Missed point

Chris strains too hard in second guessing the motives of the hostage takers, seeing a missed opportunity on their behalf in beheading Ken Bigley:

If they had issued a statement along the lines of "Due to the thousands of requests received, and because we have no quarrel with the ordinary British people, we are releasing this prisoner as a gesture of good will", they would have floored Tony Blair's and President Bush's (and my) portrayal of them as crazed monsters

But what if their aim was to be portrayed as "crazed monsters"? Instilling fear into the hearts of all infidels. Wouldn't it then make sense to cut off Mr Bigley's head? I posted before about the dangers of homomorphism. It can be useful up to a point to "get inside the mind" of a terrorist, particularly in assessing his likely actions. Game theory can be useful in this regard. But, we should not allow such exercises to delude us into thinking that the terrorists share similar aims to those we might have. It is popularly understood that terrorists' actions are carried out only in the furtherance of their cause. But in the case of the likes of Zarqawi, the actions are inextricably linked with the cause. The cause is the destruction of what we understand as civilisation, liberal democracy and all infidels converted or killed. One at a time, if necessary.

Comments

[Chris]

Yep, I agree with all of that. My earlier piece concluded too that it's an attack on civilisation. And then I noted my hesitation in even trying to guess what might be going on in these people's heads, or whether they even want to promote a cause.

But it would have been much more confounding to my expectations if they had done a surprise u-turn. I think it's quite good actually that they don't seem to have any mental complexity. Makes me feel a whole lot easier about wanting them killed first.

[Frank McGahon]

The important thing to remember is that the terrorists don't actually want to "win over our hearts and minds", they tend to be pretty explicit about this yet the fallacious notion that they do is depressingly resilient

[Peter Nolan]

"Game theory can be useful in this regard."

References please? I've come across some people saying they use such models for insurance pricing, but never seen any actual papers.

[Peter Nolan]

I'd recommend the books of Giles Keppel, a French Arabist on this topic. He has a new one out which seems to be an update of "Jihad", a comprehensive survey of pre-9/11 Islamism. He argued then that the movement was in terminal decline because the brutality and extremism of the terrorists in Algeria and Egypt and stifling autocracy of Iran had repelled the middle classes. The Indonesians, Saudis and now even the Iraqis seem to be moving in the same direction.

Les Smith of Slate is writing some very interesting pieces these days too:

http://www.slate.com/id/2108163/

[Abiola Lapite]

Peter, here are a few:

1. Terrorism and Game Theory: An Economic Analysis - D.T. Siong, F.Y. Wee, W.K. Meng.
2. Terrorism and Game Theory - Todd Sandler, D.G. Arce (full paper available for free here).
3. Terrorism Prevention: A General Model - Franz Dietrich.

[Peter Nolan]

Thanks Mr L. I chase up on the references I saw in the financial press when I can. These focused on predicting actual targets and, the developers claim, flagged the Citicorp Center, Washington offices of the IFIs and the building in New Jersey that were recently the subject of an alert.

[Bernie Goldbach]

John Robb has some high-quality papers from War College and Pentagon appraisals that he occasionally cites here:

http://jrobb.mindplex.org/

He has a book underway. He's got a pedigree in the space of Islamic fundamentalism as an operator and analyst.

[Peter Nolan]

Hi Bernie,

Thanks for the link. I think Robb looks something like a a Tom Peters or Henry Blodget of counter-terrorism. His resume looks like that's his origin rather than area studies or international relations. There's a a post on the oil industry's exposure to terrorism in the pipeline (if you'll pardon the pun) soon, so perhaps you might like to read that, when it finally comes to fruition.