provide the context for a terrorist cell using WMD. But such groups are most likely to be found in weak and autocratic states as well as in societies with (sub)cultures with precedents and justifications for violent conflict. Second, for such cells to persist they need a support base of people--a larger identity group--whose members accept their goals even if they reject terror strategies. So they need to play careful
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political and security games to ensure that they contain potential opposition from, or defection by, their supporters. Opportunities for Acquiring and Using WMD Two kinds of opportunities are preconditions for any future use of WMD by communal groups: (1) acquisition of usable weapons, and (2) availabilityof targets. Lack of access to such weapons, and lack of technical skills to employ them, very likely explain why no communally based militants have employed them to date. Potential targets are too numerous to be secured against engineers of death who are determined to use WMD. So we end up focusing on the supply side of opportunities: the diligence and luck of security agencies in keeping nuclear and deadly biological and chemical technologies out of the hands of militants who have the motivation and skills to use them. The "skills"factor is an unknown. Many would-be terrorists have died when mishandling explosive devices before reaching their targets. It is impossible to say how often potential users of WMD have been thwarted, not by failure to obtain radioactive or biological agents but by their own technical ineptitude. Nonetheless, the first line of defense must be to keep WMD materials and technology out of the hands of communal and other militants. Hardening security at potential targets is a costly and ineffective alternative precisely because there are so many of them. In Sum This sketch has implications for domestic and international strategies for minimizing the risks that communal militants will employ WMD. First, there are numerous and demonstrably effective strategies for responding to communally based demands, even those that have escalated into open rebellion. The strategies include symbolic and substantive concessions and reforms that help address grievances, institutional changes that improve opportunities for political participation by minority group members and leaders, and negotiated power-sharing and autonomy agreements (see Gurr 2000: chs. 5 and 6). Although these responses seldom satisfy all group members, they do undercut the appeals and support base of militants. Those who reject accommodation and continue to fight are more easily isolated and dealt with as a security problem until they, too, either give up or accept a political buyout. Second, scholars, analysts, and security personnel need to track closely the emergence of communal ideologues preaching hatred and calling for destruction of group enemies. One private organization, MEMRI (http://www.memri.org/),provides current reports on militant Islamist writings and also on moderate Islamist rejoinders to jihadists. Comparable doctrines can emerge in other contexts--extreme Hindu nationalism was cited above-and should be monitored in a similar way. Third, these ideologies need to be interpreted in their political context. Do the ideologues have a resonant mass of potential supporters and recruits? And, if so, what information strategies and policies can be devised to challenge them and provide alternative courses of action? Fourth, militant communal organizations need the full and close attention of security agencies. This should include local and international policies that block such organizations from acquiring WMD materials and technology; intelligencegathering on their plans and capabilities; and preventive actions that thwart or decapitate their leadership. Such tactics have normative and political risks. Some will offend civil libertarians and advocates of human rights. They may also help motivate new generations of militants to seek revenge. There are two strategies for reducing--not eliminating--these risks. One is to focus security efforts narrowly on the most dangerous of ideologically driven militant organizations and to lay out, after the fact if necessary, the evidence justifying preventive action. The other,
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referred to above, is to implement policies that open up alternative strategies and opportunities for communal group members who might otherwise rally to the militants' support. It is particularly important to employ both these strategies simultaneously.
Is the Past Prologue? Terrorists and WMD

MICHAEL STOHL
Department of Communication, University of California, Santa Barbara
In the years immediately before and certainly after September 11, many scholarly and policy analyses have focused on the causes and consequences of the "new terrorism." These analyses have suggested that the new terrorism is caused by the emergence of "religious" and "millearian" terrorists in contrast to the "political" terrorists who dominated the "old terrorism" (see, for example, Lesser et al. 1999; Morgan 2004) and that the consequence is greater lethality. Many have argued that these new terrorists, unlike the old, are increasingly "stateless," thus removing restraints imposed by their territorially defined supporters. Much of the debate centers on conflicting evaluations of the continuing relevance of Brian Jenkins's (1975:15) observation that "terrorists want a lot of people watching, not a lot of people dead." Compounding the problem, some suggest that there has been a desensitization of the audience such that greater lethality is required to obtain not only coverage, but the fear, and thus impact, that these new terrorists are seeking (see, for example, Center for Counterproliferation Research 2002:6).3 There is no doubt that many of these new groups do not talk of their use of terrorism in the same ways that the "old" terrorists did. Some explicitly call for not only the defeat of the enemy, but their annihilation. And beyond the events of September 11, there have been a number of additional mass casualty events. However, despite the escalation of the rhetoric (and the increasing silence on particular events), thus far the trend line does not indicate a consistent escalation in death and devastation around the world. An expected utility approach provides useful insights into the process of understanding why oppositional organizations might choose terrorism as a tactic or strategy and which groups are more likely to seek mass casualties as opposed to using their violence with relatively more economy. Raymond Duvall and Michael Stohl (1983) have argued that an expected utility model is useful for understanding a government's choice of terrorism as a tactic or strategy in domestic affairs, and Stohl (1986) has advanced its usefulness in examining state behaviors in the international realm as well. Such an approach calculates the benefit thought possible from the desired outcome, the believed probability with which the action will bring about the desired state of affairs, and the probable cost of engaging in the action. Two kinds of costs--response costs and production costs--can be distinguished. Response costs are those that are imposed by the target group or sympathetic or offended bystanders. The bystanders can include domestic and foreign audiences, and the target audience can be wider than the attacking party may have intended when choosing the victims and the actions. Production costs are the costs of taking
3Chris Dishman (2001:305) cites the gap between the conclusions of the Gilmore commission, which notes that fewer than 100 of the more than 9,000 terrorist events transpiring between 1968 and 1999 showed any indication of terrorists seeking to use chemical and biological weapons (CBW) and those of the National Commission on Terrorism, which projected a growing trend in lethality and interest in using CBW.
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the action regardless of the reactions of others. In addition to economic and organizational costs-paying the participants, acquiring weapons, and the like -there is the psychological cost of behaving in a manner that most individuals would, under normal conditions, characterize as unacceptable. Gurr (1986:62-67) identifies three sets of conditions that affect the decisionmaking calculus of the potential terrorist actor within this expected utility approach (see also his contribution to this Forum). Situationalconditions include the political traits of the challengers (the status and strategies of the opposition) and the terrorists' own political resources for countering these challenges (organizational strength, support, and public acquiescence). Structuralconditions are those that define organizational relations with one's opponents and supporters and determine or constrain response options. Dispositionalvariables are conditions that can be expected to influence how organizations regard the acceptability of strategies of violence and terrorism. Norms supporting the use of violence are shaped by direct or mediated experience with violent means of power and are potentially inhibited by values held by supporters of the cause. Stohl and Stohl (2005) extend the ideas found in Gurr and identify "Eight R's" for understanding global organizing. They can be applied to terrorist behaviors and organizing to identify the key characteristics that should be considered in understanding not only the choices of action that terrorists may take, but also what their potential capabilities and impacts might be. The eight R's include: (1) Relationships-What is the organization's network? (2) Rules-How do systemic structures affect the organization, its network, and its opportunities? (3) Resources-What are the organization's resources, and who are its potential opponents? (4) Record-What is the history of the organization and the history of the region in which it operates? How do these affect the organization's choices? (5) Region-Where is the organization's zone of operations, and who are its referents? (6) Readings-How does the organization perceive and interpret its and its opponents' "reality,""symbols," and "routines"? (7) Rationales-What provides meaning and understanding for the organization? (8) Responsibility--How does the organization justify its actions to itself and to potential supporters and others? Let us stipulate for the moment that there are terrorists and terrorist organizations that would like to acquire and potentially employ WMDs, and that they could. We also need to determine if these groups have the organizational capacity to create and deploy the weapons, to gain access to them (through theft, purchase, or the largess of a state or other group), and to attack installations and cause damage from the attack itself (for example, destruction of a nuclear power plant). In short, do they have the resource capabilities to clear the technical barriers? What types of groups in which contexts are these likely to be? As indicated earlier, religious-based terrorist organizations are often cited as the archetypal "new" terrorists. But analysis of simply "religious" terrorists leads to mixed results. On the one hand, we have good reason to suspect that certain characteristics of religious-based groups suggest a propensity for mass casualties. Michael Barkun (2001) argues that "there do, however, appear to be some features associated with the potential for violence. One is the existence of a belief that the faithful are trapped and must act now or be destroyed. Individuals in such a situation may feel that they have nothing to lose by resorting to violence. They may feel physically trapped, as in a barricade situation, but they may also feel trapped by time if they feel history is literally coming to an end" (see also Stern 2004). On the other hand, Ranstorp (1996:59), surveying the actual behavior of such groups, observes that "in comparison to their secular counterparts, the religious terrorists have not been particularly inventive when it comes to using new types of weaponry in their arsenals, instead relying on the traditional bombs and bullets." Since September 11, obviously concerns with al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden have replaced concerns with Aum Shinrikyo in Japan and Christian Identity groups
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within the United States regarding which terrorist organizations are likely to use WMD. But al-Qaeda itself demonstrates why we have many more questions than answers with respect to terrorists and WMDs. In lieu of a conclusion, I pose a set of questions, drawn from the eight R's above, which suggest that the R's related to capability, motivation, and resources, along with the expected utility of potential strategies, are central to our evaluation of the WMD threat posed by terrorists old and new. (1) In the short and long term, does al-Qaeda seek the destruction of the West? Or does it seek the destruction of the Israeli state and US (and Western) support for Israel and the apostate regimes of the Muslim world (Rationales)? (2) Is al-Qaeda interested only in destruction and violence or is it (or any of its parts) interested in any political bargaining (Record,Readings, Rationales)? (3) Which of the organizational members of the "al-Qaeda" network support its Responsibility)? global as opposed to their own local aims (Relationships, (4) What are the potential tensions and schisms in the global network (Record, Responsibility)? (5) Do local aims and local political struggles inhibit interest in acquisition and use of WMD as opposed to other violent alternatives, and what impact does this have on the organizational abilities of al-Qaeda and its ability to escape detection and infiltration if it seeks WMD (Regions, Resources)? (6) How do the actions of its opponents and the international "community" affect policy choices (Rules, Region, Responsibility)?
The Psychology of WMD Terrorism

