Rand Corporation report on Anti-terrorism says war (our present strategy ) is not effective.

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9351/index1.html

The United States cannot conduct an effective counterterrorism campaign against al Qa'ida or other terrorist groups without understanding how such groups end. While it is clear that U.S. policymakers will need to turn to a range of policy instruments to conduct such campaigns — including careful police and intelligence work, military force, political negotiations, and economic sanctions — what is less clear is how they should prioritize U.S. efforts.

A recent RAND research effort sheds light on this issue by investigating how terrorist groups have ended in the past. By analyzing a comprehensive roster of terrorist groups that existed worldwide between 1968 and 2006, the authors found that most groups ended because of operations carried out by local police or intelligence agencies or because they negotiated a settlement with their governments. Military force was rarely the primary reason a terrorist group ended, and few groups within this time frame achieved victory.

These findings suggest that the U.S. approach to countering al Qa'ida has focused far too much on the use of military force. Instead, policing and intelligence should be the backbone of U.S. efforts.

First Systematic Examination of the End of Terrorist Groups
This was the first systematic look at how terrorist groups end. The authors compiled and analyzed a data set of all terrorist groups between 1968 and 2006, drawn from a terrorism-incident database that RAND and the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism jointly oversee. The authors used that data to identify the primary reason for the end of groups and to statistically analyze how economic conditions, regime type, size, ideology, and group goals affected their survival. They then conducted comparative case studies of specific terrorist groups to understand how they ended.

Of the 648 groups that were active at some point between 1968 and 2006, a total of 268 ended during that period. Another 136 groups splintered, and 244 remained active. As depicted in the figure, the authors found that most ended for one of two reasons: They were penetrated and eliminated by local police and intelligence agencies (40 percent), or they reached a peaceful political accommodation with their government (43 percent). Most terrorist groups that ended because of politics sought narrow policy goals. The narrower the goals, the more likely the group was to achieve them through political accommodation — and thus the more likely the government and terrorists were to reach a negotiated settlement.

How 268 Terrorist Groups Worldwide Ended, 1968–2006


In 10 percent of cases, terrorist groups ended because they achieved victory. Military force led to the end of terrorist groups in 7 percent of cases. The authors found that militaries tended to be most effective when used against terrorist groups engaged in insurgencies in which the groups were large, well armed, and well organized. But against most terrorist groups, military force was usually too blunt an instrument.

The analysis also found that

more......

[The Magistrate]

1. That Is Quite True, Ma'am

These things are police problems, albeit in the case of al Queda police problems of colossal scale.

The proper use of military force in such a situation to give a certain edge to the police at times: to enable police power to go where it otherwise could not, to kill persons it is unlikely the police could ever reach, and to break large-scale paramilitary bodies when these actually appear in the field.

[jwirr]

2. It is not effective because from the first *ss saw this as a country against

country issue so he used to military. Terrorism is usually an individual or small group effort that is hidden from sight until the deed is done. This calls not for a military strike that involves civilians who have nothing to do with the issue but for law enforcement efforts to combat the plans hopefully before they happen. This definition recognizes terrorism in all its forms and both domestic and foreign locals.

Yes, if a country is protecting the leaders of a terrorist plot then that country should be held accountable but it still does not end terrorism if we go to war. In fact it is exactly the opposite - we have helped to recruit more workers for Al Quada by the Iraq war than we have troops for our own army.

We would have been way further ahead if organizations like the CIA, FBI and Interpol had worked together to find the perpetrators of 9/11 than we are now.

[Cleita]

3. Duh Oh!

How much grant money was spent by taxpayers to come to that conclusion that DUers had already figured out in the early stages of the so-called war on terror.