Statistical analysis of terrorist groups’ longevity, aims, methods and successes reveal that groups are self-contradictory and self-sabotaging, generally ineffective; common stereotypes like terrorists being poor or ultra-skilled are false. Superficially appealing counter-examples are discussed and rejected. Data on motivations and the dissolution of terrorist groups are brought into play and the surprising conclusion reached: terrorism is a form of socialization or status-seeking.

There is a commonly-believed “strategic model” of terrorism which we could describe as follows: ‘terrorists are people who are ideologically motivated to pursue specific unvarying political goals; to do so, they join together in long-lasting organizations and after the failure of ordinary political tactics, rationally decide to efficiently & competently engage in violent attacks on (usually) civilian targets to get as much attention as possible and publicity for their movement, and inspire fear & terror in the civilian population, which will pressure its leaders to solve the problem one way or another, providing support for the terrorists’ favored laws and/or their negotiations with involved governments, which then often succeed in gaining many of the original goals, and the organization dissolves.’

Unfortunately, this model, is in almost every respect, empirically false. Let’s look in some more detail at findings which cast doubt on the strategic model.

So terrorists want to hurt the US, they know many effective ways to do so, and… hardly anything happens. The work of rational actors?

Funding seems to be a constant issue for spree killers or terrorists, even when objectively there is no reason to think about it:

Similarly, the material cost for conducting a suicide bomb has been estimated at only $1941502008. …the FATF estimated that the bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998 had direct costs of $92,67650,0001998. Other estimates, even for car-bomb suicide terrorists, are in similar ranges, although prices vary greatly over time and so all of the above is out of date.

It is recognized that the cost of the actual equipment used in an attack can be quite low. For example, the ingredients used to build each bomb intended to blow up airliners bound for the United States from the United Kingdom in 2006 are estimated to have cost only $20152006. The cost of an IED has been estimated to be $34252006 to $41302006.

Hassan cites one Palestinian officials prescription for a successful mission: “a willing young man. . . nails, gunpowder, a light switch and a short cable, mercury (readily obtainable from thermometers), acetone. . . . The most expensive item is transportation to an Israeli town” ( 30 ). The total cost is about $2391502001.

“Two Nokia mobiles, $1971502010 each, two HP printers, $3943002010 each, plus shipping, transportation and other miscellaneous expenses add up to a total bill of $4,200. That is all what Operation Hemorrhage cost us,” the [AQ] magazine [Inspire] said.

In his October 2004 address to the American people, bin Laden noted that the 9/11 attacks cost al Qaeda only a fraction of the damage inflicted upon the United States. “Al Qaeda spent $795,258500,0002001 on the event,” he said, “while America in the incident and its aftermath lost—according to the lowest estimates—more than $7955002001 billion, meaning that every dollar of al Qaeda defeated a million dollars.”

Who is effective? How could terrorists be more effective? Easily. (See my Terrorism is not Effective essay.) The strange thing is that we know, and they know, perfectly well that there are attacks which do the US tremendous damage, yet they hardly ever use them. Why are there so few Operation Bojinka , so few 9/11s, so few Operation Hemorrhage s? Their economic multiplier is tremendous:

The al-Qaida military strategist, Abul-Walid , complained that with its “hasty changing of strategic targets”, al-Qaida was engaged in nothing more than “random chaos”. Other disgruntled al-Qaida members have reproached the organization for espousing political objectives that “shift with the wind”.

To this we could add that there are many fewer terrorists than one might expect, even for the most apparently successful and globally popular groups like Al Qaeda .

Worse, terrorism—of any kind like hostage-taking , and including conventional warfare tactics like civilian atrocities or strategic bombing—reliably produces a political backlash towards conservatism and bolsters hardliners’ approaches to terrorism , possibly due to a horns effect / fundamental attribution bias where the usage of violence is inferred to indicate a group is intrinsically vicious/intransigent/hateful , so there’s a double-whammy—the terrorism makes any kind of compromise harder to reach, and if there is danger of an agreement, the extremists will try to sabotage it, which intransigence naturally makes any future agreements less likely.

