scholarly journals Self-Enforcing Collective Counterterror Retaliation

Games ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Andre Rossi de Oliveira ◽  
Emilson Caputo Delfino Silva

Motivated by recent examples of collective effort on the war on terror, we examine the incentives that retaliation may produce for the endogenous formation of an international counterterror coalition. We show that there are quite reasonable circumstances under which any nation that is a target of a terrorist attack finds it desirable to be a member of the international counterterror coalition, holding the choices of all other nations as given. The incentives to join the coalition are the group-specific benefits from retaliation enjoyed by each coalition member, the relatively lower spillover benefit from retaliation enjoyed by each stand-alone nation, and the inability of pre-emptive measures to avert terrorist attacks. The disincentive to join is the anticipated backlash from retaliation, which targets coalition members only.

Author(s):  
Richard A. Falkenrath

This chapter examines strategy and deterrence and traces the shift from deterrence by ‘punishment’ to deterrence by ‘denial’ in Washington’s conduct of the Global War on Terror. The former rested on an assumption that the consequences of an action would serve as deterrents. The latter may carry messages of possible consequences, but these are delivered by taking action that removes the capabilities available to opponents – in the given context, the Islamist terrorists challenging the US. Both approaches rest on credibility, but are more complex in the realm of counter-terrorism, where the US authorities have no obvious ‘return to sender’ address and threats to punish have questionable credibility. In this context, denial offers a more realistic way of preventing terrorist attacks. Yet, the advanced means available to the US are deeply ethically problematic in liberal democratic societies. However, there would likely be even bigger questions if governments failed to act.


2021 ◽  
pp. 001112872110226
Author(s):  
Noah D. Turner ◽  
Steven M. Chermak ◽  
Joshua D. Freilich

Lone-actor terrorists have increasingly attracted the attention of researchers, policymakers, and practitioners alike. Despite this enhanced interest, few studies have compared the outcomes of lone-actor terrorist attacks with other terrorists, and those that have do not consider the terrorists’ intention to kill in an attack. This study utilizes a sample of 230 terrorist homicide incidents from the Extremist Crime Database to examine the extent to which lone-actors perpetrate more severe attacks than other terrorists. We find that lone-actors are significantly associated with more severe attack outcomes when controlling for the intention to kill. We conclude by commenting on the utility of these findings in U.S. counterterrorism policy and the importance for future research to account for actors’ intentions when assessing terrorist attack severity


Author(s):  
Xiangwei Qi ◽  
Weimin Pan ◽  
Bingcai Chen ◽  
Gulila Altenbek

As the current society is increasingly facing major challenges from extremism and terrorism, protecting key urban public facilities and important targets from destruction is an important challenge facing the security departments of all countries. Based on real scene, this paper conducts researches on anti-terrorism security game algorithms and emergency response models in response to the three key links of before, during and after terrorist attacks. First of all, this paper constructs a multi-round joint attack game and emergency response model based on cooperation, establishes the optimization problem of solving the defender’s optimal strategy in mathematical form, and then obtains the optimal defense strategy. Secondly, in response to the fact that terrorists are not completely rational, a new hybrid model is constructed to propose an efficient allocation and scheduling algorithm for safe resources in response to terrorist attacks. Thirdly, a model of crowd evacuation strategy after a terrorist attack is built based on the problem of crowd evacuation in multiple rounds of premeditated cooperative attacks. Finally, taking the area of the first ring of a certain city as a real scene, a complete game system of the whole process is constructed, and the game effectiveness evaluation of the existing security resource allocation scheme in the first ring area is carried out. Through the research of this thesis, the author puts forward some new technical ideas for the current society’s anti-terrorism governance, and hopes to provide some technical references for the decision-making of security agencies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (9) ◽  
pp. e002879
Author(s):  
Thomas Druetz ◽  
Lalique Browne ◽  
Frank Bicaba ◽  
Matthew Ian Mitchell ◽  
Abel Bicaba

IntroductionMost of the literature on terrorist attacks’ health impacts has focused on direct victims rather than on distal consequences in the overall population. There is limited knowledge on how terrorist attacks can be detrimental to access to healthcare services. The objective of this study is to assess the impact of terrorist attacks on the utilisation of maternal healthcare services by examining the case of Burkina Faso.MethodsThis longitudinal quasi-experimental study uses multiple interrupted time series analysis. Utilisation of healthcare services data was extracted from the National Health Information System in Burkina Faso. Data span the period of January 2013–December 2018 and include all public primary healthcare centres and district hospitals. Terrorist attack data were extracted from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project. Negative binomial regression models were fitted with fixed effects to isolate the immediate and long-term effects of terrorist attacks on three outcomes (antenatal care visits, of facility deliveries and of cesarean sections).ResultsDuring the next month of an attack, the incidence of assisted deliveries in healthcare facilities is significantly reduced by 3.8% (95% CI 1.3 to 6.3). Multiple attacks have immediate effects more pronounced than single attacks. Longitudinal analysis show that the incremental number of terrorist attacks is associated with a decrease of the three outcomes. For every additional attack in a commune, the incidence of cesarean sections is reduced by 7.7% (95% CI 4.7 to 10.7) while, for assisted deliveries, it is reduced by 2.5% (95% CI 1.9 to 3.1) and, for antenatal care visits, by 1.8% (95% CI 1.2 to 2.5).ConclusionTerrorist attacks constitute a new barrier to access of maternal healthcare in Burkina Faso. The exponential increase in terrorist activities in West Africa is expected to have negative effects on maternal health in the entire region.