JERROLD M. POST
Elliott School of InternationalAffairs, George WashingtonUniversity The concern for superterrorism using CBRN weapons has generally focused on what terrorists can do and what our societal vulnerabilities are, with scant attention to terrorist motivations, their incentives, and constraints. In considering which in the spectrum of terrorist groups might be inclined to carry out acts of chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) terrorism, it is important to differentiate the spectrum of such acts as well. Consider the following categorization: (a) largescale casualties with conventional weapons; (b) CBRN hoaxes; (c) a conventional attack on a nuclear facility; (d) a limited-scale chemical or biological attack or radiological dispersal; (e) a large-scale chemical or biological attack or radiological dispersal; and (f) CBRN strikes (superterrorism) in which thousands of casualties may result. The crucial psychological barrier is not the choice of weapon but rather the willingness to cause mass casualties--a threshold that has already been crossed by some groups. These groups are not attempting to influence the West but to take revenge against the West. Besides the motivation or the willingness to inflict mass casualties by any means, terrorists must possess the technical and financial capabilities to obtain the materials and skills to weaponize such materials and carry out an attack. Chemical and biological weapons may pose a risk to the terrorists themselves and caution might deter them from using such weapons. The technical hurdles and lack of "knowhow" can prevent even a willing terrorist from staging a mass casualty terrorist act. Given the skills and hazards in working with radiological and nuclear materials
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in particular, some groups might question the necessity to move into this technologically difficult and dangerous area when they could inflict mass casualties and mass terror by using conventional weapons, as was vividly demonstrated in the attacks of September 11. Sham attacks or hoaxes lack the psychological constraints of radiological and nuclear attacks but, at the same time, such threats can cause devastating psychological effects, even if there is no release of ionizing radiation or large-scale firestorms or explosive yields. In evaluating the risk that terrorist groups will use CBRN weapons, it is helpful to consider the distinction between random and discriminate violent acts. Writing in the Reportof the TaskForceon Disorders more than twenty years ago, and Terrorism R. W. Mengel (1977) distinguished four different means by which terrorists attempt to achieve their goals. He observed that there is a distinct difference between discriminate and random target selection. Whereas discriminate target selection can be used in support of bargaining or to make a political statement, random targeting is associated with the motivation to cause social paralysis-or inflict mass casualties. In evaluating the risk that terrorist groups may use chemical or biological weapons, it is useful to employ this distinction in differentiating among terrorist groups. For each of the terrorist group types to be described here, there are constraints against the use of CBRN weapons and mass casualty terrorism. Social-Revolutionary Terrorists. Insofar as these groups are seeking to influence their societies, they are significantly constrained from indiscriminate acts that cause significant casualties among their own countrymen or cause negative reactions in domestic and international audiences. But discriminate acts against government or symbolic capitalist targets can be rationalized by these groups. Nationalist-Separatist Terrorists. These groups are significantly constrained from performing acts that indiscriminately involve mass casualties and will negatively affect the group's reputation with their constituents and their international audience. But discriminate acts against their adversary, in areas where their constituents are not present, can be rationalized. Just as the rash of suicide bombings in Tel Aviv and other predominantly Jewish cities in Israel was implemented by absolutist Palestinian groups, some of which were radical Islamists, the prospect of tactical chemical or biological weapons in such areas is also quite conceivable. Moreover, such discriminate attacks could be implemented in revenge against US targets. But secular Palestinian terrorists launching a chemical or biological weapons attack in Jerusalem that might affect their own constituents is considered highly unlikely. Radical Religious Fundamentalist Terrorists. These organizations are hierarchical in structure. The radical cleric provides interpretation of the religious text justifying violence, which is uncritically accepted by his "true believer" followers; there is no ambivalence concerning use of violence that is religiously commanded. These groups are particularly dangerous because they are not constrained by Western reaction; indeed, they are driven to expel secular modernizing influences and achieve revenge against the West, focused especially upon the United States. They have shown a willingness to perpetrate acts of mass casualty terrorism, as exemplified by the bombings of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center in the United States, the 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, and the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Osama bin Laden, responsible for these events, has actively discussed the use of weapons of mass destruction in public interviews. Thus, in contrast to the social revolutionaries and the nationalist-separatist groups, the constraints against CBRN mass terrorism are not present. This type of terrorist group is considered especially dangerous. "New Religions" Terrorism. The millenarian cult Aum Shinrikyo attempted to use aerosolized biological agents against nine targets, two with anthrax and seven with botulinum toxin. Although all these biological weapons attacks failed because they made mistakes in production or dissemination of the biological agents, they
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were more "successful" in their use of chemical weapons. Their chemical attack killed twelve and injured more than 1,000 in April 1995 when they used sarin gas on the Tokyo subway; their earlier sarin attack in Matsumoto killed seven and injured another 500 persons. This group was also experimenting with Q Fever, was shopping for Ebola virus in East Africa, and had bought nuclear weapons components from individuals in the former Soviet Union. They also owned a uranium mine in Australia and obviously had future nuclear weapons aspirations. Soko Asahara, the guru of Aum Shinrikyo, hoped to precipitate the final struggle from which he and his followers would be resurrected. Right-Wing Terrorism. Because right-wing terrorists generally dehumanize their enemies, attacks on target groups, such as black people, or, in Europe, enclaves of foreign workers, are justified by their ideology. Because of their delegitimization and dehumanization of the government, government facilities are targeted by such groups, including attacks on the seat of the federal government as represented in The TurnerDiaries. Many of the case studies of chemical-biological terrorism developed by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute for International Studies (see, for example, Tucker 2000) were acts committed by individuals with a right-wing ideology who did not belong to a formal group or organization per se. Individuals in this category are a significant threat for low-level chemical and biological attacks, but because of resource limitations, probably do not represent a threat for using mass casualty chemical or biological terrorism. The role of the Internet in propagating the ideology of right-wing extremist hatred is of concern because an isolated individual consumed by hatred can find common cause in right-wing web sites, feel he or she is not alone, and be moved along the pathway from thought to action--responding to the extremist ideology of the virtual community. Single-Issue Terrorists. To date, the singe-issue terrorists such as anti-abortion terrorists, eco-terrorists, and animal rights radicals have not used mass casualty weapons to make their points, probably because these are indiscriminate weapons that target too wide a spectrum of victims, not just those to whom they object most strenuously. It is possible that such terrorists would not want to inflict extreme levels of damage because it would adversely affect public acceptance of their agendas. Moreover, some might be deterred by the amount of government pursuit that such actions could catalyze. is represented in Table 1. It should be emphasized that a checkmark does not indicate that these groups are strongly motivated to carry out CBRN terrorism attacks, but that they are less constrained from doing so. A few points should be
TABLE 1. Differentiating Motivations for WMDTerrorismby Group Type and Constraints
Group Type Large-scale Conventional CBRN Hoax Limited Large-scale Scale CBR CBR Superterrorism/ Catastrophic CBRN
Various Groups, Various Motivations. This differentiated
motivational spectrum
Social-Revolutionary Nationalist-Separatist Religious-Fundamentalist New Religious Extremists