Jones and Libicki (2008) then examined a larger sample, the universe of known terrorist groups between 1968 and 2006. Of the 648 groups identified in the RAND-MIPT Terrorism Incident database, only 4% obtained their strategic demands. More recently, Cronin (2009) has reexamined the success rate of these groups, confirming that less than 5% prevailed…Chenoweth and Stephan (2008, 2011) provide additional empirical evidence that meting out pain hurts non-state actors at the bargaining table. Their studies compare the coercive effectiveness of 323 violent and nonviolent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006. Like Gaibulloev and Sandler (2009), the authors find that refraining from bloodshed significantly raises the odds of government compliance even after tactical confounds are held fixed. These statistical findings are reinforced with structured in-case comparisons highlighting that escalating from nonviolent methods of protest such as petitions, sit-ins, and strikes to deadly attacks tends to dissuade government compromise. Chenoweth and Stephan employ an aggregate measure of violence that incorporates both indiscriminate attacks on civilians and discriminate attacks on military personnel or other government officials, which are often differentiated from terrorism as guerrilla attacks (Abrahms 2006; Cronin 2009; and Moghadam 2006). Other statistical research (Abrahms, 2012, Fortna, 2011) demonstrates that when terrorist attacks are combined with such discriminate violence, the bargaining outcome is not additive; on the contrary, the pain to the population significantly decreases the odds of government concessions.

Does the terrorist’s decision-making process conform to the strategic model? The answer appears to be no. The record of terrorist behavior does not adhere to the model’s three core assumptions. Seven common tendencies of terrorist organizations flatly contradict them. Together, these seven terrorist tendencies represent important empirical puzzles for the strategic model, posing a formidable challenge to the conventional wisdom that terrorists are rational actors motivated foremost by political ends…The seven puzzles…are:

“When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse.” Osama bin Laden, 2001

So, then, what is the explanation for such self-defeating, irrational actions? Can we explain the self-defeating as deliberate, due perhaps to false flag attacks? No; even if false flag attacks were more common than everyone believes and made up—a universal century-long strategy of tension in every country (despite the absence of evidence)—say 20% of the scores of thousands of terrorist attacks in the 20th & 21st centuries, that still leaves countless organizations & terrorists inexplicably incompetent & ignorant . In the spirit of Robin Hanson’s X Is Not About X posts (see “Politics isn’t about Policy”), I’d like to offer one of my own: terrorism is not about terror; it’s not even about politics. It’s about socializing.

There is comparatively strong theoretical and empirical evidence that people become terrorists not to achieve their organization’s declared political agenda, but to develop strong affective ties with other terrorist members. In other words, the preponderance of evidence is that people participate in terrorist organizations for the social solidarity, not for their political return.

In Marc Sageman’s Understanding terror networks (summary), he writes:

Ibrahim commented on the superior attractiveness of a religious revivalist organization over a secular political one, namely the strong sense of communion that Muslim groups provided for their members…‘The militant Islamic groups with their emphasis on brotherhood, mutual sharing, and spiritual support become the functional equivalent of the extended family to the youngster who has left his behind. In other words, the Islamic group fulfills a de-alienating function for its members in ways that are not matched by other rival political movements’ (Ibrahim, 198: 448)." "The Saidi branch was composed of several groups, based in provincial university towns. They recruited heavily according to kinship and tribal bonds. …Friendships cultivated in the jihad, just as those forged in combat in general, seem more intense and are endowed with special significance. Their actions taken on behalf of God and the umma are experienced as sacred. This added element increases the value of friendships within the clique and the jihad in general and diminishes the value of outside friendships. To friends hovering on the brink of joining an increasingly activist clique, this promised shift in value may be difficult to resist, especially if one is temporarily alienated from society…once they become members, strong bonds of loyalty and emotional intimacy discourage their departure.

