SUICIDE TERRORISM AND THE BACKLASH EFFECT

This paper presents a game‐theoretic model of suicide terrorism containing three agents: the terrorist leader; a targeted government; and potential terrorist supporters. Supporters join the terrorist group if they gain more from their participation than from their economic opportunities. Preemptive measures by the government can result in a backlash that encourages recruitment through new grievances. Suicide attacks can also lead to recruitment. Increases in preemption costs and/or economic opportunities can reduce the overall level of terrorism, while increasing the proportion of suicide to normal attacks. An increase in the effect of preemption on recruitment, or the propaganda effect of suicide bombings has the opposite effect of increasing normal and suicide attacks, but decreasing the proportion of suicide to normal attacks in the terrorist organization’s strategy profile.     

An Analysis of the Threat of Malicious Chemical Use by Nonstate Actors: Questioning the State-based Approach to Chemical Nonproliferation

ABSTRACT

This study seeks to evaluate the threat of malicious chemical use by non-state actors. It finds that non-state actors have primarily turned to ready-to-use crude chemical weapons (CW) instead of traditional CW agents. Interestingly, the worst crude CW attacks have been more destructive than those employing traditional CW. Scenarios for catastrophic consequences exist, but chemical attacks have typically been used to accomplish tactical goals, which leverage psychological and economic impacts. Therefore, successful efforts to counter CW proliferation by non-state actors must be substantially different from those targeting states.     

Strategic terrorism: The framework and its fallacies

This article seeks to lay out a comprehensive framework by which those who utilize a campaign of strategic terrorism seek to attain their ends. It identifies a distinctive modus operandi: 1) disorientation: to alienate the authorities from their citizens, reducing the government to impotence in the eyes of the population; 2) target response: to induce a target to respond in a manner that is favorable to the insurgent cause; 3) gaining legitimacy: to exploit the emotional impact of the violence to insert an alternative political message. By elucidating the strategy of terrorism, the analysis also reveals its inherent limitations. Resting on the premise that a militarily more powerful adversary will in some way feel restrained from bringing the full force of its military superiority to bear, the strategy relies exclusively on the exploitation of the psychological effects of armed action, thereby rendering it vulnerable to those who are willing to view the resolution of clashes of interest principally in terms of the tangibles of military power.     

Convoys to combat Somali piracy

As the world becomes increasingly globalized, interruptions to international trade cannot be permitted. Piracy off the coast of Somalia has hampered international trade in the region and poses significant risks to the sailors required to navigate those waters. Over the past three years the global community has attempted, through a number of different naval tactics, to stop these acts of piracy; however, these tactics have proven ineffective. This article looks at historical precedence and military theory to support the concept of using convoys to protect the thousands of cargo vessels traveling round the Horn of Africa every year. This tactic will greatly decrease the number of successful pirate attacks and save countless lives in the process.     

Rhetoric versus reality: Canadian defence planning in a time of austerity

As Canada's military mission in Afghanistan winds down and the country faces several years of fiscal austerity, all of Canada's major political parties are agreed that Canadian defence budgets must stay level or be cut. This comes at a time when the defence department is slated to replace the Canadian Forces’ (CF) major equipment fleets. Canada's defence establishment thus faces some critical decisions. One option is to try to maintain its expeditionary capabilities across all three services: army, navy and air force. Absent substantial new infusions of funds, however, this approach is likely to lead to an overall and largely chaotic reduction of capabilities. Another option is to make some difficult choices as to which expeditionary capabilities to maintain as part of a strategic review of Canada's future military needs. Such an option would ensure that Canada has at least some military capacities which can reliably be devoted to the most demanding international operations, while maintaining those capabilities required for domestic duties and North American defence. Pursuing this option would accord with the new North Atlantic Treaty Organization Strategic Concept and the call for “Smart Defense” within the Alliance. This article assesses the arguments for and against the option of specialising Canada's future defence capabilities and explores scenarios as to what a future CF may look like.     

Reactor-grade plutonium and nuclear weapons: ending the debate

The claim that reactor-grade plutonium cannot or will not be used to produce nuclear weapons has been used to justify non-nuclear-weapon states’ large stockpiles of plutonium that has been separated from highly radioactive spent fuel. However, by using reduced-mass plutonium cores, it is possible to manufacture reliable nuclear weapons with reactor-grade plutonium. These weapons can have the same design, size, weight, and predetonation probability as weapons using weapon-grade plutonium and would require no special cooling. The increased radiation from reactor-grade plutonium could be easily managed by shielding and operational procedures. Weapons using plutonium routinely produced by pressurized-water reactors could have a lethal area between 40 percent and 75 percent that of weapons using weapon-grade plutonium. In the past, both Sweden and Pakistan considered using reactor-grade plutonium to produce nuclear weapons, and India may be using reactor-grade plutonium in its arsenal today. Despite claims to the contrary, the United States used what was truly reactor-grade plutonium in a successful nuclear test in 1962. The capability of reactor-grade plutonium to produce highly destructive nuclear weapons leads to the conclusion that the separation of plutonium, plutonium stockpiling, and the use of plutonium-based fuels must be phased out and banned.     

Mirror,mirror on the wall,who is the most offensive of them all? – Explaining the offensive bias in military tactical thinking

This article explores why the offensive predominates military tactical thinking. With survey results showing an offensive bias among 60 per cent of senior Swedish officers and as many as 80 per cent in the case of the army, it is clear that this is not just a problem of the past but is equally relevant today. The article asks why there is a tendency to perceive and understand offensive tactics as the preferred choice and the way to conduct battle that should be encouraged and preferred. Drawing on existing research and the findings of a pilot study, ten propositions for why the offensive bias exists are tested using a mixed-method approach. Based on the findings, the article develops a model to understand why the offensive dominates military tactical thinking. It is found that the two key constitutive factors behind the offensive bias are military culture and education. These factors most directly and profoundly influence an officer’s identity, perceptions, and thinking. Military culture and education, in turn, work as a prism for four other factors: military history, the theory and principles of war, doctrine and TTPs, and psychological factors.