MS. PAPE – “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism”
Oct 27th, 2009 by mkae
Pape explores suicide terrorism through an analysis of its logic, success, and limitations and aims to apply these through actual cases, such as the Hamas campaign against Israel in the mid 1990s. He defines terrorism as the “use of violence by an organization other than a national government to cause intimidation or fear among a target audience” (401). Of the three types of terrorism (demonstrative, destructive, and suicide), suicide terrorism is the most aggressive method in that coercion is key, the mission is to inflict as much harm as possible, and is not successful without the death of the terrorist.
He highlights the interesting dynamics of terrorism, as the coercer (terrorist group) is the weaker force in terms of resources and the available means to battle. This means that they are forced to pursue a denial strategy, in which the goal is to convince the enemy state/target that fighting is futile – what makes suicide terrorism effective is that it is generally more destructive than other terrorist campaigns, and more likely to follow through with impending attacks, thus raising expectations by others of the possibility of future chaos.
Pape notes trends in suicide terrorism: terrorist organizations have gained an understanding of its effectiveness and thus increased the use of suicide terrorism, and that targets are often democratic states because they’re seen as more vulnerable to civilian casualty and swayed by public opinion. However, it is acknowledged that there isn’t necessarily a correlation between a campaign’s ambitions and level of success – in fact, the more ambitious campaigns are less fruitful. While suicide terrorism can prompt negotiation or expedite processes (such as Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and West Bank), it is only compelling to a certain extent. States are only willing to give up goals and assets that are of low strategic importance, and will not back down in goals pertinent to wealth or security (414). Since physical access is key in carrying out a suicide attack, Pape suggests preventative measures through defensive efforts and improving domestic security and that undermining the terrorists’ confidence is important in stopping future attacks.
I feel that it is important to note that this piece was published in 2001, and since then, the world has witnessed an escalation of suicide terrorism, especially in the Middle East. Do they fall under the generalizations regarding terrorism? This past weekend, Baghdad suffered the deadliest act of suicide terrorism (in Iraq, since ‘07) vis-à-vis synchronized car bombings. [For context, click here and here.] As it is relevant to today, how effective are acts of suicide terrorism? Is Iraq’s current political state strengthening the effects of current terrorist attacks? We can see how they have elicited political responses from the Iraqi government through a new election law related to security, and a call to the UN Security Council for an investigation regarding this past weekend. Where does Pape’s analysis of suicide terrorist campaigns fall short?