When heads roll: Assessing the effectiveness of leadership decapitation

Security Studies

Volumn 18, Issue 4, 2009, Pages 719-755

  Jordan, Jenna ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO   (United States)

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EID: 77951685570     PISSN: 09636412     EISSN: 15561852     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09636410903369068     Document Type: Article

References (128)

1. See George W. Bush, "National Strategy for Combating Terrorism," (Washington, DC: The White House, February 2003).
2. George W. Bush, "National Strategy for Combating Terrorism," (Washington, DC: The White House, September 2006).
3. "The Shining Path Comes Back," The Economist, 17 August 1996.
4. William Drozdiak, "Avowed 'Decapitation' of Basque Group in Doubt as Olympics Near," The Washington Post, 3 May 1992.
5. See Victoria Burnett, "France Arrests Basque Rebel Tied to Killings," New York Times, 17 November 2008.
6. Audrey Cronin references the lack of empirical research on decapitation. She argues, "Past experience with the decapitation of terrorist groups, however, is not seriously examined for insights into this case." Despite her acknowledgement of the lack of rigorous work on decapitation, she only references cases in which decapitation has contributed to organizational decline.
7. See Audrey Kurth Cronin, "How Al-Qaida Ends: The Decline and Demise of Terrorist Groups," International Security 31, no. 1 (Summer 2006): 8.
8. Eliot A. Cohen, The Wall Street Journal, 11 June 2006.
9. Stephen R. David, "Fatal Choices: Israel's Policy of Targeted Killing," Mideast Security and Policy Studies 51 (September 2002).
10. While Oots claims that leadership is important, he argues that little is known about the leadership of terrorist organizations. As a result, he does not take a stance on the success of leadership decapitation. Kent Layne Oots, "Bargaining with Terrorists: Organizational Considerations," Terrorism 13, no. 2 (March/April 1990).
11. Kent Layne Oots, "Organizational Perspectives on the Formation and Disintegration of Terrorist Groups," Terrorism 12, no. 3 (1989): 143.
12. Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965), 51.
13. Oots, "Organizational Perspectives on the Formation and Disintegration of Terrorist Groups," 141.
14. See Martha Crenshaw, "How Terrorism Declines," Terrorism and Political Violence 3, no. 1 (Spring 1991).
15. Oots, "Organizational Perspectives," 142.
16. John A. Warden, "Employing Air Power in the Twenty-First Century," in The Future of Air Power in the Aftermath of the Gulf War, ed. Richard H. Shultz Jr. and Robert L. Pfaltzgraff Jr. (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1992), 65.
17. Robert A. Pape, Bombing to Win (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), 79.
18. Pape also makes this claim in his op-ed piece. See Robert A. Pape, "Wars Can't Be Won Only from Above," New York Times, 21 March 2003.
19. Robert A. Pape, "The Strategic Logic of Suicide Bombing," American Political Science Review 97, no. 3 (August 2003): 356.
20. Stephen T. Hosmer, Operations Against Enemy Leaders (Santa Monica: RAND, 2001), 1.
21. Ibid., 19.
22. David, "Fatal Choices: Israel's Policy of Targeted Killing."
23. Byman claims that this reduction in the lethality of attacks could be attributed to other counterterrorism policies. See Daniel Byman, "Do Targeted Killings Work?" Foreign Affairs 85, no. 2 (2006).
24. See Cronin, "How Al-Qaida Ends." Cronin cites the following cases as successful instances of decapitation: Direct Action, People's Liberation Army, Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front, Covenant, the Sword and the Arm of the Law, the PKK, RIRA, and Aum Shinrikyo. While I agree with a majority of her cases, my dataset classifies Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front and the PKK as failures. I will discuss this further in my methodology.
25. See Lisa Langdon, Alexander J. Sarapu, and Matthew Wells, "Targeting the Leadership of Terrorist and Insurgent Movements: Historical Lessons for Contemporary Policy Makers," Journal of Public and International Affairs 15 (Spring 2004).
26. Rupert Cornwell, "Campaign against Terror: A Justifiable Tool in the War against Terrorism," The Independent, 6 November 2002.
27. Max Weber, The Theory of Economic and Social Organization (New York: Free Press, 1964), 358.
28. Max Weber, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, trans. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), 246.
29. Ibid., 249.
30. Geoffrey K. Nelson, Cults, New Religions and Religious Creativity (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987), 117.
31. See Lorne Dawson, "Crises in Charismatic Legitimacy and Violent Behavior in New Religious Movements," in Cults, Religion, and Violence, eds., David G. Bromley and J. Gordon Melton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
32. Due to the difficulties in identifying whether a leader is in fact charismatic, this study does not determine whether the removed leader possessed charismatic qualities. Instead, I test the strength of the charisma claim, by evaluating leadership decapitation in general.
33. Nelson, Cults, New Religions and Religious Creativity, 120.
34. Weber, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, 297.
35. See Michael Freeman "The Headless Horseman: A Theoretical and Strategic Assessment of Leadership Targeting," unpublished manuscript, Naval Postgraduate School (2009). Freeman argues that the likelihood of success can be determined by looking at the interaction of operational and inspirational leadership.
