Deterring the Undeterrable: Coercion, Denial, and Delegitimization in Counterterrorism

Abstract

This article argues that deterrence theory can be applied to counterterrorism. Doing so requires broadening the traditional concept of deterrence by punishment, expanding deterrence by denial to include defense, mitigation, and strategic hindrance, and developing deterrence by delegitimization to influence the political, ideological, and religious rationales informing terrorist behavior. In practice, deterring terrorism requires tailoring threats against state and individual facilitators, diffusing the intended consequences of terrorism, and manipulating terrorist self–restraints. When these and other deterrent leverages are applied simultaneously against various actors and processes involved in terrorism, coercion can be achieved.

Key Words:

• Deterrence
• Coercion
• Terrorism

Acknowledgements

For their thoughtful comments, I am indebted to Frank Harvey, T.V. Paul, Denis Stairs, Major-General E.S. Fitch, Andreas Wenger, Victor Mauer, and the journal's anonymous reviewer. For their generous support, I thank the Security and Defence Forum at the Canadian Department of National Defence and the Center for Security Studies at the ETH, Zurich, Switzerland.

Notes

¹George W. Bush, Commencement Address, US Military Academy, 27 May 2007.

²Terrorism is the use of violence by non-state actors against noncombatants with the purpose of generating fear to communicate (and achieve) socio-political objectives. This definition implies that terrorism, as Bruce Hoffman notes, creates ‘psychological repercussions beyond the immediate victim’. Terrorism relates well to deterrence logic, suggests Sir Lawrence Freedman, because it is a ‘coercive strategy’ meant to compel states by threatening pain. Delineating it from other forms of political violence (insurgency, civil and guerrilla warfare, genocide) is nonetheless problematic because of the overlap that exists between these phenomena. See Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (New York: Columbia UP 2006), 40; Lawrence Freedman, Deterrence (Malden, Canada: Political Press 2004), 121–2; Daniel Byman, ‘Understanding Proto-Insurgencies’, Journal of Strategic Studies 31/2 (April 2008), 167–70; David Kilcullen, ‘Countering Global Insurgency’, Journal of Strategic Studies 28/4 (Aug. 2005), 597–617.

³Daniel Byman, The Five Front War: The Better Way to Fight Global Jihad (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley 2008), Chs. 2 and 7.

⁴Freedman, Deterrence, 54–9, 99–100; Keith Payne, ‘Bush Administration Strategic Policy: A Reality Check’, Journal of Strategic Studies 28/5 (Oct. 2005), 779–81; Payne, ‘Deterrence: A New Paradigm’, National Institute for Public Policy (Dec. 2003); T.V. Paul, ‘Complex Deterrence: An Introduction’ in T.V. Paul et al. (eds), Complex Deterrence: Strategy in the Global Age (Chicago UP 2009), 8–20.

⁵Michael Quinlan, ‘Deterrence and Deterrability’, Contemporary Security Policy 25/1 (April 2004), 11.

⁶Thomas Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 1960), 9

⁷Thomas Schelling, ‘Thinking about Nuclear Terrorism’, International Security 6/4 (Spring 1982), 72.

⁸Wyn Bowen, ‘Deterrence and Asymmetry: Non-State Actors and Mass Casualty Terrorism’, Contemporary Security Policy 25/1 (Spring 2004), 58.

⁹The most pertinent include narrow and broad deterrence, extended and central deterrence, immediate and general deterrence, and nuclear and conventional deterrence. For an overview, see Freedman, Deterrence, Ch. 2.

¹⁰Glen Snyder, Deterrence and Defense: Toward a Theory of National Security (Princeton UP 1961), 13–19.

¹¹Frank Harvey, ‘Practicing Coercion: Revisiting Successes and Failures Using Boolean Logic and Comparative Methods’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 43/6 (1999), 842–3.

¹²David Johnson et al., Conventional Coercion across the Spectrum of Conventional Operations (Santa Monica, CA: RAND 2002), 17.

¹³Freedman, Deterrence, 16.

¹⁴Paul Huth and Bruce Russett, ‘Testing Deterrence Theory: Rigor Makes a Difference’, World Politics 42/4 (July 1990), 471.

¹⁵Ted Hopf, Peripheral Visions: Deterrence Theory and American Foreign Policy in the Third World, 1965–1990 (Ann Arbor: UP 1994), 241. See also, Jeffrey W. Knopf, ‘Three Items in One: Deterrence as Concept, Research Program, and Political Issue', in T.V. Paul et al. (eds), Complex Deterrence: Strategy in the Global Age (Chicago UP 2009), 33–7.