2005 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 155-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amir Krivoy ◽  
Ido Layish ◽  
Eran Rotman ◽  
Avi Goldberg ◽  
Yoav Yehezkelli

AbstractSince the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack, terrorist attacks involving weapons of mass destruction or other industrial chemicals present worldwide security and health concerns. On-scene medical triage and treatment in such events is crucial to save as many lives as possible and minimize the deleterious effects of the toxic agent involved. Since there are many chemicals that can be used as potential terrorist weapons, the medical challenge for the emergency medical services (EMS) is a combination of: (1) recognizing that a chemical terrorist attack (non-conventional) has occurred; and (2) identifying the toxic agent followed by proper antidotal treatment. The latter must be done as quickly as possible, preferably on-scene. The most valuable decision at this stage should be whether the agent is organophosphate (OP) or not OP, based on clinical findings observed by pre-trained, first responders. This decision is crucial, since only OP intoxication has readily available, rapidly acting, onscene, specific agents such as atropine and one of the oximes, preferably administered using autoinjectors. Due to the lack of a specific antidote, exposure to other agents (such as industrial chemicals, e.g., chlorine, bromide, or ammonia) should be treated on-scene symptomatically with non-specific measures, such as decontamination and supportive treatment. This paper proposes an algorithm as a cognitive framework for the medical teams on-scene. This algorithm should be part of the medical team's training for preparedness for chemical terrorist attacks, and the team should be trained to use it in drills. Implementing this path of thinking should improve the medical outcome of such an event.


Author(s):  
Tetiana Veretenko ◽  
Anton Trebe ◽  
Olena Bieloliptseva

The attention is drawn to the possibility of terrorist attacks in Ukraine. The essence of safe behaviour during a terrorist attack is revealed in the article. The purpose of the article is to determine the rules of behaviour for high school students in the case of a terrorist attack, the action algorithm of high school students on receiving information about a terrorist threat; rules of safe behaviour in social networks, which are actively used by terrorists, who attack high school students to participate in their groups and terrorist acts; to present a formation program of high school students’safe behaviour while terrorist attacks and show its effectiveness.The results of the experimental implementation of the program for formation of high school students’safe behaviour during terrorist attacks and emergencies are analyzed after asurvey carried out. According to the results summarised a conclusion is made to activate social and pedagogical work in the field of forming students’safe behaviour while terrorist attacks and emergencies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 198 ◽  
pp. 03006
Author(s):  
Huang Wenduo ◽  
Shao Xuechun ◽  
Wang Jiajie ◽  
Xiao Yang ◽  
Sun Dongliang

The heavy losses are often caused in modern chemical plants at the time of the accident. In order to prevent accidents, the screening and identification of hazards is needed. In this paper, the screening model of hazards in chemical plants was studied under the domino effect and the risk of terrorist attack. According to the threshold and strength of the domino effect of the unit under the main accident scenarios, the index of domino effect was developed. The risk index of terrorist attacks was determined in line with the distance between the unit and the boundary under the assumption of terrorist attacks. The hazards screening model Z was designed based on two aspects of the study. The model was applied in screening the hazards. The results showed that closer units near the border were more dangerous under the risk of terrorist attack, and the devices surrounded by units with greater influence of accidents were more dangerous under the risk of domino effect. The indices of the tanks were ordered: Z105>Z101>Z103>Z106>Z104>Z102>Z201>Z202>Z203>Z204>Z205>Z206>Z303>Z304>Z301>Z302>Z306>Z305. The domino effect and the risk of terrorist attacks were combined into the present model for perfection and correction of the existing hazards screening model, as the new basis for major hazards identification.


Author(s):  
Yasmin Ibrahim

In the xenophobic attack on a mosque in New Zealand, the perpetrator filmed the mass murder through a GoPro recording device attached to his head. The attack was streamed live on social networking sites, including a notorious extremist alt-right forum. This livestreaming of the terrorist attack on social media platforms received global condemnation, but it brought renewed scrutiny to the ‘sharing economy’ online and how terrorist attacks can be made for sharing, reposting, and editing of content by users, circumnavigating the removal of such content. This phenomenon widens the co-production of terror through mass audiences’ interaction in real time, positioning terror as mass entertainment. This chapter examines the architecture of the ‘sharing economy’ online and its significance in the production of terror, as well as the moral and ethical considerations it poses for humanity.


Author(s):  
Vesna Poposka

Referring to the cyber space as the new dimension of warfare opens many legal challenges. Those challenges can be settled in two main clusters: first one related to the usage of cyberspace as a weapon itself, related the environment in which terrorist attack occurs (meaning that cyber infrastructure and cyber are used for terrorist attacks, or as an asset during counterterrorist operations), and the second drives on ancillary usage of the cyber infrastructure, means and methods for the same purposes. The cyberspace is lacking specific legal regime that is applicable, same as cyber attacks. While the specific applicable regime is lacking, as well as any consensus upon that issue, what has to be considered is if any parts of the currently ongoing legal regimes are applicable. Put into the context of cyber warfare, it can lead to different solutions, examined in the chapter.


2019 ◽  
pp. 159-176
Author(s):  
Celia Casey

This chapter investigates aspects of the creative process behind Reich’s “docu-music” work, WTC 9/11 (2010), which constitutes the composer’s response to the terrorist attacks in the United States of America, specifically those in New York City, on September 11, 2001. Sketch materials, including recorded interviews, computer files, and handwritten sketches, belonging to the Steve Reich Collection at the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel, Switzerland, reveal how both documentary content and musical design have informed the work. Based on an analysis of these materials, three aspects relating to the creative process of WTC 9/11 are examined: the treatment of speech recordings; the direction of interviews; and structural and referential elements of the work. This chapter not only reveals insights into Reich’s compositional process and techniques but also uncovers other significant factors in the composer’s docu-music approach, such as how autobiographical elements inform his work.


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