From Scott Atran’s 2003 review (ibid):

Studies by psychologist Ariel Merari point to the importance of institutions in suicide terrorism (28). His team interviewed 32 of 34 bomber families in Palestine/Israel (before 1998), surviving attackers, and captured recruiters. Suicide terrorists apparently span their population’s normal distribution in terms of education, socioeconomic status, and personality type (introvert vs. extrovert). Mean age for bombers was early twenties. Almost all were unmarried and expressed religious belief before recruitment (but no more than did the general population). Except for being young, unattached males, suicide bombers differ from members of violent racist organizations with whom they are often compared (29: R. Ezekiel, The Racist Mind). Overall, suicide terrorists exhibit no socially dysfunctional attributes (fatherless, friendless, or jobless) or suicidal symptoms. They do not vent fear of enemies or express “hopelessness” or a sense of “nothing to lose” for lack of life alternatives that would be consistent with economic rationality. Merari attributes primary responsibility for attacks to recruiting organizations, which enlist prospective candidates from this youthful and relatively unattached population. Charismatic trainers then intensely cultivate mutual commitment to die within small cells of three to six members. The final step before a martyrdom operation is a formal social contract, usually in the form of a video testament. Psychologist Brian Barber surveyed 900 Moslem adolescents during Gaza’s first Intifada (1987–1993) (31: B. Barber, Heart and Stones). Results show high levels of participation in and victimization from violence. For males, 81% reported throwing stones, 66% suffered physical assault, and 63% were shot at (versus 51, 38, and 20% for females). Involvement in violence was not strongly correlated with depression or antisocial behavior. Adolescents most involved displayed strong individual pride and social cohesion. This was reflected in activities: for males, 87% delivered supplies to activists, 83% visited martyred families, and 71% tended the wounded (57, 46, and 37% for females). A follow-up during the second Intifada (2000–2002) indicates that those still unmarried act in ways considered personally more dangerous but socially more meaningful. Increasingly, many view martyr acts as most meaningful. By summer 2002, 70 to 80% of Palestinians endorsed martyr operations (32)…In contrast to Palestinians, surveys with a control group of Bosnian Moslem adolescents from the same time period reveal markedly weaker expressions of self-esteem, hope for the future, and prosocial behavior (30). A key difference is that Palestinians routinely invoke religion to invest personal trauma with proactive social meaning that takes injury as a badge of honor. Bosnian Moslems typically report not considering religious affiliation a significant part of personal or collective identity until seemingly arbitrary violence forced awareness upon them. Consider data on 39 recruits to Harkat al-Ansar, a Pakistani-based ally of Al-Qaida. All were unmarried males, most had studied the Quran. All believed that by sacrificing themselves they would help secure the future of their “family” of fictive kin: “Each [martyr] has a special place-among them are brothers, just as there are sons and those even more dear” (34: D. Rhode, A. Chivers, New York Times, 2002-03-17, p. A1).

From the RAND study “Deradicalizing Islamic Extremists”, Rabas et al 2010 (emphasis added):

In a study of Colombian insurgent movements, Florez-Morris found that members who remained in the group until it collectively demobilized did so as a result of social and practical needs, shared beliefs, and the group’s role in boosting their self-identity by making them feel important. In addition to these benefits, insurgents were also deterred from leaving by the lack of other options, a result of the clandestine nature of the organization (Mauricio Florez-Morris, “Why Some Colombian Guerrilla Members Stayed in the Movement Until Demobilization: A Micro-Sociological Case Study of Factors That Influenced Members’ Commitment to Three Former Rebel Organizations: M-19, EPL, and CRS”, Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol. 22, No. 2010-03-02, p. 218.)