¹⁶Christopher Achen and Duncan Snidal, ‘Rational Deterrence Theory and Comparative Case Studies’, World Politics 41/2 (1989), 152.

¹⁷Frank Harvey, ‘Rigor Mortis or Rigor, More Test: Necessity, Sufficiency, and Deterrence’, International Studies Quarterly 42/4 (1998), 676–83.

¹⁸Keith Payne, Testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, Washington DC, 18 July 2007.

¹⁹Jeffrey Knopf, ‘Wrestling with Deterrence: Bush Administration Strategy after 9/11,’Contemporary Security Policy 29/2 (Aug. 2008), 232–3.

²⁰Bernard Lewis, ‘Free at Last? The Arab World in the Twenty-first Century’, Foreign Affairs 88/2 (March/April 2009).

²¹A similar assessment is offered by Shmuel Bar and others concerning Israel's supposed deterrence failure against Hizballah at the onset of hostilities in 2006. Shmuel Bar, ‘Deterring Non-state Terrorist Groups: The Case of Hizballah’, Comparative Strategy 26/5 (2007), 472; Amos Malka, ‘Israel and Asymmetrical Deterrence’, Comparative Strategy 27/1 (2008), 2–5; Barak Mendelsohn, ‘Israeli Self-Defeating Deterrence in the 1991 Gulf War’, Journal of Strategic Studies 26/4 (Dec. 2003), 92.

²²It is possible that Al-Qa'eda devised 9/11 to compel the US to further its global military intervention in hopes of catalyzing greater socio-political upheaval in the Muslim world and/or in order to bait and bog down its opponent in costly asymmetric conflicts.

²³Marc Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press 2004), 51.

²⁴Quoted in Fawaz Gerges, ‘Are We Safe Yet? A Foreign Affairs Roundtable’, <www.foreignaffairs.com/discussions/roundtables/are-we-safe-yet> (Sept. 2006).

²⁵Paul Davis and Brian Jenkins, Deterrence and Influence in Counterterrorism: A Component in the War on al Qaeda (Santa Monica, CA: RAND 2002), 9–13, 61; and Paul Davis and Brian Jenkins, ‘A System Approach to Deterring and Influencing Terrorists’, Conflict Management and Peace Science 21/1 (2004), 3–15.

²⁶Johnson et al., Conventional Coercion, 11.

²⁷Lewis Dunn, ‘Influencing Terrorists’ Acquisition and Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction’, NATO Defence College Workshop, 5 Aug. 2008, 2. See also, Dunn, ‘Deterrence Today: Roles, Challenges, and Responses’, Proliferation Papers, IFRI (2007), 17–22; and Dunn, Next Generation: Weapons of Mass Destruction and Weapons of Mass Effects Terrorism (Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Advanced Systems and Concepts Office 2008), sect. 3.

²⁸Quinlan, ‘Deterrence and Deterrability’, 11.

²⁹Doron Almog, ‘Cumulative Deterrence and the War on Terrorism’, Parameters 34/4 (Winter 2004/5), 5.

³⁰‘A Concept for Deterring and Dissuading Terrorist Networks’ (unclass. draft report), US Office of the Secretary of Defense (2005), 7–9.

³¹Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Gross Stein, ‘Rational Deterrence Theory: I Think, Therefore I Deter’, World Politics 41/2 (1989), 208–9.

³²Jeffrey Berejikian, ‘A Cognitive Theory of Deterrence’, Journal of Peace Research 39/2 (2002), 167–73.

³³Robert Jervis, ‘Deterrence and Perception’, International Security 7/3 (Winter 1982/83), 3–30.

³⁴John Gearson, ‘The Nature of Modern Terrorism’, in Lawrence Freedman (ed.), Superterrorism: Policy Responses (Malden, MA: Blackwell 2002), 11.

³⁵Mark Juergensmeyer, ‘Understanding the New Terrorism’, Current History 99/636 (2000), 158.

³⁶Brian Jenkins, ‘The New Age of Terrorism’, in David Kamien (ed.), McGraw-Hill Homeland Security (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Reprint 2005), 118.

³⁷Ehud Sprinzak, ‘Rational Fanatics’, Foreign Policy (Sept./Oct. 2000), 66–73.

³⁸Robert Pape, ‘Suicide Terrorism and Democracy: What We've Learned Since 9/11’, Policy Analysis 582 (2006), 4; idem, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (New York: Random House 2005).