(closed cults)
V*
V* V N*
V
V
V
V/
X
* /* * V V
X
X X
X X
V
X
X
/* V
X
X
Right-Wing
Single-Issue Extremists
Designates reduced constraints against discriminateWMD terrorism. v/* X Designates major constraints against WMD terrorism. V Designates reduced constraints against WMD terrorism. CBR Chemical, Biological, and Radiological. CBRN Chemical, Biological, Radiological, or Nuclear.
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kept in mind. The horrors of September 11 demonstrate that conventional attacks may be sufficient to cause mass destruction. In addition, incarcerated radical Islamist terrorists interviewed under the auspices of the Smith Richardson Foundation, although open to considering weapons of mass destruction, for the most part said: 'Just give me a good Kalishnikov," and several indicated that the Koran prohibited the use of poisons (see Post, Sprinzak, and Denny 2003).
Forecasting Terrorists' Likelihood to Embark on "Conventional" to CBRN Warfare

JOSHUA SINAI
Departmentof Homeland Security Terrorists primarily seek to cause physical and economic damage to their more powerful adversaries in order to extract political or other demands. However, terrorism is also a form of psychological warfare in which a localized incident is intended to spread fear and anxiety throughout the wider society. These factors contribute to the decision making by terrorists regarding the calibration of the weapons and devices they will use in their warfare. The strategic calculations that terrorist groups employ in choosing a relatively low impact form of "conventional" warfare versus the greater lethality represented by the use of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons and devices are the crucial unknowns in counterterrorism analysis. The methodological framework presented here is intended to provide a means to ascertain some of the factors in a group's decision making that are likely to propel it to embark on a spectrum of warfare ranging from conventional low impact (CLI) to conventional high impact (CHI) to CBRN to advance their strategic objectives. An important underlying characteristic in determining a terrorist group's warfare proclivity is whether its operations exhibit classical, modern, or postmodern a group's warfare is direct and focuses on specific terrorism.4 In classicalterrorism, with intention of the targets inflicting few casualties and relatively little damage on rather nonsignificant facilities. Destruction is low impact and involves the use of conventional weapons. The warfare is aimed at facilitating the achievement of the group's primarily political objectives. Modern terrorism uses a more indirect approach in which targeting is more indiscriminate and casualties and physical destructiveness are far greater than heretofore, reaching hundreds of fatalities. Yet, even here, conventional weapons are used to inflict mass casualties. In postmodern terrorism,however, terrorist groups aim to transform the reality of the conflict with their adversary by the very act of terrorism, such as using weapons of mass destruction, represented by CBRN, to physically destroy as much of their adversary as possible and, thus, remove the source of the conflict itself. As a result, determining whether a group--through its ideology, strategy, and modus operandi-fits into the categories of classical, modern, or postmodern terrorism can assist in ascertaining its likely warfare proclivity, whether conventional low impact, conventional high impact, or CBRN (or a mix of the three). Certain distinct accelerators and triggers provide the contextual factors or "circumstances" to propel a group to use CBRN. Within the context of CBRN,
4This categorization was developed by Boaz Ganor, Executive Director of the International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism (ICT), Herzlia, Israel.
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Nonstate Actors, Terrorism,and Weaponsof Mass Destruction
accelerators serve as the technical enablers that provide a group with the opportunity to acquire CBRN weapons and devices. Examples of accelerators would include success in recruiting specialists with CBRN-related skills and acquiring CBRN agents, weapons, devices in foreign black or grey markets. Specific types of triggers, such as precipitous events, hasten the decision by a group to embark on CBRN warfare. Examples of triggers might include: a heightened sense of imminent threat; proclamation by a group advocating a millenarian, apocalyptic, or messianic ideology that the millennia or messiah have arrived; excessive government retaliation or crackdown causing a group to become desperate to maintain its independence with the resort to CBRN warfare the only remaining alternative in its view. The confluence of certain ideological or religious motivations as well as strategic objectives often generate the "purposes" driving a group to resort to CBRN warfare as opposed to "conventional" warfare, particularly when the use of "unconventional" weapons might produce a massive retaliation by the targeted adversary that would eliminate the perpetrator and its allies and damage its constituents' cause and well-being. The following purposesare likely to drive a group to embark on CBRN warfare: a willingness to take high risks in its warfare; an interest in completely destroying a particular political system and inflicting catastrophic casualties; and an amorphous constituency that is willing to support CBRN warfare. In assessing a group's likely proclivity to embark on CBRN warfare, certain internaland externalhurdlesneed to be overcome not only to develop an operational CBRN terrorist capability but a willingness to use it. As an example of internal hurdles, groups might believe that it would be disadvantageous to use CBRN warfare because (1) they might lack control over the effects of these agents after their release; (2) in the case of biological, chemical, and radiological weapons the time delayed effects are not instantaneous or simultaneous, thus preventing immediate media coverage; and (3) they or their supporting constituency might feel a moral revulsion about using such weapons, which could lead to their demise (what happened to Aum Shinrikyo after the 1995 sarin gas attack in Tokyo). Among the external factors preventing a group from embarking on CBRN warfare, consider the following: (1) counterterrorism and intelligence agencies may succeed in influencing some of their operatives to defect, leading to exposure of a group's CBRN program; (2) a group's attempts to recruit foreign technical and warfare specialists may fail or may be reported to intelligence and law enforcement authorities; (3) as a result of the clandestine nature of their operations and constant surveillance of their activities by government agents, a group may delay or give up on CBRN warfare; (4) difficulties in acquiring CBRN devices from foreign suppliers; (5) the refusal by a potential state sponsor to cooperate with their operation; (6) monitoring of a group's activities leading to its penetration or deterrence by foreign counterterrorist and intelligence agencies; or, as occurred to Aum Shinrikyo, (7) bad relations with local residents who inform on the group's activities to the authorities. As this discussion suggests, to forecast a terrorist group's likely resort to CBRN warfare, it is necessary to acquire certain qualitative and quantitative data about several components of terrorist behavior and activities. One final piece of qualitative data that is essential to acquire concerns a group's modus operandi--its particular way or manner of operating, generally the unvarying, routine, or habitual procedures the group uses to achieve particular objectives. In the case of terrorism, groups are inclined to use a blend of old and new tactics to achieve their objectives. One could even argue that for terrorists the conventional definition of modus operandi does not apply because they attempt to learn lessons from their-and others'--previous terrorist campaigns in order not to repeat them. Thus, the past may not always be the best predictor for future terrorist actions. As a result, one must always anticipate new and innovative tactics and weaponry by a
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terrorist adversary to avoid getting blindsided. Nevertheless, counterterrorism planners still need to examine a group's tactics in previous attacks to learn its modus operandi, while at the same time anticipating any new procedures it may decide to use. As in the past, assassinations, hijackings, and bombings will probably remain staples in the arsenal of terrorist tactics and procedures, although knowledge of, and access to, the technologies of WMD are enabling terrorist groups to continually revise and update their methods of operation to a greater extent than ever before.
Holy Terror and Mass Killings? Reexamining the Motivations and Methods of Mass Casualty Terrorists
VICTOR ASAL
RockefellerCollegeof Public Affairs and Policy, State Universityof New York at Albany
AND
ANDREW BLUM
Centerfor InternationalDevelopmentand ConflictManagement, Universityof Maryland The starting point of this contribution to the Forum is the oft-cited distinction between "old terrorism" and "new terrorism" alluded to in earlier contributions. Practitioners of the old or traditional terrorism-ETA in the Basque region of Spain and the IRA in Northern Ireland are often given as examples-are involved in a localized conflict, normally with a state, over fundamental political questions. It is argued that groups such as this calibrate the level of violence carefully so as not to alienate their supporters or remove the possibility that they will eventually be offered a place at the negotiating table. Practitioners of the "new terrorism," in contrast, are said to be fighting a global, or even cosmic, battle against forces of evil, normally defined in religious or apocalyptic terms. The religious or pseudoreligious motivations of these groups mean they are less constrained by political concerns, including the need to maintain a constituency. They are therefore more willing to inflict large numbers of casualties. Al-Qaeda and the attacks of September 11 epitomize the new terrorism. What emerges from the literature that relies on this dichotomy is a tightly linked causal story, namely that there has been an emergence of transnational, religiously motivated terrorist groups with expansive, almost apocalyptic, goals that are willing to engage in massively destructive attacks. Because of the nature of their motivations, goals, and organizational structure, it is possible that such groups will seek to acquire and use WMD. In order to critique this causal story, we have compiled data on thirty-four mass casualty terror (MCT) events from 1970 to 2003.5 MCT events are defined as events in which 100 or more people have been killed on one day by the same nonstate actor attacking a primarily civilian target. A key component of the causal story is the religious motivation of the new terrorists. We thus coded the MCT events for motivation, using the following
5The data we use is primarily taken from the online source "Incidents of Mass Casualty Terrorism," created by Robert Johnston and available at http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/terrorism/wrjp394.html. The compiled data used in this particular analysis is available from the authors upon request.
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Nonstate Actors, Terrorism,and Weapons of Mass Destruction TABLE 1. Motivation for MCTAttacks,1970-July22, 2004
Motivation Leftist Rightist Religious Ethnonationalism Ethnonationalist/Religious State Agent Narco-terror or other Criminal Intent Unclear
Frequency 1 1 8 11 5 3 3 2
Percentage 2.94 2.94 23.53 32.35 14.71 8.82 8.82 5.88
Fatalities 100 169 4,941 1,677 835 556 369 212
Percentage 1.12 1.91 55.77 18.93 9.42 6.28 4.17 2.39
