When Sums Go Bad: Mathematical Models and Hostage Situations

Terrorism and Political Violence

Volumn 13, Issue 2, 2001, Pages 49-66

  Silke, Andrew ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0035642341     PISSN: 09546553     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09546550109609680     Document Type: Article

References (39)

1. Alastair MacWillson, Hostage-Taking Terrorism: Incident-Response Strategy (London: MacMillan 1992).
2. Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (London: Victor Gollancz 1998).
3. Not least is a controversial incident which occurred just three months after the debacle at Munich, when Black September hijacked a Lufthansa jet in order to force the West German government to release the three surviving terrorists captured at Munich. With suspicious swiftness, the German government capitulated to the terrorists demands and the trio were released.
4. Some work has been done, for example R. Reuben Miller, 'Negotiating with Terrorists: A Comparative Analysis of Three Cases', TPV 5/3 (1993), pp.78-105. However, such work has tended to be limited in its scope with the central theme that the authors stress the need for more thorough research to follow.
5. Julian Becker, Hitler's Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Gang (London: Granada 1978).
6. Todd Sandler, 'On Terrorism, Guerrilla Warfare, and Insurrection', Defence Economics 3/4 (1992), pp.259-61.
7. Mark Lichbach, 'Nobody Cites Nobody Else: Mathematical Models of Domestic Political Conflict', Defence Economics, 3/4 (1992), pp.341-57.
8. Todd Sandier, Scott Atkinson, Jon Cauley, Eric Ik Soon Im, John Scott and John Tschirhart, 'Economic Methods and the Study of Terrorism', in P. Wilkinson, and A. M. Stewart (eds.), Contemporary Research on Terrorism (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press 1987), pp.376-89.
9. Todd Sandier, Walter Enders and Harvey Lapan, 'Economic Analysis Can Help Fight International Terrorism', Challenge 34/1 (1991), p.11.
10. Eric Im, Jon Cauley and Todd Sandler, 'Cycles and Substitutions in Terrorist Activities: A Spectral Approach', Kyklos 40/2 (1987), pp.238-55.
11. Sandler, Atkinson, Cauley, Im, Scott and Tschirhart (note 8).
12. Ibid.
13. G. Weimann and H. B. Brosius, 'The Predictability of International Terrorism: A Time-Series Analysis', Terrorism 11/6 (1988), pp.491-502.
14. Walter Enders, Gerald Parise and Todd Sandier, 'A Time-Series Analysis of Transnational Terrorism: Trends and Cycles', Defence Economics 3/4 (1992), pp.305-20.
15. Expense in this case does not simply refer to the financial cost of a tactic. Also considered is the effort required in preparation and commission and the cost in terms of manpower. For example, a hoax bomb requires just one individual to place a cardboard box in a public area and to contact the authorities saying a bomb is located within the box. The terrorists' effort and cost ends there. However, if a kidnapping occurs, this requires advance planning, at least three to four terrorists to abduct the victim and guard them, the availability of weapons, safehouses, food, transport, and so on. Compared to the hoax situation, this tactic requires enormous effort on the part of the terrorists.
16. Sandier, Atkinson, Cauley, Im, Scott and Tschirhart (note 8).
17. Jon Cauley and Eric Im, 'Intervention Policy Analysis of Skyjackings and Other Terrorist Incidents', American Economic Review 78/2 (1988), pp.27-31.
18. Harvey Lapan and Todd Sandler, 'To Bargain or Not to Bargain: That is the Question', American Economic Review 78/2 (1988), pp.16-21.
19. Ibid.
20. The International Terrorism: Attributes of Terrorist Events, 1968-1977 (ITERATE 2) databank is available through the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbour.
21. Todd Sandler and John Scott, 'Terrorist Success in Hostage-Taking Incidents', Journal of Conflict Resolution 31/1 (1987), pp.35-53.
