Lone Wolf Terrorism Research Articles

A Response to “Key Issues and Research Agendas in Lone Wolf Terrorism”

In “Key Issues and Research Agendas in Lone Wolf Terrorism,” published in Issue 3 of 2015, Ramon Spaaij and Mark S. Hamm (hereafter SH) mount an extended critique of the field of lone wolf terroris...

Editorial Welcome

This issue of GSIS touches on a number of these debates. In Academic Intelligence Programs in the United States: Exploring the Training and Tradecraft Debate, Michael Landon-Murray and Stephen Coulthart explore the value of academic intelligence programs to the intelligence enterprise in the United States, and examine what aspects of training and tradecraft can be appropriate for such programs. In Anonymous Versus ISIS: The Role of Non-state Actors in Self-defense, Andrew Colarik and Rhys Ball explore the role of non-state actors in cyberspace, and seek to apply Just War principles to the realm of self-defense in cyberspace. Chris Dolan and Alynna Lyon’s article, Calculation of Goodwill: Humanitarianism, Strategic Interests, and the U.S. Response to Typhoon Yolanda, examines the various rationales behind the American response to Typhoon Yolanda, and offers insights into how the United States gets involved in humanitarian responses to natural disasters. In An Assessment of Lone Wolves Using Explosive-Laden Consumer Drones in the United States, Matthew Hughes and James Hess examine the potential impact of the advent of commercially available drones on lone wolf terrorism in the United States. Finally, in their article, Is China Playing a Contradictory Role in Africa? Security Implications of its Arms Sales and Peacekeeping, Earl Conteh-Morgan and Patti Weeks assess the contradictory nature of China’s peacekeeping efforts and arms sales on the African continent.

Self-Directed Radicals: Why Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev are Lone-Wolf Terrorists

Self-Directed Radicals: Why Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev are Lone-Wolf Terrorists

국내에서의 '외로운 늑대'(Lone Wolf) 테러리스트 발생 가능성에 관한 연구: IS 가담 '김 모'군의 사이버공간에서의 행적을 중심으로

Since 9/11 attack, internet has become a major space for terrorist activities and also emerged as the most important spot of lone wolf terrorists for acquiring tools and radicalization. The accident of student Kim’s defection to IS (Islamic state) in January 2015 told us that Korea is not any more “terrorism clearance area” and leaded us to look closely into the possibility of lone wolf terrorist. In this paper, I developed a “lone wolf cyber evolution model” using various materials collected by preceding papers and interviewing investigators and terrorism experts in Korea. I analyze Kim’s radicalization process using this model. And I picked and closely looked over some facilitating factors of lone wolf such as multi-cultural socialization, increase of international migrants, expansion alienation hierarchy and ideological conflicts deepening and predicted the possibility of lone wolf. Finally, this paper presents some effective policy measurements against lone wolf terrorism in Korea.

“Lone Wolf” Terrorism and the Classical Jihad: On the Contingencies of Violent Islamic Extremism

It is nearly impossible to describe Muslim expansionism in the centuries following the death of the Prophet Muhammad - broadly undertaken in service of the Islamic doctrine of jihad - as being somehow compatible with modern norms of international relations, including self-determination and noninterference in the affairs of other states. To detractors, this seems to suggest a certain tension in modern Muslim thought that jihadist movements have been able to exploit. Modern Muslim intellectuals, that is, are forced to somehow reconcile an expansionist past, which was not only tolerated by early jurists interpreting Islam’s sacred texts but indeed exhorted by them as a duty of the Muslim community, with modern realities, where the jihad as it was historically understood has become something of an embarrassment. In so doing, the argument runs, they leave themselves exposed to the “literalist” claims of the jihadists, who can call up such sources at will and demonstrate the true Islamicity of their actions relative to modernists who can only rely on abstract principles and vague apologies that sound suspiciously Western. The purpose of this paper is to explore the fallacy of this conclusion through the examination of “lone wolf” terrorism. This form of terrorism is quite relevant not only because of its inherent danger, but also because the methods of the lone wolf terrorist have been broadly accepted by a panoply of the most extreme Islamist organizations, very much including the so called Islamic State. I will show that even if early and medieval Muslim jurists hardly incorporated a worldview that rested on principles of mutual tolerance and respect toward other states and other religions, they nonetheless regarded the jihad as a fundamentally conservative doctrine, meant to preserve the Muslim state as it was and direct violence exclusively in external directions, in an organized and systematic attempt to expand what was known as the House of Islam into the universal Muslim state. The notion of lone wolf terrorism - individually directed and organized violence, executed beyond the meaningful control of the caliph - was entirely foreign. Moreover, it depends on deliberate violation of one of classical Islam's core concepts in international relations, that of respect for the terms of a covenant of security, or aman, when granted by a non-Muslim power to a Muslim or the reverse.