categories: rightist, leftist, religious, ethnonationalist, religious/ethnonationalist, state agent, and narco-terrorism/other criminal intent. The data in Table 1 show that a plurality of MCT attacks have been motivated by ethnonationalism and only eight of thirty-four attacks have a solely religious motivation. Twice as many attacks, sixteen, have been carried out by groups with an ethnonationalist or ethnonationalist/religious motivation as opposed to leftist, rightist, religious, or criminal motivations. If we look at fatalities, the link between religion and MCT looks more compelling. However, an important caveat must be noted. The high percentage of fatalities due to religiously motivated MCT is driven almost entirely by the events of September 11. Moreover, September 11 is, at least for now, an outlier event in terms of the number of fatalities, producing six times more than the second most deadly attack. Regarding trends, the data show that religiously motivated attacks have been more common since 1994. Since 1994, there have been six MCT attacks that were religiously motivated. In contrast, religion was generally lacking as a motivation for MCT during the 1980s and early 1990s. Since 1994, there have been six attacks with nonreligious motivations and four attacks in Iraq motivated by a mix of nationalism and religion. We can obtain similar results by looking at the past five years, in which we find four religiously motivated attacks, three attacks motivated by ethnonationalism, and the four attacks in Iraq. We conclude that the motivations for MCT are more complex than the traditional/new terrorism dichotomy would lead one to believe. Clearly, both religious motivations and ethnonationalist motivations are capable of spurring groups to mass casualty attacks. The causal story described that links religious motivations to MCT and therefore to WMD may be able to account for a certain type of attack, but, according to our data, it cannot account for the majority of MCT events. It is apparent that we must move beyond this dichotomy in order to gain a more complete understanding of why terrorist organizations engage in MCT. As a first step toward this more complete understanding, the extended paper on which this discussion piece is based reviews the same MCT data to further explore the nature of the MCT historical record. Specifically, it assesses the methods used in the MCT, the number of groups involved, and the geography of MCT attacks. The primary purpose of bringing these questions to the data is to provide a set of parameters regarding the historical record for which future research must account. Our own conclusions that follow, which are based on the data, are preliminary and are meant to be issues for future research. (1) The methods used in MCT attacks are almost invariably low-tech or involve weaponizing existing societal resources (for example, airplanes). This finding suggests that many MCT groups have yet to devote substantial resources to
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acquiring their weapons systems. It also casts doubt on the argument that certain terrorist groups are concerned with the symbolic importance of the weapons they use. To date at least, groups engaging in MCT attacks have achieved this symbolic impact through their choice of targets, not their choice of weapons. A (2) very small number of groups engage in MCT attacks regularly; only three groups have initiated more than one MCT attack. This finding indicates that group-level factors can only partially explain when groups will use MCT. At best, these factors can explain what groups are willing to engage in MCT. Given the fact that even these groups use the strategy very rarely, it is necessary to also examine the contextual factors that give rise to particular MCT attacks. A similarly small number of countries have been the target of MCT attacks. Including Iraq, only five countries have suffered MCT attacks (Iraq, India, Russia, Sri Lanka, and the United States). In four of these countries, there are serious conflicts with a high number of civilian casualties. The fifth, the United States, is a superpower, which is consistent with the argument that terrorism is the weapon of the weak against the strong. (3) The data show that a clear plurality of MCT events has been perpetrated by terrorists from the Islamic world targeting the non-Islamic world. Even though these attacks have run the gamut of religious and ethnonationalist motivations, this plurality nonetheless raises interesting questions about the rationales for justifying mass terror that groups may be finding in Islam and the Islamic world's interaction with the non-Islamic world. (For further discussion of rationales and the related concept of "readings" of the opposition, see Stohl's contribution earlier in this Forum.) These tentative conclusions suggest two more general insights that can be derived from our analysis. First, the willingness of traditional terrorist groups to engage in MCT indicates that they may be more likely to acquire and use WMD than has been assumed by the majority of analysts. Second, the analysis of MCT illustrates the destructive potential of conventional means of attack. It is crucial, therefore, to understand the motivations that lead to MCT in general as opposed to WMD terrorism specifically.
The Interplay between Terrorism, Nonstate Actors, and Weapons of Mass Destruction: An Exploration of the Pinkerton Database
GARY LAFREE, LAURA DUGAN, and DERRICKFRANKE
and CriminalJustice, Universityof Maryland Departmentof Criminology During 2003-2004 a research group led by Gary LaFree and Laura Dugan at the University of Maryland coded and computerized a database originally collected by the Pinkerton Corporation's Global Intelligence Services (PGIS) comprising more than 69,000 terrorist events recorded for the entire world from 1970 to 1997. For nearly thirty years, PGIS trained researchers to record all terrorism incidents they could identify from wire services, US and foreign government reporting sources, foreign and domestic newspapers, information provided by PGIS offices around the world, and data furnished by PGIS clients. The data retrieval protocol remained substantially consistent during the entire twenty-eight years of data collection.
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El Long Range Missile El Chemical n Sophisticated Nuclear 27 (66%) Explosive
n.=2(.5%.) n=l (2%)
1. Weapons of Mass Destruction (PGIS Database 1970-1997) FIG. The PGIS database is more than seven times larger than any other existing open source terrorism incident database. There are three main reasons for this. First, unlike most other databases on terrorism, the PGIS data include religious, economic, and social acts of terrorism as well as political acts. Second, because the Pinkerton data were collected by a private business rather than a government entity, the data collectors were under no pressure to exclude some terrorist acts because of political considerations. Third, and most important, unlike any other open source database, the PGIS data include both instances of domestic and international terrorism. This contribution to the Forum briefly summarizes a preliminary examination of the data from the perspective of issues pertinent to nonstate actors, terrorism, and WMD. In this exercise, we use the PGIS data to explore several issues related to past terrorist events and the ability and willingness of nonstate actors to use WMD. Weapons of Mass Destruction In light of evolving definitions of WMD, we examine not only nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons but also sophisticated explosives and long-range missiles that are intended to kill a large number of people and to create mass disruption. Whether these weapons truly represent WMD is a point of contention. However, because conference participants agreed to abandon our seemingly irreconcilable definitional argument concerning WMD and focus instead on a broader concept of mass impact terrorism (MIT), we believe that our inclusive definition of WMD more accurately reflects this notion of mass impact terrorism. Figure 1 shows that despite our inclusive definition, incidents involving these weapons remain a rare occurrence. In fact, only forty-one of the 69,000 cases in our database used such weapons.6 Most involved long-range missiles capable of carrying warheads; chemical attacks typically included the use of mercury, acid, napalm, cyanide (found in water supplies), and chemical bombs, often intended to disrupt the targeted nation's economy.
Means of Acquiring and Using WMD
We employ two methods for discovering which terrorist groups are more likely to obtain and use WMD. First, it follows logically that groups that have used these weapons in the past both (a) have the ability to acquire them and (b) will be more likely to use them in the future. Second, we believe that groups that have attacked
"Among the forty-one incidents involving WMD, eight were unsuccessful, indicating thwarted attempts where the actors, weapons, or plot were discovered before the event could take place. Fatalities are not necessary for an event to be labeled successful.
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targets in countries away from their base of operations are also more likely to use WMD. The database identified seventeen groups that have used WMD in the past; among these, eleven, including three Palestinian groups, the Irish Republican Army (IRA), Dev Sol, Hizballah, and Sendero Luminoso, have struck in at least six countries other than their own.
Desire to Use WMD Not all terrorist groups with the capability to inflict mass destruction have the desire to do so.7 For this reason, we also identify the groups that (a) have killed a large number of people in previous attacks8 and (b) tend to achieve maximum lethality per incident. On the first front, only nine of the seventeen groups that have used WMD have also killed at least fifty people in one or more of their attacks. According to the database, the Peruvian group, Sendero Luminoso, has exceeded this threshold twenty-one times, more than tripling the mass killing incidence of any other WMD group. Further, eighty-two groups that have not used WMD have committed attacks killing at least fifty-four people; however, only seven have done so five or more times.9 The Nicaraguan Democratic Force and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil top this list, having done so on twenty-seven and twenty-six occasions, respectively. Compared to the groups that have used WMD, the non-WMD groups display higher frequencies and incidences of mass killing attacks. We also examined the database for groups that tended to kill a high average number of people per incident. Among the groups that have used WMD, the most lethal appear to be the Tamil Tigers and UNITA, averaging approximately eight deaths per incident. Sendero Luminoso, which committed the most total incidents (3,374) and inflicted the largest number of fatalities (over 11,000) from 1970-1997, averaged just over three deaths per incident. Among non-WMD groups, four averaged over thirteen fatalities per attack, including the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, Mozambican National Resistance, Democratic Revolutionary Alliance, and the Hutus (whose average of 42.8 mostly reflects an outlying incident that killed over 1,000). Further analyses will control for number of incidents as well as outliers. Nonetheless, there appears to be wide variation in the mean number killed among both WMD groups (from 0 to 8) and non-WMD groups (from 0 to 43).
In Sum The purpose of this analysis was to provide an exploratory look at a recently computerized database, examining the interplay between nonstate actors, terrorism, and WMD. In this brief overview, we have concentrated on the following risk factors: (1) previous use of WMD, (2) a history of willingness to launch attacks outside of the country of origin, (3) willingness to kill large numbers of people, and (4) attempts to achieve maximum lethality. Along the way, we have identified certain groups that fit these criteria and thus may be candidates for mass impact terrorism in the future. In short, although making no statistically formulated arguments, the data discussed here nonetheless serve as a point of departure for a better understanding of a host of issues of concern in both the academic and policy fields.
7For example, the IRA often warns their intended target before each attack to allow time for civilians to evacuate the area. 8We use the 99th percentile of all incidents involving at least one death as the criterion for having killed "many people" in the past. For groups that have used WMD, the qualification is fifty deaths; for all other groups, it is fiftyfour. 9In fact, 77 percent of non-WMD groups have committed mass fatality attacks only once. Also, thirty-nine terrorist attacks (16 percent) in this category were committed by groups not identified in our database.
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Nonstate and Weapons Actors,Terrorism, of Mass Destruction Avenue for Future Research
An interesting observation deserving of further examination regards groups that inflict mass casualties only a few times or, more interestingly, only once. For example, of the nine groups that have both used WMD and killed at least fifty persons in an incident, only four have inflicted mass casualties more than once. Similarly, of the eighty-two non-WMD groups that have killed at least fifty-four, fewer than half (n = 40) have done so more than ten times. In fact, 23 percent (n = 19) of these groups committed an incident of mass killing only once. With the ability to inflict this level of impact, it becomes important to discover the reasons why some groups suddenly desist.
Transnational Organized Crime, Terrorism, and WMD

