All Struggles Must End: The Longevity of Terrorist Groups

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DISCLAIMER

The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the US Air Force, the US Department of Defense or any other US government agency.

Notes

Audrey Kurth Cronin, ‘How Al-Qaida Ends: The Decline and Demise of Terrorist Groups’, International Security, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Summer 2006), p. 48.

David C. Rapoport, ‘Terrorism’, in Mary Hawkesworth and Maurice Kogan (eds), Encyclopedia of Government and Politics (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 1067. In the 2004 edition of the same work, Rapoport adapted his now-famous assertion about the lifespan of terrorist groups, stating that ‘The Thugs and Assassins survived centuries, … but 90 percent of the third-wave groups did not last a year. Half of those that did were gone ten years later, but successor groups sometimes continued the struggle.’² Third Wave groups are those leftist groups that predominated in the 1970s and 1980s. Moreover, these Third Wave groups ‘lasted an average of two years’, though the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), Euzkadi ta Azkatazuna (ETA), and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) have survived for 80, 40, and 40 years, respectively. PIRA's 80 year lifespan is the sum total beginning with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the 1920s, and the subsequent defection of much of its leadership (along with its resources) in 1969 to PIRA. ‘Terrorism’, in Mary Hawkesworth and Maurice Kogan (eds), Encyclopedia of Government and Politics (New York: Routledge, 2004), p. 1051. A far less well-known statistic is from the political scientist Rohan Gunaratna. He has posited that terrorist groups ‘enjoy an average lifespan of 13.5 years’, but no empirical data are provided in his research works regarding this conclusion. Rohan Gunaratna, Terrorism in Southeast Asia: Threat and Response, Center for Eurasian Policy Occasional Research Paper (Washington, DC: Hudson Institute, 27 December 2006), p. 11.

Loretta Napoleoni, Terror Incorporated: Tracing the Dollars Behind the Terror Networks (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2004), p. 51.

Steve Kiser, ‘Financing Terror: An Analysis and Simulation for Affecting Al Qaeda's Financial Infrastructure’ (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2005), pp. 29–31.

Kim Cragin and Sara A. Daly, The Dynamic Terrorist Threat: An Assessment of Group Motivations and Capabilities in a Changing World (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2004), p. 57.

Larry Diamond, Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), pp. 119–20.

Frederik Fleurke and Rolf Willemse, ‘Measuring Local Autonomy: A Decision-Making Approach’, Local Government Studies, Vol. 32, No. 1 (February 2006), p. 72.

One rare example is that of the relative autonomy of a state by measuring a state's total trade divided by its gross domestic product to provide a state's relative international autonomy (RIA). Thomas J. Volgy and Alison Bailin, International Politics and State Strength (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2003), p. 44.

Kevin C. Desouza and Tobin Hensgen, ‘Connectivity among Terrorist Groups: A Two Models Business Maturity Approach’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol. 30, No. 7 (July 2007), pp. 605–6, at p. 609.

Daniel Byman et al., Trends in Outside Support for Insurgent Movements (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2001), p. 3.

Of note, not all terrorist groups necessarily seek to establish themselves over the long run. For example, the perpetrators of the London subway bombings in 2005 only intended to establish themselves for that one suicide mission. In such cases, obviously, long-term resourcing support will not be sought.

Daniel Byman, Deadly Connections: States that Sponsor Terrorism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 36–47, 75–8.

Hans Morgenthau highlighted the difference between power and influence through the following example. ‘The Secretary of State who advises the President of the United States on the conduct of American foreign policy has influence if the President follows his advice. But he has no power over the President; for he has none of the means at his disposal with which to impose his will upon that of the President. He can persuade but he cannot compel. The President, on the other hand, has power over the Secretary of State; for he can impose his will upon the latter by virtue of the authority of his office, the promise of benefits, and the threat of disadvantages.’ Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 5th ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), p. 31.

Walter Laqueur, The Age of Terrorism (Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1987), p. 93.

Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), p. 234.

Terms for underground, full-time terrorists versus the more open support personnel vary, but the concepts remain the same. Della Porta refers to those who lived underground and engaged in full-time activities as ‘regular forces’ while ‘irregular’ ones who limited their clandestinity, and, thus, involvement, in the organization. An anonymous contributor to an Al Qaeda website refers to ‘open members’ who ‘perform the primary military operations such as assassinations, firing at enemy facilities, etc.’ versus ‘secret members’, which are those who ‘do not [act] openly and are not wanted by the authorities’ and so can gather intelligence, recruit members and provide other vital functions. ‘Islamist Websites Hosted in Minnesota on How to Join Al-Qaeda, Form a Jihad Cell, and Select a Western Target – “[Is] Assassinating the American Ambassador … Difficult for Someone Who Has Already Crushed America in Her Own Home?”’, in Special Dispatch Series (Washington, DC: Middle East Media Research Institute, 2007), Donatella Della Porta, ‘Left-Wing Terrorism in Italy’, in Martha Crenshaw (ed.), Terrorism in Context (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), p. 128.

Based on discussions of terrorist organizations' ‘regenerative capacity’ with Reid Sawyer, February–June 2007. Regenerative capacity refers to the ability of terrorist groups to regenerate necessary resources at least as fast, if not faster, than counterterrorism forces can reduce those resources.

Cragin and Daly, Dynamic Terrorist Threat (note 5), p. 56.

