Publication date 2005 Pages 352 Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism is 's analysis of from a strategic, social, and psychological point of view. It is based on a database he has compiled at the, where he directs the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism. The book's conclusions are based on data from 315 suicide terrorism attacks around the world from 1980 through 2003.
Of these, 301 were classified into 18 different campaigns by 11 different groups; the remaining 14 appear to have been isolated. Published in May 2005, Pape's volume has been widely noticed by the press, the public, and policymakers alike, and has earned praise from the likes of, Congressman (R-Texas), and.
Dying to Win is divided into three parts, analyzing the strategic, social, and psychological dimension of suicide terrorism. Contents. Detailed synopsis Introduction Ch. 1: The Growing Threat Pape claims to have compiled the world's first 'database of every suicide bombing and attack around the globe from 1980 through 2003—315 attacks in all' (3).
'The data show that there is little connection between suicide terrorism and, or any one of the world's religions. Rather, what nearly all suicide terrorist attacks have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland' (4). It is important that Americans understand this growing phenomenon (4–7). 2: Explaining Suicide Terrorism Caveat: the book's conclusions do not hold for in general (8–9). Pape distinguishes among demonstrative terrorism, which seeks publicity, destructive terrorism, which seeks to exert coercion through the threat of injury and death as well as to mobilize support, and suicide terrorism, which involves an attacker's actually killing himself or herself along with others, generally as part of a campaign (9–11).
Three historical episodes are introduced for purposes of comparison: the ancient Jewish (11–12; see also 33–34), the 11th-12th-century (12–13; see also 34–35), and the Japanese (13; see also 35–37). Pape had graduate students fluent in many languages scour the international press for incidents of suicide terrorism. There was no suicide terrorism from 1945 to 1980 (13–14). They found 315 incidents, beginning with the (14). They were able to classify all but 14 of the incidents into 18 different campaigns by 10 different organizations of predominantly Muslim, Hindu or Sikh religious persuasion. These included the (July 1990), the (1994), (1995), (1996), (2000), (2000), and the U.S.
(2001) (14–15). Five campaigns were still ongoing in early 2004, when Dying to Win was being written (15–16). Traditional explanations for suicide terrorism focus on individual motives, but fail to explain the specificity of suicide terrorism (16–17). Economic explanation of this phenomenon yields 'poor' results (17–19). Explanation of suicide terrorism as a form of competition between radical groups is dubious (19–20). Pape proposes an alternative explanation of the 'causal logic of suicide terrorism': at the strategic level, suicide terrorism exerts coercive power against democratic states to cease occupation of territory terrorists consider homeland, while at the social level it depends on mass support and at the individual level it is motivated by altruism (20–23).
All 18 campaigns shared two elements: (1) a foreign occupation (2) by a democracy. Only one of the 10 groups shared a religion with the occupiers: the in Turkey. 'The bottom line, then, is that suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign ' (23).
Part I: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism Ch. 3: A Strategy for Weak Actors The willingness of an attacker to die has strategic value (27–29). As a weapon of weak groups incapable of 'denial' as a 'coercive strategy,' suicide terrorism relies on punishment and, especially, 'the expectation of future damage,' which provides coercive leverage (29–33). 4: Targeting Democracies Pape claims that his research reveals that not religion but 'to compel democracies to withdraw military forces from the terrorists' national homeland' is the key to understanding the phenomenon of suicide attacks (38). Patterns of timing (39–41), nationalist goals (42–44), and the targeting of (44–45) reveal its logical, not irrational, nature.
'At bottom, suicide terrorism is a strategy for national liberation from foreign military occupation by a democratic state' (45). Foreign occupation is defined in terms of control of territory (not military occupation alone) (46). The targets selected by suicide terrorists suggests nationalist, not religious, aims (46–47).