36. Jean-Francoise Mayer, "Cults, Violence, and Religious Terrorism: An International Perspective," Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 24 (September 2001).
37. The data in this study proves this point. See also Langdon, Sarapu, and Wells, "Targeting the Leadership of Terrorist and Insurgent Movements: Historical Lessons for Contemporary Policy Makers."
38. See Nelson, Cults, New Religions and Religious Creativity.
39. Steven L. Carlton-Ford, Cults and Non Conventional Religious Groups: The Effects of Ritual and Charisma (New York: Garland Publishing, 1993).
40. and Marc Galanter, Cults: Faith, Healing, and Coercion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).
41. See John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy (Santa Monica: RAND, 2001).
42. Michele Zanini, "Middle Eastern Terrorism and Netwar," Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 22 (July/September 1999).
43. and Ami Pedahzur and Arie Perlinger, "The Changing Nature of Suicide Attacks: A Social Network Perspective," Social Forces 84, no. 4 (June 2006).
44. Charles Perrow, Complex Organizations: A Critical Essay (New York: McGraw Hill, 1986), 167.
45. Stanley Wasserman and Katherine Faust, Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
46. James D. Thompson, Organizations in Action: Social Sciences Bases of Administrative Theory (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2007), 75.
47. See Byman, "Do Targeted Killings Work?"
48. There are other forms, but these are the most common. See Arquilla and Ronfeldt, Networks and Netwars.
49. Thompson, Organizations in Action, 76.
50. See Pedahzur and Perlinger, "The Changing Nature of Suicide Attacks: A Social Network Perspective." Pedahzur references the work of Arquilla and Ronenfelt who show that horizontal networks can take on many different structures.
51. See Arquilla and Ronfeldt, Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy.
52. There are two measures of prominence: centrality and prestige. See Wasserman and Faust, Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications.
53. Pedahzur argues that horizontal networks can operate within or independently of a group. While focusing on decentralized organizations, he is specifically concerned with local networks that operate under the framework of a larger movement.
54. See Pedahzur and Perlinger, "The Changing Nature of Suicide Attacks: A Social Network Perspective."
55. Arquilla et al. argue that location or degree of an actor's centrality is essential to understanding the structure and function of a network. Arquilla and Ronfeldt, Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy.
56. Pedahzur and Perlinger, "The Changing Nature of Suicide Attacks: A Social Network Perspective."
57. He claims that the arrests of key hubs have been successful in breaking up smaller networks, and if key hubs within the global Salafi jihad networks were removed, they would be unable to carry out large-scale attacks.
58. Marc Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 140. Sageman defines a small-world network as having dense interconnectivity. He juxtaposes this structure to a hierarchically structured organization. Further Sageman finds that while hierarchical networks can be eliminated through leadership decapitation, small-world networks require the elimination of hubs.
59. Ronald J. Deibert and Janice Gross Stein, "Hacking Networks of Terror," Dialog-IO (Spring 2002): 7.
60. Pedahzur and Perlinger, "The Changing Nature of Suicide Attacks: A Social Network Perspective."
61. Kathleen Carley, Ju-Sung Lee, and David Krackhardt, "Destabilizing Networks," Connections 24, no. 3 (2002).
62. An actor with the highest cognitive load has "the most people to talk to, the most information to process, the most tasks to do, the hardest tasks to do, the most people to negotiate with to get the job done, etc."
63. Ibid., 86.
64. Focusing on the Israeli case, Daniel Byman also argues that targeted killings are less effective against decentralized organizations. See Byman, "Do Targeted Killings Work?"
65. Thompson argues that decentralization dilutes the power structure of an organization by creating more power positions and by limiting an organization's dependence on each individual leader. See Thompson, Organizations in Action.
66. Ideally, I would identify the organizational structure of each group ex ante. However, I was not able to collect data on the structure of enough groups in order to incorporate this data into the large n study. As a result, I utilize case studies as a way to generate theories regarding organizational structure in other chapters of my dissertation.
67. 60 Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, U.S. Department of State, 2001 Report on Foreign Terrorist Organizations, available at http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rpt/fto/2001/5258.htm. The 2001 report on foreign terrorist organizations from the officer of the coordinator for counterterrorism designates foreign terrorist organizations.
68. 61 The U.S. Department of State does not require that an organization be inactive for two years in order to be removed from the list of FTOs.
69. This is a fairly restrictive criterion for success. Michael Freeman has a much more permissive criteria for evaluating decapitation. See Freeman and McCormick, "Leadership Targeting of Terrorist Groups: A Strategic Assessment."
