RAND Study: Military force rarely primary reason for end of terrorist groups

[The Bread Guy]

How Terrorist Groups End:  Implications for Countering al Qa'ida
Seth G. Jones, Martin C. Libicki, RAND Corporation, 28 Jul 08
News release - summary - report (html) - report (.pdf)

"All terrorist groups eventually end. But how do they end? The evidence since 1968 indicates that most groups have ended because (1) they joined the political process (43 percent) or (2) local police and intelligence agencies arrested or killed key members (40 percent). Military force has rarely been the primary reason for the end of terrorist groups, and few groups within this time frame have achieved victory....."

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[daftandbarmy]

How Terrorist Groups End:  Implications for Countering al Qa'ida
Seth G. Jones, Martin C. Libicki, RAND Corporation, 28 Jul 08
News release - summary - report (html) - report (.pdf)

"All terrorist groups eventually end. But how do they end? The evidence since 1968 indicates that most groups have ended because (1) they joined the political process (43 percent) or (2) local police and intelligence agencies arrested or killed key members (40 percent). Military force has rarely been the primary reason for the end of terrorist groups, and few groups within this time frame have achieved victory....."

- edit to make title a bit more legible -

I agree 100%. Good article.

 

[Greymatters]

I wouldnt agree - most terrorist groups in the past were smaller organizations that could be effectively engaged by political, legal and intelligence resources (i.e. up to 250 members).  Very few past organizations had the same size and scope as is present in Iraq and Afghanistan today.  The only comparable sized forces are the IRA/et all, the FARC, and the Tamil Tigers, the last two of which are still going strong, the violence constrained only by 'peace treaties' that prevent open conflict but do little to limit their power or existence.  Further, political and legal forces cannot effectively engage a terrorist force when effective political and legal forces dont exist, a situation where military force is used to assist in implementing. 

I think this report fails to address that while political and legal methods are effecting in closing shop for most terrorist group threats, the politicians and police forces had a lot of help from the military on the way that isnt being recognized.  It was often failure to accomplish military goals (because of losing battles with military forces) that forced terrorist groups back to the bargaining table, or sent them into hiding among the general population that made them vulnerable to police/intelligence agency actions...   

 

[a_majoor]

I wonder how tightly they are defining "terrorist" groups. As Greymatters said, small groups like the Red Army Faction, Badder Meinhof gang, Direct Action or Aum Shinrikyo can be dealt with as a police matter because of their limited size and range of influence. I suspect that this might not even be the case anymore, should groups like this link up with or become organized criminal gangs for money, logistics and muscle (FARC essentially became entwined with the Columbian cocaine cartels as "enforcers", and grew much more powerful than otherwise possible with huge infusions of cash. The PIRA turned into a criminal organization by destroying public transit and leaning on cabbies for a percentage of the fare, along with shakedown and protection rackets. The LTTE [liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam] are notorious for their "war taxes" extortion network, etc.).

Larger groups like the PIRA, LTTE, FARC, Hezbollah, Hamas, the AQ and so on are beyond the abilities of the police alone to deal with, and post 1945 history has examples from around the globe of terror groups raising insurgencies that required military power to contain and roll back until the insurgency fizzles out or the police can deal with the aftermath.

With this in mind, operations like the "surge" are simply one more tool in the government's tool bag and appropriate for use against large scale terrorist or insurgent movements to contain them and break them into bite sized pieces for the local authorities to finish off. This is in fact the lesson of the "surge", and our own experience in Afghanistan; as the Insurgent forces lost credibility due to military defeat or constraints on their actions, local tribal leaders, village elders and other local leaders raised the population against the insurgent forces, even to the point of taking up arms and fighting them with or without the support or approval of the national government or allied forces!

 

[twistedcables]

Hmmm...Taliban and Al Qaida involving themselves in the legal and political apparatus? Me thinks not.  How many of them could even read the ballot?!  I like the "arrest and kill key members" approach - though it would not address the ideological root of the conflict.

Besides, even ordinary Afghans have little faith in their govt. - with claims of corruption across the board, HOW does one even begin to convince the terrorist (who uses violence to meet political goals) that involvement in the apparatus is in their interest when its so corrupt?

Ideology cannot be arrested and killed, remember.