(47–51) and (51–58) are analyzed in some detail. In general, the harshness of occupation does not strongly correlate with suicide terrorism (58–60). 5: Learning Terrorism Pays Terrorists are predisposed to attribute success to their technique whenever plausible (62–64). Pape claims that 'recent suicide terrorist campaigns. Are associated with gains for the terrorists' political causes about half the time' (64–65). Hamas's success is difficult to evaluate, but Hamas spokespersons express belief in their own success (65–73).
Terrorists learn from each other; the spread of the method is therefore neither irrational nor surprising (73–75). But suicide terrorism has failed 'to compel target democracies to abandon goals central to national wealth or security' (75–76).
Robert A Pape
Part II: The Social Logic of Suicide Terrorism Ch. 6: Occupation and Religious Difference 'The taproot of suicide terrorism is nationalism' not religion (79). It is 'an extreme strategy for national liberation' (80). This explains how the local community can be persuaded to re-define acts of suicide and murder as acts of on behalf of the community (81–83). Pape proposes a nationalist theory of suicide terrorism, seen from the point of view of terrorists. He analyzes the notions of occupation (83–84), homeland (84–85), identity (85–87), religious difference as a contributor to a sense of 'alien' occupation (87–88), foreign occupation reverses the relative importance of religion and language (88–92), and the widespread perception of the method as a 'last resort' (92–94). A statistical demonstration leads to the conclusion that a 'linear' rather than 'self-reinforcing spiral' explanation of suicide terrorism is best (94–100).
However, different future developments of the phenomenon of suicide terrorism are very possible, and more study of the role of religion is needed (101). 7: Demystifying al-Qaeda With increasing knowledge of al-Qaeda, we see that 'the presence of American military forces for combat operations on the homeland territory of the suicide terrorists is stronger than Islamic fundamentalism in predicting whether individuals from that country will become al-Qaeda suicide terrorists' (103). 'Al-Qaeda is less a transnational network of like-minded ideologues. Than a cross-national military alliance of national liberation movements working together against what they see as a common imperial threat' (104). The nature of, a form of Islamic fundamentalism, is complex (105–07).
Statistical analysis fails to corroborate Salafism-terrorism connection, but it does corroborate a connection to U.S. Military policies in the (107–17). Al-Qaeda propaganda emphasizes the ' theme, which is inherently related to occupation (117–24). Pape concludes that 'the core features of al-Qaeda' are captured by his theory (125). 8: Suicide Terrorist Organizations around the Globe Robert Pape examines other campaigns to see if the 'dynamics that make religious difference important' are present in other terrorist campaigns, acknowledging the difficulty of the inquiry (126–29).
He offers detailed analyses of (129–39), (139–54), the in (154–62), and the PKK in Turkey (162–66). His conclusion: 'Religion plays a role in suicide terrorism, but mainly in the context of national resistance' and not Islam per se but 'the dynamics of religious difference' are what matter (166–67). Part III: The Individual Logic of Suicide Terrorism Ch.
9: Altruism and Terrorism Pape presents a analysis of (173–79). 'Many acts of suicide terrorism are a murderous form of what Durkheim calls altruistic suicide' (179). Analytical difficulties are acknowledged (180–81). Pape uses suicide rates in general as points of comparison (181–84). Team suicide, which is frequent in suicide terrorism, is an indicator of altruistic suicide, he argues (185–87). Altruistic suicide is a socially constructed phenomenon (187–88): e.g., in (188–91), (191–93), (193–95); (195–96).
The altruistic nature of suicide terrorism suggests the number of potential terrorists is large, that suicide terrorism is capable of growing in attractiveness and appeal, and that any attempt at profiling will miss a substantial number of potential suicide terrorists (197–98). 10: The Demographic Profile of Suicide Terrorists 'In general, suicide attackers are rarely socially isolated, clinically insane, or economically destitute individuals, but are most often educated, socially integrated, and highly capable people who could be expected to have a good future' (200). Pape discusses problems of data-gathering (201–02).