³⁹Scott Atran suggests that Pape's 2005 dataset of over 300 suicide attacks (1980–2003) was outdated by 2006. Using updated data he finds that suicide terrorism is not meant to compel adversaries but to increase a ‘sponsoring organization's political “market share”’ among supportive communities. Others have criticized Pape on methodological grounds. See Scott Atran, ‘The Moral Logic and Growth of Suicide Terrorism’, Washington Quarterly 29/2 (2006), 132–9; Atran, ‘Mishandling Suicide Terrorism’, Washington Quarterly 27/3 (2004), 67–90; Scott Ashworth et al., ‘Design, Inference, and the Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism’, American Political Science Review 102/2 (2008), 269–73.

⁴⁰Amos Malka, ‘The Power of Weakness vs. The Weakness of Power: Asymmetrical Deterrence’, Institute for Policy and Strategy, Hezliya Conference, Israel, Jan. 2008.

⁴¹Fawaz Gerges, Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy (Toronto: Harcourt 2007), 11–4, 39–45.

⁴²Bruce Jentleson and Christopher Whytock, ‘Who “Won” Libya? The Force–Diplomacy Debate and its Implications for Theory and Policy’, International Security 30/3 (2005/6), 51–5.

⁴³Martha Crenshaw, ‘Coercive Diplomacy and the Response to Terrorism’, in Robert Art and Patrick Cronin (eds), The United States and Coercive Diplomacy (Washington DC: US Institute of Peace 2003), 314–35.

⁴⁴Bar offers four relationships: surrogates (groups are an extension of the state), proxies (groups do the bidding of the state); partnerships (groups form alliances with the state); and reverse proxyship (groups inform state behavior). Shmuel Bar, ‘Deterring Terrorists: What Israel Has Learned’, Policy Review 149 (June/July 2008), 29–42.

⁴⁵Shmuel Bar, ‘Israeli Experience in Deterring Terrorist Organizations’, Institute for Policy and Strategy, Herzliya Conference, Israel, Jan. 2007.

⁴⁶Tim Reid, ‘We'll bomb you to Stone Age, US told Pakistan’, The Times Online, 22 Sept. 2006.

⁴⁷Byman excludes states that sponsor terrorism, have tried but failed to hinder it, are unaware of its presence, or lack the ability to counter it. Daniel Byman, ‘Passive Sponsors of Terrorism’, Survival 47/4 (Winter 2005/6), 118.

⁴⁸Lawrence Freedman, ‘The Third World War?’, Survival 43/4 (Winter 2001), 74.

⁴⁹Quoted in Reuters, ‘Israel Warns Hezbollah War Would Invite Destruction’, 3 Oct. 2008.

⁵⁰Caitlin Talmadge, ‘Deterring a Nuclear 9/11’, Washington Quarterly 30/2 (2007) 21–34; Elbridge Colby, ‘Expanded Deterrence: Broadening the Threat of Retaliation’, Policy Review 149 (June/July 2008), 43–59.

⁵¹David Sanger and Thom Shanker, ‘US Debates Deterrence for Nuclear Terrorism’, New York Times, 8 May 2007.

⁵²William Dunlop and Harold Smith, ‘Who Did It? Using International Forensics to Defeat and Deter Nuclear Terrorism’, Arms Control Today 36 (Oct. 2006), 6; Siegfried Hecker, ‘Toward a Comprehensive Safeguards System: Keeping Fissile Material out of Terrorists’ Hands', The ANNALS 607 (2006), 121–32; Nuclear Forensics: Role, State of the Art, and Program Needs (Washington DC: American Physical Society & American Association for Advancement of Science 2005).

⁵³Michael Levi, ‘Deterring State Sponsorship of Nuclear Terrorism’, Council Special Report 39 (2008), 4–5.

⁵⁴Matthew Phillips, ‘Uncertain Justice for Nuclear Terror: Deterrence of Anonymous Attacks through Attribution’, Orbis 51/3 (2007), 434–5.

⁵⁵Stephen Hadley, ‘Remarks to the Center for International Security and Cooperation Center for International Security and Cooperation’, Stanford Univ., California, USA, 8 Feb. 2008.

⁵⁶David Auerswald, ‘Deterring Nonstate WMD Attacks’, Political Science Quarterly 121/4 (2006), 555–9.

⁵⁷ Foreign Policy, ‘Failed States Index 2009’ (Summer 2009).

⁵⁸Government of the USA, 9/11 Commission Report (22 July 2004), 62–3; PBS Frontline, ‘Interview with Michael Scheuer’ in The Cell Next Door, Jan. 2007.

⁵⁹Steven David, ‘Fatal Choices: Israel's Policy of Targeted Killing’, Mideast Security and Policy Studies 51 (2002), 2; and Nils Melzer, Targeted Killing in International Law (Oxford: OUP 2008), 3–8.

