JIOX posted links to two very interesting articles this afternoon.
- A Look at Terrorist Behavior: How They Prepare, Where They Strike, by Brent Smith
- How Terrorist Groups End Lessons for Countering al Qa’ida, by Seth G. Jones, Martin C. Libicki
The latter is a lengthy piece from RAND, which admittedly I did not review completely, but from my initial look would certainly recommend. The former is more manageable, and has a very novel statistical analysis on where terrorist attack. The chart above, which has been duplicated from the article, takes an analytical perspective on terrorist attacks that I have not yet seen. The author posits that this supports the notion that terrorists “think locally, and act globally”, which in my view is intuitive and could have easily been conveyed with a less granular chart.
I mention this because the type of analysis presented by Smith may be much more applicable to the counter-insurgency, and specifically, counter-IED missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Understanding the localized dynamics of where terrorists attack in these settings is much more valuable, and a longitudinal analysis of this data could help assess mission effectiveness, as well as provide intelligence on an new tactics being employed by insurgents.
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