Stanford wonk Max Abrahms published paper (in pdf format) that turns the conventional wisdom of terror on it’s head. Wired sums up this eye-opening study well enough:
In a paper published this year in International Security that — sadly — doesn’t have the title “Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective Terrorists,” he discusses, well, seven habits of highly ineffective terrorists. These seven tendencies are seen in terrorist organizations all over the world, and they directly contradict the theory that terrorists are political maximizers:
Terrorists, he writes, (1) attack civilians, a policy that has a lousy track record of convincing those civilians to give the terrorists what they want; (2) treat terrorism as a first resort, not a last resort, failing to embrace nonviolent alternatives like elections; (3) don’t compromise with their target country, even when those compromises are in their best interest politically; (4) have protean political platforms, which regularly, and sometimes radically, change; (5) often engage in anonymous attacks, which precludes the target countries making political concessions to them; (6) regularly attack other terrorist groups with the same political platform; and (7) resist disbanding, even when they consistently fail to achieve their political objectives or when their stated political objectives have been achieved.
While we’re on the subject of highly ineffective terrorists, here’s the latest video (via WeaselZippers) making the rounds. An organization called “Hamas in Iraq” released a video of its own man getting blown up by his own rocket.