He establishes 462 individuals in his 'universe' of suicide terrorists available for analytical purposes (203). Suicide bombers in the period 1982–1986 were 71% Communist/Socialist, 21% Islamist, 8% Christian (204–07). In general, suicide terrorists are in their early 20s (207–08). Females are fewer in Islamist groups: 'Islamist fundamentalism may actually reduce the number of suicide terrorists by discouraging certain categories of individuals' (208–09). Female suicide terrorists tend to be older than male (209–10). There is no documented in any case of suicide terrorism, though there are 16 cases of personal trauma (e.g., the loss of a loved one) (210–11). Ejay hip hop 5 cracker.
Arab suicide terrorists are in general better educated than average and are from the working or middle classes (211–16). 'They resemble the kind of politically conscious individuals who might join a grassroots movement more than they do wayward adolescents or religious fanatics' (216). 11: Portraits of Three Suicide Terrorists Earlier work has tended to emphasize suicide terrorists' irrationality, but this generalization fit 1980s data better than more recent data (217–20). Pape looks at three individual cases: (220–26);, a young woman from Jaffna, 'the most famous Tamil Tiger suicide bomber' (226–30); and, of Hamas (231–34). Conclusion Ch.
12: A New Strategy for Victory Though 'we' cannot leave the Middle East altogether, Pape asserts, a 'strategy for victory' is available (237–38). Should define victory as the separate objectives of 'defeating the current pool of terrorists' and preventing a new generation from arising (238–39). He rejects Frum- view that the root of the problem is in Islam (241–44). 'Rather, the taproot is American military policy' (244). The notion that is bent on world domination is 'pure fantasy' (244–45).
An attempt by the West to force Muslim societies to transform 'is likely to dramatically increase the threat we face' (245). He calls for a policy of 'off-shore' balancing': establishing local alliances while maintaining the capacity for rapid deployment of military forces (247–50). Appendices Appendix I: Suicide Terrorist Campaigns, 1980–2003 Analysis of 18 campaigns. Appendix II: Occupations by Democratic States, 1980–2003 Fifty-eight occupations by democratic states are listed (265–67). Appendix III: Salafism in Major Sunni Muslim Majority Countries Thirty-four countries with Sunni majority populations of 1 m or more and the importance of Salafism in these countries are the subjects of brief commentaries. Is defined as 'the belief that society should be organized according to the Quran and Sunna only' (269). Sunni Countries with Salafi-Influenced Populations: (10 m ); (19 m/31m Sunni Muslims); (14 m/114m); (23 m/62m); (26 m/185m); (2 m/6m); (37 m/68m); (2 m/2m); (43 m/149m); (18 m/18m); (5 m/10m); (21 m/21m); (5 m/10m); (8 m/11m) (270–74).
Non-Salafi Sunni Countries:, (274–77). Critiques In a criticism of Pape's link between occupation and suicide terrorism, an article titled 'Design, Inference, and the Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism' (published in The American Political Science Review), authors Scott Ashworth, Joshua D. Clinton, Adam Meirowitz, and Kristopher W. Ramsay from Princeton charge Pape with 'sampling on the dependent variable' by limiting research only to cases in which suicide terror was used: Pape's analysis has no control group.
Appendix II lists 58 occupations by democracies, only 9 of which generated suicide terrorism. An analysis explaining the difference between the 9 with suicide terrorism and the 49 without is lacking. In response, Pape argues that his research design is sufficient because it collected the universe of known cases of suicide terrorism. In a rejoinder, Ashworth et al. Discuss how even large samples of the dependent variable cannot be used to explain variation in outcomes, why suicide terrorism in some places but not others, if the sample does not vary. In a debate hosted by the, argued that Pape's thesis was less relevant to Al Qaeda than to Lebanon and Palestine and that there were only 12,000 American troops in Saudi Arabia in 2001 and they had not caused any deaths.
In response Pape argued that 'The U.S.-led war on terrorism is going badly because it is being waged on a faulty premise. That premise is that suicide terrorism is mainly a product of Islamic fundamentalism.'
University Of Chicago
References.