That study mentions some interesting datapoints from the Saudi rehabilitation programs:

The second study—which focused on individuals who had allegedly participated in violence in Saudi Arabia—revealed an equally interesting set of factors. Most significantly, the data show greater domestic problems and troubled homelives for this group. Approximately half came from homes with a father over the age of 50, and one-quarter (26%) came from polygamous households. Saudi authorities stress that they believe there is a correlation between less attention received at home and trouble later in life. Similarly, over a third (35%) of the second study’s subjects came from homes with “family problems”, and one-fifth were identified as orphans with no traditional parental oversight.

Another RAND study (Rand 2010) examines detailed financial records of al-Qaeda in Iraq, finding that personnel represent a major cost of branches, which were highly profitable as they engaged in theft & extortion, but not enough to compensate for the risk—even taking into account AQI’s policy of paying salaries to the families of dead or imprisoned members, members were forfeiting at least half their lifetime income. But the RAND researchers also discuss how US Army enlisted personnel—presumably better educated and trained than AQI members—have discount rates as flabbergastingly high as 57.2% , and that their data did not allow them to estimate the education or skills of the AQI members or how much the members might be skimming off the multifarious criminal activities. Given that the central Anbar AQI group had to transfer $3,5452,7002010 on average for one of the local groups to launch one attack and the raw materials, as quoted previously, are so cheap, one wonders at the efficiency of AQI in turning dollars into attacks; how much of the overhead is truly necessary with members dedicated to the cause?

Increased spending from the AQI Anbar administration to its sectors increases the number of attacks in those sectors, with one additional attack occurring for every additional $3,5452,7002010 transferred…Putting together an IED or buying a mortar for an attack is cheap. However, our findings add to the mounting evidence that militant group operations involve far more than just one-time costs. Maintaining a militant organization can be quite expensive. For AQI, personnel costs for members constituted the bulk of these expenses. Without such recurring payments, it is unlikely that AQI could maintain its effectiveness in committing violence. The group incurred large costs keeping imprisoned members on the payroll as an obligation to their families and paying the families of dead members. Although such payments likely increased the loyalty of members, they also diverted large amounts of money that could have otherwise been used to attack Coalition and Iraqi forces.

“Psychology of Terrorism”, Borum 2004:

A similar mechanism is one in which a desperate quest for personal meaning pushes an individual to adopt a role to advance a cause, with little or no thoughtful analysis or consideration of its merit. In essence, the individual resolves the difficult question “Who am I?” by simply defining him or herself as a “terrorist,” a “freedom fighter,” “shahid” or similar role (Della Porta, 1992 ; Knutson, 1981). Taylor and Louis (200453) describe a classic set of circumstances for recruitment into a terrorist organization: “These young people find themselves at a time in their life when they are looking to the future with the hope of engaging in meaningful behavior that will be satisfying and get them ahead. Their objective circumstances including opportunities for advancement are virtually nonexistent; they find some direction for their religious collective identity but the desperately disadvantaged state of their community leaves them feeling marginalized and lost without a clearly defined collective identity” (p. 178). Belonging: In radical extremist groups, many prospective terrorists find not only a sense of meaning, but also a sense of belonging, connectedness and affiliation. Luckabaugh and colleagues (1997) argue that among potential terrorists “the real cause or psychological motivation for joining is the great need for belonging.” For these alienated individuals from the margins of society, “joining a terrorist group represented the first real sense of belonging after a lifetime of rejection, and the terrorist group was to become the family they never had” (Post, 1984). This strong sense of belonging has critical importance as a motivating factor for joining, a compelling reason for staying, and a forceful influence for acting. “Volkan (1997) .. argued that terrorist groups may provide a security of family by subjugating individuality to the group identity. A protective cocoon is created that offers shelter from a hostile world” (Marsella, 2003). Observations on terrorist recruitment show that many people are influenced to join by seeking solidarity with family, friends or acquaintances (Della Porta, 1995), and that “for the individuals who become active terrorists, the initial attraction is often to the group, or community of believers, rather than to an abstract ideology or to violence” (Crenshaw, 1988). Indeed, it is the image of such strong cohesiveness and solidarity among extremist groups that makes them more attractive than some prosocial collectives as a way to find belonging (Johnson & Feldman, 1982). Conclusion: These three factors—injustice, identity, and belonging—have been found often to co-occur in terrorists and to strongly influence decisions to enter terrorist organizations and to engage in terrorist activity. Some analysts even have suggested that the synergistic effect of these dynamics forms the real “root cause” of terrorism, regardless of ideology. Luckabaugh and colleagues (1997), for example, concluded “the real cause or psychological motivation for joining is the great need for belonging, a need to consolidate one’s identity. A need to belong, along with an incomplete personal identity, is a common factor that cuts across the groups.” Jerrold Post (1984) has similarly theorized that “the need to belong, the need to have a stable identity, to resolve a split and be at one with oneself and with society—… is an important bridging concept which helps explain the similarity in behavior of terrorists in groups of widely different espoused motivations and composition.” …Della Porta (1992), for example, notes that among Italian extremists, “the decision to join an underground organization was very rarely an individual one. In most cases it involved cliques of friends. In some cases recruitment was determined by the individual’s solidarity with an”important" friend who was arrested or had to go underground." More recently, using open source material, Marc Sageman (2004) analyzed the cases of approximately 172 global Salafi mujahedin and found that nearly two thirds “joined” the jihad collectively as part of a small group (“bunch of guys”) or had a longtime friend who already had joined.