BARTOSZH. STANISLAWSKI
Moynihan Institute of GlobalAffairs, Maxwell School, Syracuse University Traditional approaches treat terrorism separately from organized crime for at least two reasons. First, considering terrorism as a form of crime is controversial, and opinions are divided both theoretically and in the policymaking world. Second, terrorists and criminals are driven by different motivations: political, ideological, religious, and ethnic "causes" versus money, respectively. Based on this difference, many find it fairly easy to distinguish between these two phenomena. Not all so-called terrorists, however, operate on the basis of political, ideological, religious, or ethnic goals. Not anymore, anyway. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), for example, used to be a politically motivated guerrilla organization. Presently it profits from drug trafficking; the organization benefits monetarily from this enterprise and is unlikely to give such activity up easily. Its members have always acted criminally in order to support themselves financially; ransom-motivated hostage-taking was and still is a significant part of the FARC funding. But they seem to have crossed a line. The political rebels have become pirates, while still pretending to be rebels to recruit new members, maintain a "legitimate" public image, justify, many would argue, some of their own acts to themselves. Terroristorganizationsoften maintain groups composed of organized criminals that help the "political"wings function. Hizballah, Hamas, and al-Qaeda all operate sophisticated fund-raising networks in the Middle East, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America. These fund-raising operations are often based on voluntary contributions for the "cause," but they also frequently involve extortion, blackmail, and other criminal activities. Hizballah, for instance, has for a long time maintained a significant presence within the Arab community in the tri-border area in South America. In this place, where the borders of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay come together, judicial, law-enforcement, and military authorities have been unable, and at times corruptly unwilling, to control the traffic in illicit products crossing the three borders. Although the situation in this region has been shifting over the years as a result of outside pressures, mainly from the United States, the focus on this criminal enclave or "blackspot" (Stanislawski2004) is still not strong enough to curtail the area's attractivenessto "globalbads." Criminals trade there with terroristswho are able to receive whatever they might need: materials, weapons, and information. This tri-border area is not an exception; there are many such criminal enclaves (Sullivan and Bunker 2003) or "black spots" across the globe, hiding illicit activities.
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Among them is the area around Peshawar, a city in northern Pakistan, near the border with Afghanistan. The Federally Administered Tribal Areas located near this city are another case of a state within a state. The Pakistani government exercises minimal, if any, control over these areas for historical, cultural, and geographical reasons. It is believed that Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants have found refuge in this area. In addition to the links between terrorist and criminal organizations, major threats are posed by the links that criminals have developed with politicians, police, and the military. Such links exist in many, if not most, less-developed and transitional societies, slowing down the states' development and endangering their democratic progress. This nexus between criminals and power brokers "exists in many Soviet successor states, Nigeria, Southern China, Japan, Colombia, Mexico, and Italy" (Shelley 1999:13). In such relationships, it is possible for corrupt high-ranking military officers to provide weapons or the elements to produce chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons to transnational criminal organizations that, in turn, resell them to terrorist groups. The current relationship between Russia's transnational criminal enterprises and its underpaid military personnel is particularly problematic. Consider, for example, the discovery of a partially constructed Russian submarine by the Colombian police in 2000 in a warehouse in Bogotai (BBC News 2000). The submarine was intended as a means of transporting up to ten metric tons of illicit drugs at a time (US House of Representatives 2000). Although no links with terrorist organizations have been proven, this incident demonstrates the possibility for a terrorist organization to acquire such a weapons platform to use in an attack. Other reports signaling criminal penetration of the Russian armed forces include the attempted theft of 4.5 kilograms of highly enriched uranium from the naval shipyard in Murmansk, Russia, and General Alexander Lebed's letter to the US Congress in 1997 warning about missing Russian suitcase-size nuclear bombs. Russia is a logical source of weapons and weapons materials for terrorists. Its border control remains unsatisfactory, and corruption levels are high. These conditions make it possible for transnational terrorist and rebel groups in South Asia, particularly those like al-Qaeda that are intent on achieving high levels of destruction and martyrdom, to consider seeking such weapons. However, a cost-benefit analysis might lead terrorist organizations to decide that there is greater payoff in talking about having this capability or acting as if one did rather than going about actually acquiring it. What seems more likely, or even very likely, is the creation of a "dirty bomb," putting components that are more accessible and less expensive in combination with an improvised explosive device and, thus, increasing both the terror effect and the "theater" surrounding an incident. Here is where the criminal enclaves or black spots mentioned earlier become particularly useful; they provide relatively protected places where such devices can be developed and where people with the skills needed already reside. It is important to recall that as both transnational criminal and terrorist organizations have evolved into networks, they have become more subtle in their use of violence. There is evidence that engaging in psychological disruption, information operations, and perception management have grown in importance (Arquilla and Ronfeldt 1996, 1997). Networks provide flexibility, adaptability, deniability, multidimensionality, and the capacity to do things at a distance, often through surrogates. Although governments still typically perceive that the world is organized around international borders, transnational criminal and terrorist entities are rarely limited by such jurisdictional boundaries and use them to avoid the legal reach of a particular country. Indeed, "squeezing the balloon" in hopes of eliminating these organizations in one place often makes them pop up in another. Consider the US government forcing Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda out of Sudan only to see them relocate to Afghanistan. This phenomenon raises a key question: Does it take a network to "fight" a network? Because governments tend to be organized
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hierarchically and into bureaucracies with different functions and foci, cooperation among agencies is made more difficult and sharing of information becomes harder. With regard to the development of policy to deal with nonstate actors, terrorism, and WMD, there is also an issue concerning how the problem is framed. The dilemma is exemplified in the differences regarding the war on terrorism between the 2004 US presidential candidates. Is the war on terrorism, as George Bush believes, a war "between those states that would promote terrorism and those that would exterminate it" (Bai 2004:45)? According to this perspective, it is primarily a military problem and a problem between states. Those states that harbor terrorist groups and organizations within their borders need to be forced to exercise control over them. Or, is the war on terrorism, as John Kerry proposed, not really a war at all, given that the enemy is not another state and, in many instances, is intent on disrupting the functioning of states? In this view, the emphasis is placed more on law enforcement than on the military and on international cooperation in attempts to disrupt the flow of illicit drugs, weapons, money, and people. Have we "overrated the military threat posed by al-Qaeda, paradoxically elevating what was essentially a criminal enterprise ... into the ideological successor to Hitler and Stalin" (Bai 2004:52)? Depending on the frame one chooses, tactics and strategies will differ.
Diasporas, Terrorism, and WMD