Robert Pape, University of Chicago Robert Pape is Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago specializing in international security affairs. He is the Director of the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism and his current work focuses on the causes of suicide terrorism and the politics of unipolarity. Recent publications include Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It and Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. His commentary on international security policy has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, New Republic, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, as well as on Nightline, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, and NPR.
Before coming to Chicago in 1999, he taught international relations at Dartmouth College and air power strategy for the USAF’s School of Advanced Airpower Studies. Pape received his Ph. From the University of Chicago in 1988. Your 2005 book, Dying to Win, documents a number of remarkable findings about suicide terrorism. Who are suicide terrorists, and what are they after? For the most part they’re responding to the military occupation of a community that they care a lot about. I put together the first complete data set of suicide attacks after 9/11.
I did that because, like many people who come into suicide terrorism, I thought I was going to figure out when an Islamic fundamentalist goes from being a devout, observant Muslim to somebody who then is suicidally violent. But there was no data available, so I put together this complete database of suicide attacks around the world from the early 1980s to 2003. I was really struck that half the suicide attacks were secular.
I began to look at the patterns and I noticed that they were tightly clustered, both in where they occurred and the timing, and that 95 percent of the suicide attacks were in response to a military occupation. And military occupation matters because it represents not exactly how many soldiers are on a piece of soil, but rather control of the local government, the local economic system, and the local social system. It’s the military occupation of the U.S. And NATO in Afghanistan that allows us to inform and impose change in women’s rights. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing; what I’m saying is that when you impose women’s rights at the point of a gun, then that creates a sense in the local community that they’ve lost their self-determination. What you’re seeing with not all, but most, suicide terrorists is a response to loss of self-determination for their local community.
Are these tactics effective? They’re more effective than we’d like — not in the sense that the attacks work 100 percent of the time, but they work well for groups that have few alternatives. The average suicide attack kills 10 people, whereas the average non-suicide attack, even in the very same countries, typically kills one person. So they’re tactically effective. They’re also more effective at the political level. Because the idea that where there’s one suicide attacker, there might be many more suicide attackers, can create the threat that one attack will represent future attacks to come. That has caused big governments to withdraw militarily.
In Lebanon in the 1980s, Hezbollah used suicide attacks to cause the United States to abandon its military commitment to Lebanon. In October 1983, 241 Marines were killed with the loss of one suicide attacker. Four months later Ronald Reagan pulled out all the American combat troops there, rather than face another suicide attack. Suicide attack has created major political and strategic benefits for groups that don’t have other alternatives.
It’s not like they’re choosing a suicide attack over using an army. What’s the mechanism for suicide terrorism to be politically effective? Is it that people in democracies are responding? They don’t want to pay the costs. In Lebanon, Reagan sent the troops in on actually more of a humanitarian mission, to cause stability. We weren’t after oil.
But we were viewed by the local population as essentially the handmaiden of Israel, because Israel had invaded southern Lebanon before. So we were just viewed as another occupier, because we’re Israel’s chief ally.
We didn’t have a lot of interests at stake, so with just a small number of attacks — although 241 people dying is pretty big; that’s more than died in the first Gulf War — Reagan decided that the cost-benefit just didn’t add up. The Persian Gulf is a little bit different, because oil is at stake. The Persian Gulf has one-third of the world’s oil; access to that oil matters for the health of our economies.
This is why we’ve paid really quite an expensive price with the war in Iraq and so forth, without leaving. Perhaps that answers the question of who really drives counterterrorism policy. Is it a democratic reaction of the people to risks, or something else? The purpose of terrorism is to cause fear and terror. And what you see after 9/11 is really quite an inordinate amount of fear and terror in the United States with the population, and then also among elites. I think that we now live in a calmer political environment. With ISIS, I’m not saying there are no elements of fear or terror that exist — the beheadings and the burning of the Jordanian pilot certainly evoke that — but if you look at the range of serious debate about strategy for how to deal with ISIS, it’s operating within a very narrow band.