22. Related to this is the finding that the number of different nationalities within the terrorist group has a significant effect. (This factor also had a significant effect on the likely outcome of any negotiations - only one other factor of the above five, number killed, continued to have a significant impact at the negotiation level.) For Sandier and Scott (note 21), the number of nationalities served 'as a proxy for terrorist resources, since groups with more nationalities might draw support from more sources' (p.43).
23. This finding is supported by other work, which indicates that even when an attack goes disastrously wrong, the terrorists have still adopted the plan which optimized their likelihood of success (see Andrew Silke, 'Terrorism in Northern Ireland: An Application of Rational Choice Theory', paper presented at the British Psychological Society's Annual Conference, April 1996, Brighton, UK).
24. Success in this case was if the terrorists got away with some of their demands. As the researchers put it: 'since terrorists may have overstated their demands, basing success on terrorists receiving all of their demands is too stringent', Sandier and Scott (note 21), p.48.
25. Some of the texts included in the review included Frank Bolz, Jr., Kenneth Dudonis and David Schulz, The Counter-terrorism Handbook: Tactics, Procedures and Techniques (Oxford: Elsevier 1990); Reuven Gal and David Mangelsdorff, Handbook of Military Psychology (Chichester: Wiley 1991); and Alastair MacWillson, Hostage-Taking Terrorism: Incident-Response Strategy (London: Macmillan 1992).
26. Some of the texts included in the review included Frank Bolz, Jr., Kenneth Dudonis and David Schulz, The Counter-terrorism Handbook: Tactics, Procedures and Techniques (Oxford: Elsevier 1990); Reuven Gal and David Mangelsdorff, Handbook of Military Psychology (Chichester: Wiley 1991); and Alastair MacWillson, Hostage-Taking Terrorism: Incident-Response Strategy (London: Macmillan 1992).
27. Some of the texts included in the review included Frank Bolz, Jr., Kenneth Dudonis and David Schulz, The Counter-terrorism Handbook: Tactics, Procedures and Techniques (Oxford: Elsevier 1990); Reuven Gal and David Mangelsdorff, Handbook of Military Psychology (Chichester: Wiley 1991); and Alastair MacWillson, Hostage-Taking Terrorism: Incident-Response Strategy (London: Macmillan 1992).
28. Thomas Sanction, 'Anatomy of a Hijack', Time, 9 January 1995, pp.14-18.
29. Ibid.
30. Paul Webster, 'Commandos storm hijack jet'. Guardian, 27 December 1994, p.1.
31. Jane Diaz-Limaco and Ian Black, 'Guerrillas Raise Stakes in Lima Embassy Siege', Guardian, 19 December 1996, p.1.
32. Ibid.
33. Peter Hillmore, 'Over? It is now', Observer, 27 April 1997, p.3.
34. As described at http://news2.thls.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_577000/ 577965.stm, accessed 14 March 2000.
35. http://news2.thls.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_577000/ 577635.stm, accessed 14 March 2000.
36. http://news2.thls.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_584000/ 584729.stm, accessed 14 March 2000.
37. There was one slight difference. There were four hijackers involved in the Air France incident and five hijackers involved in the Air India event (in other words, a 20 per cent increase in the number of terrorists). However, it was not clear from Sandler and Scott's paper that a difference in numbers of just one individual terrorist was significant at this level. It is possible though that the small discrepancy in group sizes may still have been a factor in the different outcomes (making the current score in table 2 on this measure inaccurate for the Air India incident).
38. One needs also to consider possible outlier effects in the three cases. For example, many seasoned professionals were surprised that the Peruvian siege ended as it did. The day before the assault two British police negotiators, who were working as advisors in Peru, said that they believed the negotiations and the siege would drag on for a lot longer - that there was still room for manoeuvring for both sides. However, less than 24 hours later, military special forces stormed the compound, killing all the terrorists.
39. Debra Beckerian and Janet Jackson, 'Critical issues in offender profiling', in J. Jackson and D. Bekerian (eds.), Offender Profiling: Theory, Research and Practice (Chichester: Wiley 1997), pp.209-20.