Exploiting Terrorist Dysfunction Posted by Lorelei Kelly

West Point's Combatting Terrorism Center has produced report that dissects Al Qa'ida through a group dynamics model straight out of a business school organizational behavior class.  They put forward the idea that members have different goals and objectives, and preferred strategies for achieving these ends.  The authors then ask the question, how might we exploit the weak links in these human relationships?

While capture-kill options may be most effective for certain individuals—e.g., operational commanders—we identify a number of non-lethal prescriptions that take into account differences in al-Qa’ida members’ preferences and commitment to the cause.

The US invested time and money in social science research until about the end of the Vietnam War, when the Joint Chiefs of Staff decided they would never fight an irregular war again.  Simple linear theories like nuclear deterrence and containment prevailed for the next few decades. But, looking around today,  technology is not the key to victory in the war against terrorism...(nor Iraq, nor Afghanistan)  so social science research is again gaining ground.  The report is fairly academic (and I'm only half way through it) but it provides yet more human-level analysis for today's greatest challenge--that of preventing and disrupting catastrophic criminal networks.

The terrorists’ challenge is simple to describe. For security reasons, political and ideological leaders, the principals, have to delegate certain duties—planning attacks, soliciting funds, recruiting, and the like—to middlemen or low-level operatives, their agents. Such delegation poses no problem if all the agents are perfectly committed to the cause and agree with leaders on how best to serve the cause. Under those conditions, the preferences of the principals and their agents will be perfectly aligned, and the agents will act exactly as the principals would like.

      However, preferences aren’t always aligned.  Read more here.

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