Obama is using a strategy that is called “offshore balancing,” where you use over-the-horizon air power and naval power and empower local groups to support that policy. His critics — like Lindsey Graham and John McCain — argue for a slight variance of that, but not for a deployment of 100,000 ground troops. We don’t live in a political world where Republicans are going to say they agree with Obama, but if you look at the substantive differences, they’re pretty narrow. Speaking of ISIS and information, what is your reaction to, “What ISIS Really Wants”?
I think it’s just wrong. The author Graeme Wood is painting a picture of ISIS as all religious, all the time.
Interestingly in the second section he is talking about how the main difference with Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda is that ISIS really wants territory. Wanting territory means there’s a community that wants a state. ISIS, and most suicide groups, are driven by an ideal of nationalism; they want to control their destiny with a state. ISIS is composed of a leadership of about 25 people, which is one-third very heavily religious, for sure; one-third former Saddam Hussein military officers who are Baathists, who are secular; and one-third who are Sunni militia, Sunni tribal leaders.
That just conveniently is lost in the Wood piece. It’s definitely the case that ISIS wants to kill people who are not part of its community. But this is normal in nationalist groups. (Hutu wanted to kill Tutsi; they also wanted to kill moderate Hutu who didn’t want to kill Tutsi.) What is next for ISIS? Obama is using a strategy called “,” which is this over-the-horizon strategy that I actually called for in Dying to Win, and then I called for again in Cutting the Fuse in 2010.
It makes a lot of sense if what you’re dealing with are nationalist groups, like I’m claiming. Because then you can try to not make the matter worse by pouring in ground forces. Ground forces are going to make however much anger or terrorism there is worse, which is why when we invaded and conquered Iraq, we produced the largest suicide campaign in history. ISIS took Mosul because Mosul is Sunni. ISIS is Sunni. You had the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad with military forces in Mosul. But those are controlled by Shia; even if the foot soldiers are Sunni, the command is Shia.
The command wouldn’t fight and die for Mosul, because it’s not the territory of the Shia. So it was a piece of cake; there was no battle for Mosul.
ISIS simply drove in, and the other people drove out. Then there was a question of whether ISIS would threaten Erbil, which is populated by Kurds, or Baghdad, which are Shia. Those are much tougher for ISIS to take anyway, and what we did is use air power to contain that threat, and then roll back ISIS. We also worked with local allies —the Kurds and the Shia — to roll back ISIS. Now we only can roll them back so far by working with Kurds and Shia, because ISIS is mainly a Sunni movement. So if it’s a Sunni revolt, then the real thing we need, if we want to roll it back further, is not have the Shia sit on top of the Sunnis, or the Kurds sit on top of the Sunnis, because that’s more occupation.
We need to try and find some Sunni alternatives to ISIS like the Anbar Awakening that we used to have. ISIS has a fearsome methodology. But what’s the actual threat? It’s medium in the region. The threat to the United States is real, but it’s low. It’s more likely to be lone-wolf style attacks that look like the Boston Marathon bombing than 9/11. You can have sophisticated local attacks if the local population isn’t paying any attention.
Before 9/11, Mohammed Atta and three other guys took flight lessons here, lessons where they didn’t want to learn how to land, and nobody thought that was weird because nobody could imagine anything. Well, if somebody wanted to do anything like that now, we would all know in a heartbeat that was weird, right? In Iraq and Syria, in the Sunni areas, you do have some complicated attacks that are planned and carried out, where a suicide attack is combined with three or four other pieces. You can do that because the local Sunni populations are mostly supporting, in at least a passive way, what’s occurring. We talk a lot about terrorism threats from the Middle East.
What about the rest of the world? We talk a lot about the Middle East because after the end of the Cold War, the United States stationed an army in the Persian Gulf, which we had not done going back to World War II. And there was no counterweight from the Soviet Union to prevent us from stationing the army there. So Saddam invaded Kuwait, and then we decided — and 35 other countries went along — to kick Saddam out of Kuwait. It was to protect access to oil.