⁶⁰For normative critiques, see Freedman, Deterrence, 118–20; Asa Kasher and Amos Yadlin, ‘Assassination and Preventive Killing’, SAIS Review 25/1 (2005), 41–57; Yael Stein, ‘By Any Name Illegal and Immoral: Response to ‘Israel's Policy of Targeted Killing’, Ethics and International Affairs 17/1 (2003), 127–37; Naomi Chazan, ‘Assassinations as Weapons of War’, Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs 2/2 (2008), 85–90.

⁶¹Graham Turbiville, ‘Hunting Leadership Targets in Counterinsurgency and Counterterrorist Operations’, Joint Special Operations University Report 07–6 (2007), 52–73; Peter Cullen, ‘The Role of Targeted Killing in the Campaign against Terror’, Joint Force Quarterly 48 (2008), 23–9.

⁶²See, among others, Daniel Byman, ‘Do Targeted Killings Work?’Foreign Affairs 85/2 (2006), 95–111; Michael Eisenstadt, ‘“Pre-Emptive Targeted Killings” as a Counter-Terror Tool: An Assessment of Israel's Approach’, PeaceWatch 342 (28 Aug. 2001); Mohammed Hafez and Joseph Hatfield, ‘Do Targeted Killings Work? A Multivariate Analysis of Israel's Controversial Tactic during Al-Aqsa Uprising’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 29/4 (2006), 359–82; Hillel Frisch, ‘Motivation or Capabilities? Israeli Counterterrorism against Palestinian Suicide Bombings and Violence’, Mideast Security and Policy Studies 70 (2006), 1–32; Gal Luft, ‘The Logic of Israel's Targeted Killing’, Middle East Quarterly 10/1 (2003), 6–13.

⁶³Brad Roberts, ‘Deterrence and WMD Terrorism: Calibrating its Potential Contributions to Risk Reduction’, Institute for Defense Analyses Paper P-4231 (Alexandria, VA: 2007), 13.

⁶⁴Christopher C. Harmon, ‘The Myth of the Invincible Terrorist’, Policy Review 142 (2007), 60.

⁶⁵For the role iteration plays on inter-state deterrent relations, see Jonathan Shimshoni, Israel and Conventional Deterrence: Border Warfare from 1953 to 1970 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1988).

⁶⁶Alex Wilner, ‘Targeted Killings in Afghanistan: Measuring Coercion and Deterrence in Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 33/4 (April 2010), 307–29.

⁶⁷John Mearsheimer, ‘Prospects for Conventional Deterrence in Europe,’Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 41/7 (1985), 158.

⁶⁸See Gary Geipel, ‘Urban Terrorists in Continental Europe after 1970: Implications for Deterrence and Defeat of Violent Nonstate Actors’, Comparative Strategy 26 (2007), 439–67; Robert Anthony, ‘Deterrence and the 9-11 Terrorists’, Institute for Defense Analyses Document 2802, May 2003; M. Elaine Bunn, ‘Can Deterrence be Tailored?’, Strategic Forum 225 (2007), 3.

⁶⁹US Dept. of Homeland Security, Report of the Future of Terrorism Task Force (Washington DC: Jan. 2007), 6.

⁷⁰Colin Gray, ‘Thinking Asymmetrically in Times of Terror’, Parameters 32/1 (Spring 2002), 8–11.

⁷¹James Smith and Brent Talbot, ‘Terrorism and Deterrence by Denial’, in Paul Viotti, Michael Opheim and Nicholas Bowen (eds), Terrorism and Homeland Security (New York: CRC Press 2008), 54–9.

⁷²Freedman, Deterrence, 123–4.

⁷³Robert Trager and Dessislava Zagorcheva, ‘Deterring Terrorism: It can be Done’, International Security 30/3 (2005/6), 60–1, 89.

⁷⁴Max Abrahms, ‘Are Terrorists Really Rational? The Palestinian Example’, Orbis 48/3 (2004), 542; and Max Abrahms, ‘Why Terrorism does not Work’, International Security 31/2 (2006), 72–5.

⁷⁵Ariel Merari, Testimony before the Special Oversight Panel on Terrorism, US House of Representatives, 13 July 2000.

⁷⁶Personal correspondence with Bruce Hoffman, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland, 10 March 2009.

⁷⁷Associated Press, ‘Investigators Eye al-Qaeda Link in Embassy Attack’, 10 July 2008.

⁷⁸Daniel Byman and Matthew Waxman, ‘Defeating US Coercion’, Survival 41/2 (1999), 108–15.