Predicting the metabolic cost of walking while wearing explosive ordnance disposal protective clothing

The use of improvised explosive devices (IED) is becoming more prevalent in modern warfare, civil unrest and lone wolf terrorism. This has led to a greater role for explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) technicians to neutralise the threat of IED detonations. As such, the inherent risk to EOD technicians requires them to don a heavy (~34 kg) protective ensemble that subsequently increases the metabolic demand of tasks, such as locomotion. Previous research into the metabolic cost of protective clothing has focused primarily on chemical and fire ensembles [1]. Currently little is known about the metabolic cost of EOD protective clothing. The purpose of this investigation was 1) to quantify the metabolic demand when wearing an EOD ensemble at various speeds of locomotion and 2) establish whether the Pandolf predictive formula [2] is appropriate to estimate of EOD energy expenditure.

Endgame? Sports Events as Symbolic Targets in Lone Wolf Terrorism

This article explores how terrorists acting alone or in small groups have used sports events as symbolic targets in their performance of terrorism. Drawing on a comparative analysis of the attacks on the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games and the 2013 Boston Marathon, it is argued that terrorist target selection of major sports events should be understood in relation to the grievances and desires of the perpetrators. The article finds that rather than being the primary target of their attacks, sports events are among a broader range of densely crowded spaces that terrorist actors may seek to target as part of their violent struggle against their adversaries. The findings are contextualized in relation to broader patterns and trends in lone wolf terrorism, including the significance of a copycat phenomenon and inspiration effect.

Understanding the lone wolf terror phenomena: assessing current profiles

Since September 11, 2001, various Western democracies have reformed and strengthened their national security apparatuses by introducing new organizational structures and policies to curb incidence of terrorism by violent extremist organizations. These changes have catalyzed several prominent intelligence communities into formidable challengers against large-scale centralized acts of terrorism. These successes, however, are being overshadowed by the emerging threat of lone wolf terrorism. Many scholars and policy-makers have attempted to create typologies of lone wolf terrorists by identifying behaviors akin to some type of radicalization processes. Although these potential categorizations have effectively provided reactive analysis, their research and policy prescriptions have been problematic and failed to provide proactive solutions or recommendations for law enforcement and the intelligence community. In this paper, we examine the literature on lone wolf phenomena. We then attempt to fill a gap in the extant literature by offering a new theoretical understanding of lone wolf behavior. Our proposed theoretical approach illustrates a fundamental understanding of the lone wolf terrorist through a complex hierarchical structure.

Competing to Kill: Terrorist Organizations Versus Lone Wolf Terrorists

Are organizationally linked suicide attacks deadlier than those launched by lone wolf terrorists? This article elaborates a perpetrator-based distinction among suicide terrorist attacks between organizations and lone wolf terrorists, who operate in the absence of a financially or physically supportive terrorist organization. The expectation is that terrorist organizations would serve as commitment tools that increase the loyalty of suicide bombers to their missions through material and non-material incentives. Findings demonstrate that when terrorist organizations are involved in the planning and execution of suicide terrorist attacks, not only do they increase the lethality of these attacks but they also accentuate the tactical advantages of suicide terrorism. These findings suggest that despite the recent upsurge and concern about lone wolf terrorism, the lethality and security impacts of suicide terrorism continue to be driven by terrorist organizations.

