Abraham’s work is an attempt to analyze the effectiveness of terrorism strategies that involve attacks on civilians to pressure governments into making policy concessions. This is the first research of its nature to examine a big sample of terrorist organizations from the perspective of policy effectiveness (English, 2016). The analysis includes all 28 “Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO)” designated by the US Department of State since 2001. Target selection is a key tactical variable for the success of FTO. Irrespective of their nature, terrorist organizations do not tend to achieve their policy goals when attacks on military targets are less than on civilian targets. This discussion essay revolves around the conclusion provided by two important manuscripts; “Why Terrorism Does Not Work by Max Abraham” and “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism by Robert A. Pape”.
Abraham’s analysis nullifies the prevalent argument that terrorism is an effective technique of political bullying. The terrorism cases postulate that first, existing terrorist organizations hardly triumph in their policy goals, and second, the lower rate of success is inherent to the approach of terrorism itself. The major part of his work consists of the theory development on why countries are unwilling to make policy concessions when the primary target of terrorist organizations is civilian populations (Gould & Klor, 2010; English, 2016).
On the other hand, Pape (2003) analyzes suicide terrorism from psychological, social, and strategic perspectives in his prominent book “Dying to Win”. The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism is a sub-part of this book. Pape collected global data on suicide terrorism attacks covering 1980-2001 and concluded that these attacks followed a strategic logic, one explicitly intended to pressure modern liberal democracies to make substantial regional concessions. The analysis further revealed that the suicide terrorist attacks have been rising significantly during the last couple of decades because the terrorist organizations have learned that it pays. For example, coercing Israelis and the US to leave Lebanon. After evaluating different terrorism activities, Paper (2003) concludes that Western policymakers should tailor terrorism control policies in such a way that teaches terrorists that the lessons of the last two decades are no longer held. Also, the emphasis of Western democracies should be on improving homeland security as compared to offensive military action (Ashworth et al., 2008).
Pape (2003) does not believe that low education, poverty, or religious fervour alone explains the suicide phenomenon. Pape postulates that the suicide attacks phenomenon is not religion-based but an effort to force democracies to take out military forces from the homeland of that particular terrorist organization. So, suicide terrorism is strategic in nature and designed to coerce modern democracies. Data analysis by Abraham (2006) revealed that terrorist organizations achieved their 42 policy objectives, and the key success variable was the selection of target groups. Data further challenged the bookish argument that terrorism is strategically rational behaviour. Abraham develops a theory that terrorist organizations are incapable of realizing their policy objectives by targeting civilians (English, 2016). Abraham made a powerful claim that the success rates of terrorist groups are extremely low, and they rarely triumph over their policy objectives. The author emphasizes the capacity of terrorists to secure their strategic goals. In another place, Abraham describes that terrorist activities are only effective in producing harm and fear. Still, these activities are politically ineffective, and the failure to produce the desired effect is inherent in the tactic itself. Abraham has a lot to say about “Al-Qaeda” and postulates that the motivation of this group is to change the foreign policy of the United States, but the political development trends have worked against rather than for the group.
References
Abrahms, M. (2006). Why terrorism does not work. International Security, 31(2), 42-78.
Ashworth, S., Clinton, J. D., Meirowitz, A., & Ramsay, K. W. (2008). Design, inference, and the strategic logic of suicide terrorism. American Political Science Review, 269-273.
English, R. (2016). Does Terrorism Work? Debates, Problems, and a Framework for Future Research. Revista Cidob D Afers Internationals, (112), 27-43.
Gould, E. D., & Klor, E. F. (2010). Does terrorism work?. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 125(4), 1459-1510.
Pape, R. A. (2003). The strategic logic of suicide terrorism. American Political Science Review, 343-361.
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