When we did that in March 1991, we didn’t leave. That army stayed there, because we’re “hedging,” right? Well that hedging means we’re in control, or certainly viewed as in control.
Al Qaeda, bin Laden, argued from the get-go that this would prevent there ever being a new regime to come in Riyadh. What he wanted was a much more Islamic regime, religious regime, but as he saw it a regime that reflected community self-determination. Well you can’t do that if the Americans have all these military troops stationed there to prevent exactly that kind of a change.
You see what I mean? The reason we’re talking about the Middle East isn’t because we’re just obsessing about Middle Eastern politics. It’s because with the end of the Cold War, that really was the new place we put forces where we hadn’t put them before. Any general prescriptions for things the U.S.
Should be doing differently in foreign policy? I think it’s really tragic that Obama can’t seem to come up with rhetoric to describe his policy. He is a great communicator. And even in the White House’s February 2015 he did a good job with the rhetoric of talking about the political causes of terrorism. But in the New York Times, there was recently where he sat down with Obama. And you’ll see, it’s all about his policy, and they’re not able to come up with a name.
Apparently he just won’t take “offshore balancing,” but that’s what it is. You can call it “over the horizon,” but it’s really difficult if you sort of don’t have a name, or a set of concepts, that really explain your policy.
So I think the number one thing is that the President’s power comes in large part because of his ability to articulate a coherent policy. I think it’s quite coherent — he just hasn’t articulated it. Back to democratic mechanisms, what is the role of the average person in influencing foreign policy?
It can actually be pretty big. It really is the case that grassroots organizing is listened to and paid attention to by politicians. What we have been missing are real efforts to try and have grassroots organizations around issues of foreign policy. I think that the Republicans, with the rise of Fox News and Republican talk radio, have done an amazing job of basically building some of those, and the Democratic side have not done as much. So what can an ordinary person do? It’s basically looking for ways to participate in grassroots organizations.
And one of the things to do is to talk about new arguments and new ideas. Within six degrees of separation, each of us knows everybody in the world. So if people who read your piece will just tell two or three other people, and then ask them to talk to two or three other people, that will do a lot more good than they might realize. It’s actually a lot more powerful than people think, and it is the way to go forward. Feature Photo: cc/. The problem that I see with this analysis is: 1.
Distinguishing between ideological and secular motivations presupposes that they are orthagonal in this case, Islamic dogma is precisely the same as the secular motivation (i.e. The mandate of Jihad to resist occupation is both secular and ideological) 2. The discussion does not account for counter-examples. Why did you not see this phenomenon in occupied Europe, or Japan? Why did you not see the problem in Syria and Iraq under foreign/Muslim occupation (under the Turks, for example)?
If self-determination were the secular motivation, then why did the Shia under Saddam Hussein not resort to these tactics? Likewise, why not the Sunni under the rule of Bashar al Assad or Hafez al Assad? I think there is a lot of merit to the viewpoint, but I think it is also a massive mistake to disregard ideological motivations of suicide bombing, because the solution to how to stop it can also be seen in examining that ideology. And, failing to look at ideology also brings up the biggest point missed by the discussion in this article – namely that suicide bombing is used in situations where there is a clearly achievable goal to be attained. Every one of the suicide bombings that Dr. Pape discussed shares that characteristic. I think that the strategy of the West must be such that it conveys the message that there are no achievable goals to be gained by suicide attack or other terrorist acts against the west.
That plays into both addressing the secular and the ideological as I understand it, Islamic dogma that encourages violent Jihad also has a built-in “out” when there is no reasonable chance of success. This approach would differ somewhat in that the offshore balancing approach still does provide both secular and ideological reason for ISIS to target the West (the recent Paris bombings were a strategic message to that effect, as France was not occupying Syria in any way). But, demonstrating that the West has the power and resolve to make the Islamic State’s goals completely unachievable would require a response with a magnitude that generally can’t be done from offshore.
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