At 4:39 PM -0400 7/12/07, OpinionJournal wrote:
Why Appeasement Doesn't Work Either http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2007/07/se...
Writing at Wired.com, Bruce Schneier makes a counterintuitive but fascinating argument that draws on an academic paper by Max Abrahms titled " Why Terrorism Does Not Work http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/isec.2006.31.2.42?cookieSet=... ." As Schneier sums it up, people have a "cognitive bias" that leads them to an erroneous conclusion about the motives of terrorists:
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Because terrorism often results in the horrific deaths of innocents, we mistakenly infer that the horrific deaths of innocents is the primary motivation of the terrorist, and not the means to a different end. . . .
[Abrahms] analyzes the political motivations of 28 terrorist groups: the complete list of "foreign terrorist organizations" designated by the U.S. Department of State since 2001. He lists 42 policy objectives of those groups, and found that they only achieved them 7 percent of the time. . . . Terrorism is a pretty ineffective means of influencing policy. . . .
This theory explains, with a clarity I have never seen before, why so many people make the bizarre claim that al Qaeda terrorism--or Islamic terrorism in general--is "different": that while other terrorist groups might have policy objectives, al Qaeda's primary motivation is to kill us all. This is something we have heard from President Bush again and again--Abrams [sic] has a page of examples in the paper--and is a rhetorical staple in the debate. . . .
Since Bin Laden caused the death of a couple of thousand people in the 9/11 attacks, people assume that must have been his actual goal, and he's just giving lip service to what he claims are his goals. Even Bin Laden's actual objectives are ignored as people focus on the deaths, the destruction and the economic impact.
Perversely, Bush's misinterpretation of terrorists' motives actually helps prevent them from achieving their goals.
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What's really perverse, though, is the conclusion that Schneier draws from all this:
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None of this is meant to either excuse or justify terrorism. In fact, it does the exact opposite, by demonstrating why terrorism doesn't work as a tool of persuasion and policy change. But we're more effective at fighting terrorism if we understand that it is a means to an end and not an end in itself; it requires us to understand the true motivations of the terrorists and not just their particular tactics. And the more our own cognitive biases cloud that understanding, the more we mischaracterize the threat and make bad security trade-offs.
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But wait. According to Schneier, terrorism doesn't work because our cognitive biases cloud our understanding. If we developed a clearer understanding, in this view, we would focus more on terrorists' stated goals. Surely this would, at least in some cases, lead us to accede to terrorists' demands so as to appease them.
Result: Terrorism would have a higher success rate. Surely this would not escape the notice of people with political grievances, who would become more likely to employ terrorism to realize their goals. If indeed what Schneier offers is clarity, it is accompanied by the strongest argument we've ever heard for opacity.
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R. A. Hettinga