GABRIEL SHEFFER
Departmentof Political Science, Hebrew University As part of their growing involvement in transstate and intrastate politics, in general, and in the inseparablyconnected spheres of cultural, economic, and social conflicts, in particular,ethnonational diasporas are deeply involved in trans-state conflicts, insurgencies, and terrorism. In fact, twenty-five ethnonational groups that are involved in conflict or rebellion in either their homelands or countries of residence and that, in addition to nonviolent tactics, use violence and terrorism are linked to ethnonational and religious diasporas. Furthermore, out of the fifty most active terrorist organizations and groups, twenty-seven constitute either segments of ethnonational or religious diasporas or are supported by such diasporas.Thus, for example, insurgents in Egypt, India (in the Punjab and Kashmir), Indonesia (Aceh), Azerbaijan,Sri Lanka, Ireland, Kosovo, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Pakistan,Algeria, Turkish Kurdistan,Iraqi Kurdistan, Iran, Greece, the Philippines, Russia, and Ireland have received various kinds of support from their respective migrant and diasporic communities. Among the organizations using terrorism that have links to diasporic entities are the Palestinian Hamas, IslamicJihad, and Fatah-Tanzim; the Lebanese Hizballah; the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) and Islamic Group (IG); the Irish IRA; the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA); the Indian Barbar Khalsa International (BKI); the Sri Lankan Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE); the Turkish Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK); and al-Qaeda. The motivations and incentives for insurgent and terrorist actions by diasporic individuals and entities are connected to their desire to overcome the inherent disadvantages involved in being "others" in their host countries as well as difficulties in their homelands. Thus, they strive to gain political and economic rights and autonomy in their hostlands in order to actively cope with the repressive measures taken against them by hostile organizations, societies, and governments, and to achieve independence or autonomy in their homelands. "New politics" on the local, state, regional, and global levels provides opportunities for the use of violent strategies and tactics by such individuals and groups.
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(In this context, new politics means the weakening of nation-states; the legitimization of pluralism, which, in turn, enhances the assertiveness of individual diasporans and diasporic entities; liberalization; increasing demands for political and social rights; and global attitudinal contagion.) However, this does not mean that all diasporans are active or potential combatants or that new politics is a fundamentally dangerous phenomenon. Like other groups, diasporans and diasporic entities do not use violent tactics to physically defeat their opponents in the conflicts that they are engaged in; they know they simply cannot achieve such a goal. They use violence mainly to draw attention to these conflicts, in general, and to their plight, positions, and demands, in particular. At most, their goal is to influence the positions of both their opponents and supporters. In contradiction to a widespread view, in most cases, these groups autonomously and secretly make their own decisions and act accordingly in their host countries, homelands, third- and fourth-party states, and in regional and international systems. Their ability to determine their tactics and to obtain support on their own further complicates the capability of outsiders to predict, trace, and monitor the planned clandestine activities of these groups whose structures, organizations, and patterns of political, social, and economic behavior are quite complex and unclear as it is. The substantial volume of such actual and potential activities has a significant impact on policymaking in their homelands and hostlands. Notable examples of such impact are the policies of the United States and Russia vis-A-vis groups of "others" that they regard as actual or potential menaces. On certain occasions, homelands are implicated, and host countries are induced to act against homelands and other relevant states that have been involved in motivating their diasporas to act or in hosting and supporting such groups. Both stateless and state-linked diasporas engage in a myriad of tacticalpursuits that may affect the security of all those they regard as opponents and of all those whom they perceive to be supporters. However, in particular,stateless diasporic entities that support irredentist, secessionist, and national liberation movements are agreeable to the use of terrorism. They use their highly developed transstate networks to transfer or extend a variety of resources including fighters, weapons, intelligence, and money to their fighting brethren. These networks make launching attacks in both their host countries and other states an easier task. Significantly, some terrorist activities are carried out not by permanent diasporans but, rather,by "tourists"of the same ethnonational entities or by various types of nonresident migrants. This pattern has caused the toughening of criteria for granting visas as well as other security measures on the borders of many countries, especially in the United States. Hence, a distinction must be made between innocent tourists, refugees, asylum seekers, and members of universal religions, on the one hand, and ethnonational diasporans who belong to, or support, terrorist networks, on the other hand. Furthermore, in an attempt to assess the use of violence and terrorism by "others," it seems that, generally, refugees and asylum seekers, especially those from countries viewed as breeding grounds for terrorists, are the least inclined to use such tactics. In fact, they are subject to real risk from over-caution on the part of host governments. As the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has declared in one of his reports-"refugees are victims of terror and terrorism; not its perpetrators" (UNHCR, 2001, the UN 56th General Assembly, Third Committee, November 19). Yet, it is also a fact that in certain cases in the first influx of refugees have come a mix of harmless refugees with both armed and unarmed troopers. In various instances, these fighters were engaged in terrorist activitiesand in other kinds of insurgencies against homelands and host countries. Still, refugees and asylum seekers are more likely to be escaping terrorism than perpetrating it. Thus, emergency legislation initiated by the United States, the European Union, and other democracies may lead to the exclusion of such people from the asylum-seeking and refugee process on the generally slim grounds of having certain religious, ethnic, national origin, or political affiliations.
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Unfortunately, on some occasions, such policies are adopted without a close examination of the evidence related to particular individuals and groups. Consequently, refugees and asylum seekers find themselves detained or deported or their refugee status revoked for no reason than their "otherness." Established or incipient stateless diasporas and, interconnectedly, illegal migrants and tourists who are members of such stateless diasporas or of religious fundamentalist organizations constitute the main groups that are more inclined to use violence as a means to promote their ideas and interests. As long as the basic situation involving their ethnonational entities is not resolved, these groups are tempted to continue using violent tactics and terrorism. Though it is perhaps unwise to make any clear-cut predictions, it seems that even though such diasporas may continue to use terror as a tactic to achieve their goals, such groups will not use WMD. The main reasons for their reluctance in obtaining and using WMD are their tenuous positions in their hostlands, the difficulties in obtaining the materials to produce such weapons, the lack of knowledgeable and experienced persons who can produce and use these weapons, and the growing surveillance of extremist core members carried out by many hostlands. However, such stateless diasporas might be tempted to use WMD if and when they realize that the hopes they have that their brethren in the homeland will be able to establish a sovereign state are not going to be fulfilled. It is very difficult to envision any other plausible scenario. As for the general question whether these are, essentially, noncombative entities, freedom fighters, or groups that support or participate in transstate terrorism, a few additional factors should be mentioned here. First, it is difficult to regard most of the existing diasporas as tightly knit homogenous entities that collectively pursue a single strategy, especially terrorism. Second, one cannot generalize that entire diasporic groups or entities partake in these activities or support them. In fact, in most cases, such as the Irish, Turkish, or Kurdish diasporas, only a small number of individuals and small groups of core members support such activities. Third, in most cases, terrorism and violence do not constitute a permanent strategy; these are, essentially, tactics intended to achieve social and political goals, and when these are achieved, the tactics change. Fourth, in most cases the use of terror as a tactic is confined to relatively short periods of crisis in their homelands or host countries. Hence, the use of terror and violence does not transform certain or, in particular, entire communities and groups into warrior communities. Finally, it should be remembered that many of these groups are, first and foremost, engaged in activities whose purpose is to enhance the cultural, civic, and economic well-being of their own communities, their host countries, and their homelands. Therefore, everybody should be careful not to stigmatize entire groups, thereby creating a permanently hostile environment that can make the lives of diasporans and diasporas even harder than they usually are and push these people to use even more dangerous tactics and means, such as WMD.
Information, Trust, and Power: The Impact of Conflict Histories, Policy Regimes, and Political Institutions on Terrorism
MARK IRVING LICHBACH
