Understanding Terrorist Organizations with a Dynamic Model

Abstract

Terrorist organizations change over time because of processes such as recruitment and training as well as counter terrorism measures, but the effects of these processes have mostly been studied qualitatively and reductively. Seeking a more quantitative and integrated understanding, the author constructed a simple dynamic model where equations describe how these processes change an organization's membership. Analysis of the model yields a number of intuitive as well as novel findings. Most importantly, it becomes possible to predict whether counter terrorism measures would be sufficient to defeat the organization. Furthermore, the author can prove in general that an organization would collapse if its strength and its pool of foot soldiers decline simultaneously. In contrast, a simultaneous decline in its strength and its pool of leaders is often insufficient and short-termed. These results and others like them demonstrate the great potential of dynamic models for informing terrorism scholarship and counter terrorism policy making.