Deadlier in the U.S.? On Lone Wolves, Terrorist Groups, and Attack Lethality

Scholars, politicians, and pundits increasingly suggest lone wolf terrorists are substantial threats, but we know little about how dangerous these actors are—especially relative to other terrorist actors. How deadly are lone actor terrorists? A growing body of empirical research focuses on terrorist organizations, but similar work on lone actors is sparse. Furthermore, attempts to explicitly compare these or other types of terrorist actors are almost non-existent. This article considers theoretical arguments for why lone wolves ought to be especially lethal. However, it presents an argument for why terrorist groups should generally be more lethal. This argument is conditional upon the environment in which actors operate. Lone wolves should only be more deadly in states with especially strong counterterrorism capacity. The article uses data on terrorist attacks in fifteen developed countries, 1970–2010, to compare the lethality of terrorist acts. Around the world, attacks by organizations tend to be far more lethal than attacks by other actors. In the United States, however, lone wolves are generally the more lethal terrorist actors. This is argued to be because the robust counterterrorism capacity makes organized terrorism more difficult to accomplish.

Cerberus Unleashed

The concept of the “lone wolf” terrorist slowly emerged in recent decades, often drawing media attention as a “new” or “dangerous” threat. It has only been in the past several years that the concept has begun to receive serious attention from scholars and experts, and no consensus has yet emerged on exactly what a lone wolf terrorist actually is. It is commonly believed that extremist or terrorist movements promote the notion of lone wolf violence because of the difficulties authorities have in detecting or preventing such acts, which gives lone wolves the chance to strike again. Many extremists do promote this sort of decentralized activity, but, as the example of the white supremacist movement shows, there are just as many extremists who oppose the use or promotion of lone wolf violence. An analysis of several dozen incidents of apparent lone wolf violence from the past two decades in the United States, incidents in which suspected lone wolves actually succeeded in killing at least one person, reveals some patterns and similarities among lone wolf offenders. These include, among others, the typical status of the offender on the periphery of the movement which they support, the tendency to use simple and easily acquirable weapons such as firearms, and the fact that most lone wolf offenders never succeed in launching a second act of violence.

Rising Danger of Lone-Wolf Terrorism and

Rising Danger of Lone-Wolf Terrorism and

“Jihad Cool/Jihad Chic”: The Roles of the Internet and Imagined Relations in the Self-Radicalization of Colleen LaRose (Jihad Jane)

The internet provides the means through which a “self-activating terrorist” may first self-radicalize through some imaginary or sympathetic connection with an organized terrorist network. Additionally, the internet allows such a self-activating terrorist to move into the stage of radical violent action. The internet serves both functions by providing the lone wolf with not only a rhetorical medium for self-justification and communication through the use of “monster talk” and its converse, the rhetoric about the “good citizen,” but it is also a source for relatively inexpensive and more unpredictable technologies of mass destruction. Crucial to this analysis is the distinction between radicalization of thought and radicalization of action, as a theoretical rhetoric of radicalization does not automatically convert into a rhetoric of radical action unless there are catalysts at work. The internet, as well as imagined relations cemented by the rhetorics of “jihadi cool” or “jihadi chic,” function as these crucial catalysts, galvanizing monster talk into monstrous action. The article focuses specifically on the case of self-activating terrorist Colleen LaRose to analyze how different factors—mental, psychological, social, and economic—interact with imaginative elements, such as surrogate father-mentor-lover relations for LaRose, and contribute to the formation of a self-activating terrorist, and what ultimately motivates and galvanizes her to move from a rhetoric of radical talk to a rhetoric of radical action, using Silber and Bhatt’s model of radicalization as an initial heuristic. In the case of Colleen LaRose, the romance of “jihadi chic” or “jihadi cool” (the converse of the rhetoric of the monstrous “infidel” or “lone wolf terrorist”) was an essential factor to her self-radicalization. It is this imagined status of “jihadi chic” or “jihadi cool” (that nevertheless must somehow have a look of “reality” or “authenticity” and command a response from its audience) that continues to be a crucial component of the success of recruitment strategies of radical jihadi groups, such as ISIS.

Terrorism and Right-Wing Extremism: The Changing Face of Terrorism and Political Violence in the 21st Century: The Virtual Community of Hatred

There are no psychological characteristics or psychopathology that separates terrorists from the general population. Rather it is group dynamics, with a particular emphasis on collective identity that helps explain terrorist psychology. Just as there is a diverse spectrum of terrorisms, so too is there a spectrum of terrorist psychologies. Four waves of terrorism can be distinguished: the Anarchist wave, associated with labor violence in the United States in the late 19th century; the Anti-Colonial wave (nationalist-separatist), with minority groups seeking to be liberated from their colonial masters or from the majority in their country; the New Left wave (social revolutionary); and now the Religious wave. With the communications revolution, a new phenomenon is emerging which may presage a fifth wave: lone wolf terrorists who through the Internet are radicalized and feel they belong to the virtual community of hatred. A typology of lone wolf terrorism is proposed.