One last quote (from Abrahms again):

Second, members from a wide variety of terrorist groups…say that they joined these armed struggles…to maintain or develop social relations with other terrorist members. These are not the statements of a small number of terrorists; in the Turkish sample, for instance, the 1,100 terrorists interviewed were 10 times more likely to say that they joined the terrorist organization ‘because their friends were members’ than because of the ‘ideology’ of the group.

There are other interesting points; both of Abrahms’s papers are well worth reading, as is Abrahms 2012:

A final explanation is that terrorists derive utility from their actions regardless of whether governments comply politically. This interpretation is consistent with the emerging body of evidence that although terrorism is ineffective for achieving outcome goals, terrorism is indeed effective for achieving process goals (e.g., Abrahms 2008; Arce and Sandler, 2007, 2010; Bloom, 2005; Kydd and Walter 2002). Whereas terrorist acts generally fail to promote government concessions, the violence against civilians can perpetuate the terrorist group by attracting media attention, spoiling peace processes, and boosting membership, morale, cohesion, and external support…Indeed, terrorists tend to ramp up their attacks during peace processes, precluding concessions (see Kydd and Walter, 2002). Arce, Daniel. and Sandler, Todd. (2007) “Terrorist Signaling and the Value of Intelligence”. British Journal of Political Science 37 576–586

Arce, Daniel. and Sandler, Todd. (2010) “Terrorist Spectaculars: Backlash Attacks and the Focus of Intelligence”. Journal of Conflict Resolution 54 354–373.

Bloom, Mia M. (2004) “Palestinian Suicide Bombing: Public Support, Market Share, and Outbidding”. Political Science Quarterly 119 61–88

Kydd, Andrew H. and Walter, Barbara F. (2002) “Sabotaging the peace: The politics of extremist violence”. International Organization 56 263–296

With this perspective, many things fall into place. For example, in the RAND Corporation’s In Their Own Words: Voices of Jihad, the authors remark:

The Internet offers another example. It is awash in jihadi web sites, and there is little question that it is being exploited for training, fundraising, recruitment, and coordination. Yet again, when browsing the blogs and chat rooms, one gets the impression that what is being witnessed is largely a form of “fantasy jihad.” It is not comforting to see so many obviously educated young Muslims playing the game, but their participation does not mean that each log-on represents a sleeper cell.

Certainly not; indeed, one could well predict that ‘e-jihad’ users will tend to be rather harmless. It’s rather harder for online peers (compared to meatspace friends) to guilt one into action, after all. And one could well predict that more material factors would, say, influence which clerics tend to become radicalized and jihadist, like career success in working for a government (Nielsen 2012).