and Politics, Universityof Maryland Departmentof Government When does a country's history of conflict encourage terrorism, and when is its legacy a deterrent? When does a government's policy of appeasing terrorism
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decrease terrorism, and when is a policy of repression effective? What sorts of political institutions turn terrorism into legitimate dissent? These questions have troubled the contentious politics literature from Gurr (1970) to Lichbach (1995) to McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly (2001). The issues are fundamental. Contentious politics sometimes breeds terrorism, and sometimes forestalls it. Appeasement, as does repression, sometimes works, and sometimes fails. Some states seem constitutionally vulnerable to terrorism, and others configuratively immune. Even though conflict histories, policy regimes, and political institutions thus figure prominently in narrative accounts and statistical analyses of terrorism, nearly three decades of scholarly and policy reflection have not located the underlying mechanisms behind the crucial conflict history-terrorism, policy regime-terrorism, and political institutions-terrorism relationships. Two rational choice models-the bargaining theory of war and the rebel's dilemma theory of dissent-offer startlingly divergent understandings of the mechanisms involved.10 To appreciate the differences and their significance, consider the two questions pondered by protagonists in an enduring conflict vulnerable to terrorism:
Why can't we all get along? is the foundational question of an idealistic form of
rationalchoice theory-the bargainingtheoryof war-that explores cooperation among protagonists.Whether peaceful bargainscan be struck depends on the
ability of participants to extract relevant information. Unobservable private information promotes conflict, and revealable public information promotes cooperation. Histories, policies, and institutions that increase transparency and minimize secrets allow actors to coordinate expectations, thereby reducing the false expectations--the under- and overestimated power resources-that are nists' trusting one another. Participants must be able to make credible commit-
responsiblefor war. Whether bargainscan be struck also depends on protago-
ments to enforceablebargainsthat bring peace. can ask. It is the Why not increase my power?is the second questionprotagonists
foundation of a realistic form of rational choice theory-the rebel's dilemma theory of dissent--centered around the unending conflict between regimes and dissidents." Whether a state's opponents pursue violent means like terrorism depends on whether histories, policies, and institutions encourage the mobilization of new resources that can shift the relative power of the protagonists. If
regimes and dissidentsbelieve that they can increasetheir power in the future, then today'sinformationand crediblecommitmentsmean little.
The two theories reveal a great deal about the conflict history-terrorism, policy regime-terrorism, and political institutions-terrorism relationships. The bargaining theory of war suggests that conflict histories affect the future of terrorism by changing information and altering the parties' abilities to forge credible commitments. The rebel's dilemma theory of dissent indicates that conflict histories influence terrorism by changing the relative power of conflict protagonists. The fundamental differences over when conflict histories turn into terrorism are therefore about whether such histories facilitate bargaining or inspire power plays. Does a history of conflict increase information, induce credible commitments, or accelerate power shifts? Similarly, the bargaining theory of war suggests that policies of appeasement and repression affect the chances of terrorism by changing information and altering the parties' abilities to forge credible commitments. The rebel's dilemma theory of dissent proposes that appeasement and repression influence terrorism by
1'Formalizations of these models are available elsewhere (Fearon 1995; Lichbach 1996; also see Lichbach,
Davenport,and Armstrong2004). elitesin chargeof regimesand oppositionsare subjectto opportunism,thatis, principal-agent 1"Since problems, narrowterms. they are prone to ask this questionin particularly
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stimulating change in the power differentials among the protagonists. The fundamental differences over whether or not appeasement or repression works are, therefore, about whether a policy facilitates bargaining games or power games. Do appeasement and repression increase or decrease information (that is, public bargaining), increase or decrease trust (that is, credible commitments), or increase or decrease relative power (that is, resources) and thus increase or decrease terrorism? Finally, the bargaining theory of war suggests that democratic and stable states provide the information and induce the trust that turns terrorism into legitimate dissent, whereas the rebel's dilemma theory of dissent proposes that autocratic and uninstitutionalized states create the political instability that leads actors to attempt to shift power in their favor, producing state violence and oppositional terrorism. Our arguments about state responses to terrorism are particularly important and bear brief elaboration here. Regimes can adopt two basic strategies toward terrorism. The first is repression: attack, with violent and nonviolent means, the terrorists and their supporters. The second is appeasement: make policy changes to accommodate underlying grievances, demands, or claims. With respect to al-Qaeda, for example, repression involves war and policing, whereas appeasement involves quitting Iraq, removing troops from Saudi Arabia, and shifting positions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The bargaining theory of war and the rebel's dilemma theory of mobilization offer different perspectives on the etiology of government response strategies toward terrorism. Bargaining theory indicates that states use repression and appeasement to increase information and make credible commitments. The rebel's dilemma theory implies that government policies aim to shift power. Repression and appeasement succeed when states guess right about how public information, credible commitments, and power shifts affect terrorism. Their policies fail when unintended consequences overwhelm intended ones. The two theories, thus, tell us a lot about how a war on terrorism will be fought, and how it should be waged. To give a flavor of the argument, we present here six hypotheses. We begin with the bargaining theory of war and briefly discuss how the issues of information and trust help explain the etiology as well as the successes and failures of repression and appeasement. Turning to the rebel's dilemma theory of dissent, we then briefly explore how power shifts explain choices and outcomes. Hypothesis 1: States repress to increase information. States aim to spread information about their strengths and terrorists' weaknesses. A repressive policy regime can increase such information. When a state increases its efforts to detect, capture, convict, and punish (imprison, injure, kill) terrorists, the costs of engaging in terrorism become manifest; threats that are convincing also reveal costs. Hypothesis 2: States appease to increase information. States also use appeasement to spread information about their strengths and terrorists' weaknesses. An accommodative policy regime can also increase such information. When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose; if a state demonstrates that the root causes of terrorism are being addressed, terrorists will stop being terrorists. Hypothesis 3: States repress to make credible commitments. States also repress terrorism by making credible commitments that solidify their position. For example, if a regime makes an irrevocable commitment to repress terrorism, terrorists and their supporters will permanently shift tactics to more legal and conventional forms of participation, influence, and negotiation.
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Hypothesis 4: States appease to make credible commitments. States hoping to employ credible commitments to end terrorism may be more likely to appease than to repress. For instance, if a regime makes an irrevocable commitment to appease terrorists, the terrorists and their supporters will permanently shift tactics to more legal and conventional forms of participation, influence, and negotiation. Hypothesis 5: States repress to shift power. Turning to the rebel's dilemma theory of dissent, we find a very different perspective on the etiology and consequences of regime response policies toward terrorism: states repress to shift power in their favor. When they believe that repression influences key actors and thereby increases the likelihood of power shifts, states will find a repressive policy regime quite attractive. For example, because repression puts terrorists on the defensive, they will shift resources from attacking the state to protecting themselves. Hypothesis 6: States appease to shift power. Finally, the rebel's dilemma theory of dissent indicates that states also appease to shift power. An accommodative policy regime increases the likelihood of such power shifts in several ways. For example, appeasement is a divide-and-conquer strategy that promotes splits among the terrorists and their supporters, encouraging reformists to defect from the radicals. These hypotheses develop further the two competing theories of government responses to terrorism. Each has implications for the choice of strategy that a government selects and the success or failure of the resulting policies. The distinction between the theories is significant. Even if we assume that regimes and oppositions are rational rather than cultural beings, are they idealistic or realistic? Although neglected nowadays in the conflict literature, the latter question appears to be just as important as the former. In the popular press and policy debates, the idealistic question-"why can't we all get along?"-and the realistic question-"why not increase my power?"--are usually the two starting points for discussion. By elaborating their implications, we help structure the debate.
September 11 and Its Aftermath