⁷⁹I am grateful to Frank Harvey for providing this observation. For reference, see Frank Harvey, ‘Getting NATO's Success in Kosovo Right: The Theory and Logic of Counter-Coercion’, Conflict Management and Peace Science 23/2 (2006), 150–1.

⁸⁰Louise Richardson, What Terrorists Want (New York: Random House 2006).

⁸¹David Lake, ‘Rational Extremism: Understanding Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century’, Dialog–IO (Spring 2002), 17.

⁸²Roberts, ‘Deterrence and WMD Terrorism’, 8–17.

⁸³Nancy Kay Hayden, Terrifying Landscapes: A Study of Scientific Research into Understanding Motivations of Non-State Actors to Acquire and/or Use Weapons of Mass Destructions, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Advanced Systems and Concepts Office (June 2007), 18–21.

⁸⁴John Parachini, ‘Putting WMD Terrorism into Perspective’, Washington Quarterly 26/4 (Autumn 2003), 45.

⁸⁵Quoted in Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, ‘US Adapts Cold-War Idea to Fight Terrorists’, New York Times, 18 March 2008.

⁸⁶Lewis Dunn, ‘Can al-Qaeda be Deterred from Using Nuclear Weapons?’, Occasional Paper 3, Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction (2005), 24; Daniel Whiteneck, ‘Deterring Terrorists: Thoughts on a Framework’, Washington Quarterly 28/3 (Autumn 2005), 188–94.

⁸⁷Gray, ‘Thinking Asymmetrically’, 7.

⁸⁸Shmuel Bar and Yair Minzili, ‘The Zawahiri Letter and the Strategy of Al-Qaeda’, in Hillel Fradkin et al. (eds) Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, Vol. 3 (Washington DC: Hudson Institute 2006); and Douglas, ‘Waging the Inchoate War’, 401–9.

⁸⁹Fawaz Gerges, ‘Buried in Amman's Rubble: Zarqawi's Support’, Washington Post, 5 Dec. 2005.

⁹⁰Patrick Porter, ‘Long Wars and Long Telegrams: Containing Al-Qaeda’, International Affairs 85/2 (2009), 300–5.

⁹¹Freedman, ‘The Third World War?’, 63.

⁹²Jerry Long, ‘Strategic Culture, Al-Qaida, and Weapons of Mass Destruction’, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Advanced Systems and Concepts Office (2006), 9.

⁹³Dunn, Next Generation, 11–14, 25–6.

⁹⁴Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror (New York: Random House 2004), 39.

⁹⁵Ibid., 153

⁹⁶Bruce Hoffman, ‘Old Madness, New Methods: Revival of Religious Terrorism Begs for Broader US Policy’, Rand Review 22/2 (1998/99), 15.

⁹⁷Giles Kepel, The War for Muslim Minds (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 2005), 100–4.

⁹⁸Lawrence Wright, ‘The Rebellion Within: An al-Qaeda Mastermind Questions Terrorism’, New Yorker, 2 June 2008; Ronald Sandee, ‘Core Al-Qaida in 2008: A Review’, NEFA Foundation (2009), 12–15.

⁹⁹Asaf Maliach, ‘Saudi Religious Scholars come out against Al–Qaeda's Use of Religious Edicts Permitting Suicide Attacks against Muslims’, International Institute for Counter–Terrorism, Herzliya, Israel (July 2007).

¹⁰⁰Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, ‘The Unraveling: The Jihadist Revolt against bin Laden’, New Republic, 11 June 2008.

¹⁰¹Atran, ‘The Moral Logic’, 142.

¹⁰²Shaun Waterman, ‘Al Qaeda Adopting Defensive Tone’, Washington Times, 13 Aug. 2008.

¹⁰³Bergen and Cruickshank, ‘The Unraveling’; Sandee, ‘Core Al-Qaida in 2008’, 11–12.

¹⁰⁴Frank Harvey, ‘Practicing Coercion’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 43/6 (1999), 840–3.

¹⁰⁵Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Gross Stein, ‘Deterrence: The Elusive Dependent Variable’, World Politics 42/3 (1990), 336–43.

¹⁰⁶Almog, ‘Cumulative Deterrence’; and Wilner, ‘Targeted Killings in Afghanistan’.

¹⁰⁷Patrick Morgan, ‘Taking the Long View of Deterrence’, Journal of Strategic Studies 28/5 (Oct. 2005), 754–62.

¹⁰⁸Freedman has done so with regard to inter–state deterrent relations. See Freedman, Deterrence, Ch. 4.