The Lone Wolf Terrorist: Mechanisms and Triggers of a Process-Driven Radicalization

The Lone Wolf Terrorist: Mechanisms and Triggers of a Process-Driven Radicalization

Lone Wolf Terrorist or Deranged Shooter? A Study of Ideological Active Shooter Events in the United States, 1970–2014

This study explores the threat of ideological active shooter attacks in the United States. In particular, to understand if these events constitute a new brand of “lone wolf terrorism” or if they are simply “deranged shooters” that happen to be ideological. The results show that ideological and non-ideological active shooters share very similar profiles. Despite the similarities, ideological extremism seems to influence the way these offenders prepare, execute, and conclude their attacks. Most ideological active shooters are “loners” whose attacks tend to be motivated by ideology. Given their sophistication and lethality, ideological active shooters represent a serious threat to national security.

The Psychology of Terrorism: Understanding and Implication for Policies

Compared with general public, terrorists do not exhibit unusually high rates of clinical psychopathology, irrationality, or personality disorders. The backgrounds of the terrorists are very diverse and there is no one set profile. In fact, barring lone wolf terrorism, there does not seem to be much link with personality or psychopathology.

Leaderless Resistance and the Loneliness of Lone Wolves: Exploring the Rhetorical Dynamics of Lone Actor Violence

“Leaderless resistance” and “lone wolf terrorism” are concepts that have steadily gained importance in the study of oppositional subcultures and terrorist groups, being used to describe the operational realities of a variety of terrorisms, from groups like Al Qaeda to Anders Breivik. In this article, I seek to describe leaderless resistance as a rhetorical construct, a meaning-conferring “ideology of effervescence” that lifts the spirits of both movement progenitors who advocate the strategy as well as incipient lone wolves who consider responding to their exhortations. Through an examination of the case of Wiebo Ludwig and the EnCana pipeline bombings of 2008–2009, I show how these rhetorics emerge in the interactions between activists and their political enemies. With this conception, we can (a) understand more fully the discursive/rhetorical dynamics involved in asymmetrical struggle, (b) problematize the acceptance of the organizational reality of leaderless resistance in the terrorism literature, and (c) question the assertion of some terrorism scholarship that refers to leaderless resistance and other ideologies of effervescence as hallmarks of the “new terrorism.”

The mimetic politics of lone-wolf terrorism

Written at a time of crisis in the project of social and political modernity, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s 1864 novel Notes from Underground offers an intriguing parallel for the twenty-first century lone-wolf; it portrays an abject, outcast, spiteful unnamed anti-hero boiling with rage, bitter with resentment and on the verge of radicalisation. A Girardian reading of the poetic truths contained in Dostoevsky’s work is able to provide important keys to explain the contemporary transformation from ‘fourth-wave’ religious terrorism to ‘fifth-wave’ lone-wolf terrorism. Such a reading argues that it is mimetic rivalry – rather than much-trumpeted forms of religious violence or cultural differences – that fuels the triangular relation between governments, terrorists and civilian victims at heart of terrorist acts. This approach is further able to blend social inquiry with an account of the individual, in fact anthropological, conditions of lone-wolf terrorism by tracing the globalisation of resentment and the individualisation of violence to the hyper-mimeticism characterising the globalisation of late modernity. Finally, a mimetic reading of ‘fifth-wave’ terrorism accounts for the turbulence of a global politics in which victimhood and scapegoating no longer have the ability to stabilise social order and warns against a future where violence proliferates and escalates unchecked.

Key Issues and Research Agendas in Lone Wolf Terrorism

This article builds on recent contributions to the academic literature on lone wolf terrorism to critically examine key issues that are germane to the current state of play in this field of study. It finds that, overall, the recent academic literature still suffers from considerable problems regarding quality and rigor, including definitional, conceptual, methodological, and inference issues. By providing a critique of these issues, the article attempts to advance the scholarly debate on lone wolf terrorism and inspire greater dialogue and collaboration between scholars. Directions for future research are also outlined.