TODD SANDLER
School of InternationalRelations, Universityof SouthernCalifornia

AND WALTER ENDERS
Culberhouse and BusinessAdministration, Collegeof Commerce Universityof Alabama The four hijackings on 11 September 2001 (hereafter, 9/11) represented a watershed transnational terrorist event for many reasons. First, the consequences of the event in terms of casualties far surpassed any previous terrorist attack. Nearly 3,000 people died on 9/11, whereas fewer than 500 died in the deadliest terrorist event prior to it. Second, the financial losses and repercussions of 9/11 were far greater than any previous terrorist incident or insured natural disaster (Kunreuther and Michel-Kerjan 2004). For 9/11, these direct and indirect costs are estimated to have been between $80 and $90 billion. Third, the hijackings on 9/11 made the global community more aware of the potential threat posed by modern-day transnational
166
terrorism, for which high casualty counts are an objective. Fourth, 9/11 locked rich countries into a large and growing outlay on defensive measures that could increase further. US spending on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is $40 billion for fiscal year 2005, of which 61 percent goes to homeland security (DHS 2004; Enders and Sandler forthcoming). The US budget for DHS is growing at 10 percent per year and does not include spending on intelligence or proactive operations (for example, the war in Afghanistan). Fifth, 9/11 demonstrated to the global community that catastrophic damage could stem from conventional means-that is, the crash of a fuel-laden commercial aircraft. The bomb attacks on the commuter trains in Madrid further underscored that horrific consequences can follow from conventional bombs planted where casualty counts will be high. Sixth, 9/ 11 set the bar for future terrorist attacks as terrorists escalate carnage to capture and maintain media and public attention. To outdo the newsworthiness and shock value of 9/11, terrorists must resort to an even larger conventional attack or weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), most likely chemical or radiological in nature. Many of the contributions to this Forum, however, have doubted that terrorists will resort to WMDs owing to a lack of capability or constituent-support concerns. Unquestionably, 9/11 changed public perceptions and governmental responses to terrorism; the US-led "war on terror," with its subsequent invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, is clear testimony that things are now different. A more difficult question to answer is whether the pattern of transnational terrorism, which consists of terrorist attacks that impact two or more countries, has changed in light of 9/11 and target nations' actions to reduce the threat of terrorism. Such responses are either defensive or proactive in nature (Arce and Sandler 2005). Defensive counterterrorism measures involve actions to protect potential targets, including hardening targets, erecting technological barriers, securing borders, and increasing surveillance. These policies try to deter an attack by either making success less likely or increasing the anticipated costs to would-be terrorists. In contrast, proactive responses are offensive and may involve destroying terrorist training camps, punishing terrorist sponsors, infiltrating a terrorist group, or reducing terrorist financial resources. The war on terror killed or captured a significant portion of the al-Qaeda leadership, which should have compromised the network's ability to direct logistically complex terrorist incidents, such as hostage-taking missions. In addition, actions by the world community to freeze al-Qaeda financial assets were intended to reduce the terrorist network's ability to mount their campaign of terror. In what follows, we report on two projects in which we examined the pattern of transnational terrorism before and after 9/11 (Enders and Sandler 2004, 2005). We were also interested in isolating the influence of the rise of fundamentalist terrorism at the end of 1979 (Hoffman 1998; Enders and Sandler 2000) as well as the impact of the end of the Cold War at the start of the 1990s, because this latter event marked the end of the support of terrorism by many state-sponsors. Indeed, many left-wing European groups stopped operations around that time. Methodology To explore these effects, we used data on transnational terrorist incidents drawn from the International Terrorism: Attributes of Terrorist Events (ITERATE) database, compiled by Edward Mickolus and colleagues (2004). ITERATE records the incident date, type of event, casualties (that is, deaths or injuries), host country, the terrorist group, and other variables. Enders and Sandler (2005) extracted eight primary time series to test for structural changes before and after 9/11. In particular, their quarterly time series from 1970 to 2003 included all transnational terrorist incidents, bombings, hostage missions (such as kidnappings, skyjackings, and barricade and hostage-taking events), assassinations, incidents with deaths, incidents with casualties (that is, one or more deaths or injuries), bombings with
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deaths, and bombings with casualties. Other time series were constructed by taking proportions-for example, hostage missions as a proportion of all incidents. In another study of post-9/11 terrorism, Enders and Sandler (2004) extracted four quarterly time series (for 1968-2003): all transnational terrorist incidents, casualty incidents, incidents with a US target (that is, US person or property), and casualty incidents with a US target. Each of these studies employed time series methods to ascertain what, if anything, changed in light of 9/11. Enders and Sandler (2005) approached the problem in two alternative ways. First, they specifically chose 9/11 as a structural break or intervention point and applied an autoregression estimation to determine whether the time series displayed significant changes in their pattern following 9/11. Second, they employed the Bai-Perron (1998, 2003) method in which the data identify the significant structural breaks, if any. If, therefore, things were different in the pattern of transnational terrorist attacks after 9/11, then the Bai-Perron method will locate 9/11 as a structural break for some of the extracted time series. Enders and Sandler (2004) also relied on autoregression intervention analysis to identify crucial structural breaks at and before 9/11. Unlike their other study, this research tried to ascertain whether post-9/11 defensive measures by rich countries altered the pattern of transnational terrorism. Have these measures shifted terrorist attacks from rich to poor countries as terrorists sought softer targets? This study also investigated if there have been geographical shifts in transnational terrorist attacks. Such transfers of attacks may mean that US citizens are safer at home because of enhanced security but more vulnerable abroad. Results Perhaps surprising, little has changed in the time series of overall terrorist incidents and most of its component series when 9/11 is prejudged as a break date. We, however, found that logistically complex hostage-taking events fell as a proportion of all events, whereas simple, but deadly, bombings increased as a proportion of fatal incidents after 9/11. Thus, the stressed al-Qaeda network and other terrorist groups responded to the greater risk that they faced by the war on terror by eschewing difficult and costly attacks for simple bombings with high body counts. When the Bai-Perron method was applied, Enders and Sandler (2005) uncovered findings consistent with those that prejudged 9/11 as a structural break. In particular, the overall time series for transnational terrorism displayed a lone structural break-but not at 9/11. This break occurred during the post-Cold War era in 1994 as transnational terrorist events fell precipitously in number with the demise of many leftist terrorists and reduced state-sponsorship. As before, the proportion of hostage-taking incidents dropped around 9/11, at the time when the proportion of deadly bombings increased. Structural breaks took place for a number of time series (that is, incidents with deaths, proportion of assassinations, proportion of deadly incidents due to bombings, and the proportion of deadly incidents) in the mid-1970s as transnational terrorism started to heat up. In effect, the study demonstrated that the pattern of transnational terrorism did not change greatly after 9/11. Much more noteworthy changes to this pattern occurred in the mid-1970s and the early 1990s. Enders and Sandler (2004) found no convincing evidence that there had been a substitution of overall terrorist events from rich to poor countries in response to 9/11-motivated increases in homeland security upgrades in high-income countries. This unexpected finding is due to the very high level of transnational terrorism in poor countries and the low level of such attacks in rich countries at the time of 9/11. Thus, the substitution had occurred well before 9/11 and, in particular, began with the rise of fundamentalist terrorism in late 1979. By 9/11, there was little further substitution that was possible for the overall time series. We, however, uncovered
168
some evidence of substitution in the anticipated direction (that is, from high-income to low-income countries) for the subset of attacks that included deadly incidents involving US targets. Moreover, when countries are classified into six regional groups (Western Hemisphere, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Eurasia), there was clear evidence of transfers based on geography following 9/11. In particular, there has been a shift in transnational terrorist events away from the Western Hemisphere and Africa to the Middle East and Asia since 9/11. This shift is especially pronounced for terrorist incidents with a US target, meaning that US citizens may be less safe abroad. This research established that the geographical transfer has been to those regions with the largest Islamic populations. In such regions, fundamentalist terrorists can blend in and establish excellent logistical support.
Concluding Remarks Although 9/11 has changed public perceptions of the consequences of transnational terrorism, it has not had a strong influence on the patternof transnational terrorism. There have been two notable changes in patterns: (1) deadly bombings are more prevalent, whereas hostage missions are less prevalent; and (2) there is a geographical transfer of attacks to the Middle East and Asia. There is nothing in the data that hints at terrorists resorting to WMD. In fact, our two studies showed that the overall patterns for most key time series are no different than those prior to 9/ 11. Big structural changes to transnational terrorism came well before 9/11 with the rise of fundamentalist terrorism and the end of the Cold War. Transnational terrorism is more deadly per incident with the rise of religious-based terrorism (Enders and Sandler 2000), but this is a far cry from foreshadowing the eventual use of WMD. References
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Nonstate Actors, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction Author(s): Andrew Blum, Victor Asal, Jonathan Wilkenfeld, John

International Studies Review(2005) 7, 133-170

Nonstate Actors, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction

Centerfor InternationalDevelopment and ConflictManagement, Universityof Maryland

NonstateActors,Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction

NonstateActors,Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction

Can groupbe deterred?

Cangroupbe blocked physically fromacquiring WMD?

FIG. 1. Processfor Analyzingand AddressingThreats from a Group-LevelPerspective

Terrorism: Practical Distinctions and Research Priorities

NonstateActors,Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction

NonstateActors,Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction

WMD Terrorism Research: Whereto from Here?

Nonstate Actors, Terrorism,and Weapons of Mass Destruction

Which Minorities Might Use Weapons of Mass Destruction?

Nonstate Actors, Terrorism,and Weapons of Mass Destruction

Nonstate Actors, Terrorism,and Weapons of Mass Destruction

Is the Past Prologue? Terrorists and WMD

Department of Communication, University of California, Santa Barbara

NonstateActors,Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction

The Psychology of WMD Terrorism

Nonstate Actors, Terrorism,and Weapons of Mass Destruction

Various Groups, Various Motivations. This differentiated

Social-Revolutionary Nationalist-Separatist Religious-Fundamentalist New Religious Extremists

Forecasting Terrorists' Likelihood to Embark on "Conventional" to CBRN Warfare

Nonstate Actors, Terrorism,and Weaponsof Mass Destruction

Percentage 2.94 2.94 23.53 32.35 14.71 8.82 8.82 5.88

Fatalities 100 169 4,941 1,677 835 556 369 212

Percentage 1.12 1.91 55.77 18.93 9.42 6.28 4.17 2.39

Nonstate Actors, Terrorism,and Weaponsof Mass Destruction

n.=2(.5%.) n=l (2%)

Transnational Organized Crime, Terrorism, and WMD

NonstateActors,Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction

Diasporas, Terrorism, and WMD

NonstateActors,Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction

responsiblefor war. Whether bargainscan be struck also depends on protago-

Nonstate Actors, Terrorism,and Weapons of Mass Destruction

September 11 and Its Aftermath

School of InternationalRelations, Universityof SouthernCalifornia

Nonstate Actors, Terrorism,and Weapons of Mass Destruction

Nonstate Actors, Terrorism,and Weapons of Mass Destruction

ening? A Time-Series Investigation. Journal of ConflictResolution44:307-332.

Nonstate Actors, Terrorism,and Weaponsof Mass Destruction

US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. (2000) Threats Posed by the Convergence

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