A list of reasons for attrition are found in Jerrold M. Post, Keven G. Ruby and Eric D. Shaw, ‘The Radical Group in Context Part 1: An Integrated Framework for the Analysis of Group Risk for Terrorism’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol. 25, No. 2 (April 2002), p. 93. However, while the authors compile an excellent list of the internal reasons for member to leave (defection, personal concerns, etc.), they fail to list external reasons for attrition, namely, the arrest or death of members during the conduct of operations or from counterterrorism operations against the group.

Cragin and Daly, Dynamic Terrorist Threat (note 5), p. 34.

Ibid., p. 48.

Post et al., ‘Radical Group in Context Part 1’ (note 19), p. 92.

Cragin and Daly, Dynamic Terrorist Threat (note 5), p. 50.

Ibid., p. 40.

Ibid.

Ibid., pp. xii, 12.

Ibid., pp. 14–7.

Martha Crenshaw, ‘How Terrorism Declines’, Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Autumn 1991), p. 70.

Ibid., pp. 77–9.

Seth G. Jones and Martin C. Libicki, How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering Al Qa'ida (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2008). Of note, the authors do assess the ‘economic conditions’ of such groups. However, the ‘economic conditions’ specified are those of the country in which the terrorist organization is resident, and not the actual economic conditions of the group itself.

Crenshaw, ‘How Terrorism Declines’ (note 28), pp. 75–9.

Rapoport, ‘Terrorism’ (note 2), p. 1067.

Kurth Cronin, ‘How Al-Qaida Ends’ (note 1), p. 13.

Jones and Libicki, How Terrorist Groups End (note 30).

Crenshaw, ‘How Terrorism Declines’ (note 28), p. 79.

Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (note 15), pp. 241–3; Kurth Cronin, ‘How Al-Qaida Ends’ (note 1), p. 13; Laqueur, The Age of Terrorism (note 14), p. 301; Jon B. Alterman, How Terrorism Ends, Special Report (Washington, DC: United States Institute for Peace, 25 May 1999), p. 1.

Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (note 15), p. 243.

Ibid., p. 242.

Ibid.

Jeffrey Ian Ross and Ted Robert Gurr, ‘Why Terrorism Subsides: A Comparative Study of Canada and the United States’, Comparative Politics, Vol. 21, No. 4 (July 1989), pp. 405–26.

Crenshaw, ‘How Terrorism Declines’ (note 28).

Jones and Libicki, How Terrorist Groups End (note 28).

Kurth Cronin, ‘How Al-Qaida Ends’ (note 1), pp. 17–32.

Crenshaw, ‘How Terrorism Declines’ (note 28).

Other databases, such as the Global Terrorism Database and the National Counterterrorism Center's incident database, will note which groups have undertaken a particular incident if that information is available to the researchers. These can then be searched using a keyword search. However, only TKB specifically tracked terrorist attacks to groups, thus creating overall profiles of each group.

In March 2008, MIPT ceased operating the TKB database, and elements have been merged into the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), managed by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland. However, GTD no longer updates the dataset on specific groups, so the most current information available is from March 2008. The GTD database can be found at http://www.start.umd.edu/data/gtd.

For their statistical purposes, RAND defines a terrorist group as ‘a collection of individuals belonging to an autonomous non-state or subnational revolutionary or anti-governmental movement, who are dedicated to the use of violence to achieve their objectives’.

Among these, ten groups were identified which were not considered terrorist groups. In each of these ten cases, the next group on the overall list was chosen as a replacement for the rejected one, maintaining a total sample of 100. In six of the rejected cases, no actual attack could be proven to have been undertaken by the organization; in two cases, the group which claimed responsibility was probably a nom de guerre of another organization (for instance, the one attack claimed by the Badr Force was probably actually undertaken by Tanzim); and in the two remaining cases, all information available indicated the groups were more likely guerrilla movements, with all known incidents involving military or security forces.

• a. I define terrorism as premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by individuals or subnational groups, usually intended to influence an audience. This is based on Title 22 of the US Code, Section 2656f(d) which defines terrorism as ‘premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience’. This is the definition that has been adopted by the US Department of State for its statistical purposes. The first difference between my definition and that of the original is the addition of the word ‘individuals’, whereas the statutory definition only includes groups. The second change is that this article will not consider acts committed by clandestine agents of a state to be terrorist attacks. Instead, I restrict the definition to only encompass non-state actors.

‘Foreign Terrorist Organizations (F.T.O.S)’, US Department of State Office of Counterterrorism, available at www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/fs/37191.htm; Audrey Kurth Cronin et al., Foreign Terrorist Organizations (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2004).

‘Global Terrorism Analysis’, Jamestown Foundation, available at http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/.

‘South Asia Terrorism Portal’, Institute for Conflict Management, available at http://www.satp.org/.

‘F.A.S.: Federation of American Scientists’, Federation of American Scientists, available at http://www.fas.org/index.html.

‘A.D.L.: Anti-Defamation League’, Anti-Defamation League, http://www.adl.org/default.htm.

All groups that conducted only one attack were given a duration of 1 month.

David Sacko, January–February 2008, William W. Dorner, ‘Using Microsoft Excel for Weibull Analysis’, Quality Digest, Vol. 30, No. 3 (January 1999), pp. 543–62.

Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), p. 221.