70. A two-year period of inactivity would send a strong signal that the organization has ceased to carry out activity and is not just regrouping for future attacks. I think that the two-year criterion for inactivity is more useful than looking at decline. An organization may experience a significant decline in activity and still be very active. In order to further understand this distinction, I also look at the change in the number of incidents, deaths, and injuries for three organizations.
71. Sean K. Anderson and Stephen Sloan, Historical Dictionary of Terrorism (Lanham: The Scarecrow Press, 2002), 415-16.
72. Bruce Hoffman defines terrorism as "violence-or, equally important, the threat of violence-used and directed in pursuit of, or in service of, a political aim." I define terrorism as violence or the threat of violence used by a non-state actor in the pursuit of a political goal. While this definition does not exclude state sponsored terrorist organizations, I do not consider such cases. See Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (London: Victor Gollancz, 1998).
73. I excluded organizations that were formed before 1945.
74. See Anderson and Sloan, Historical Dictionary of Terrorism.
75. Anderson and Sloan, Historical Dictionary of Terrorism.
76. 68 CLARIFY: Software for Interpreting and Presenting Statistical Results, Version 2.0, created by Michael Tomz, Jason Wittenberg, and Gary King (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1 June 2001), available at http://gking.harvard.edu.
77. See Cronin, "How Al-Qaida Ends."
78. Anderson and Sloan, Historical Dictionary of Terrorism, 415.
79. Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, 71.
80. See J. K. Zawodny, "Infrastructures of Terrorist Organizations," in Perspectives on Terrorism, ed. Lawrence Zelic Freedman and Yonah Alexander (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources Inc., 1983).
81. Cronin, "How Al-Qaida Ends," 22.
82. 74 See Paul Wilkinson, Political Terrorism (London: Macmillan, 1974). Schultz makes an attempt to refine Wilkinson's study and refers to repressive terrorism and "establishment terrorism."
83. See Richard Schultz, "Conceptualizing Political Terrorism: A Typology," Journal of International Affairs 32 (Spring/Summer1978).
84. For further analysis on these categories see Grant Wardlaw, Political Terrorism: Theory, Tactics, and Counter-Measures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
85. David Whittaker, ed. The Terrorism Reader (London: Routledge, 2001).
86. and Anderson and Sloan, Historical Dictionary of Terrorism. Sloan and Anderson reference Schultz in identifying different types of actors.
87. See Anderson and Sloan, Historical Dictionary of Terrorism.
88. Alex P. Schmid and Albert J. Jongman, Political Terrorism: A Guide to New Actors, Authors, Concepts, Databases, Theories, and Literature (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Co., 1988), 39.
89. I use the terms purpose and goals interchangeably in the paper.
90. David E. Long, The Anatomy of Terrorism (New York: The Free Press, 1990), 29.
91. 78 See Gerald M. Post, Keven G. Ruby, and Eric D. Shaw, "The Radical Group in Context: 1. An Integrated Framework for the Analysis of Group Risk for Terrorism," Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 25 (April 2002).
92. and Gerald M. Post, Keven G. Ruby, and Eric D. Shaw, "The Radical Group in Context: 2. Identification of Critical Elements in the Analysis of Risk for Terrorism by Radical Group Type," Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 25 (April 2002).
93. See Gerald Post, Leaders and Their Followers in a Dangerous Word (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004).
94. I use the term separatist as opposed to ethno-nationalist to avoid analytical confusion over the meaning of "ethno." It can be argued that religious organizations are also ethno-nationalist.
95. Long, The Anatomy of Terrorism, 29.
96. See Carlton-Ford, Cults and Non Conventional Religious Groups.
97. and Galanter, Cults: Faith, Healing, and Coercion.
98. See Cynthia Stohl and Michael Stohl, "Networks, Terrorism, and Terrorist Networks," (University of California at Santa Barbara, 2002).
99. See Cronin, "How Al-Qaida Ends," 23.
100. An important caveat needs to be added here. I assume that religious groups tend to be decentralized in structure. However, there are a number of religiously motivated terrorist organizations that are centralized. For example, Hamas' leadership is more centralized, while other aspects of the organization are more decentralized. Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan/Kashmir is highly centralized. For the purposes of theory building, I assume that religious groups tend toward decentralization.
101. See David C. Rapoport, "Fear and Trembling: Terrorism in Three Religious Traditions," American Political Science Review 78, no. 3 (September 1984).
102. 88 See Audrey Kurth Cronin, "Behind the Curve: Globalization and International Terrorism," International Security 27, no. 3 (2002/2003): 40.
103. For a discussion on the decline of different types of terrorist organizations see Seth G. Jones and Martin C. Libiki, How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering Al-Qa'ida (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2008).
104. See Cronin, "Behind the Curve," 40.
105. 90 See Zanini, "Middle Eastern Terrorism and Netwar".
106. David Tucker, "What Is New About the New Terrorism and How Dangerous Is It?" Terrorism and Political Violence 13, no. 3 (2001).
107. and Arquilla and Ronfeldt, Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy.
108. 91 Her study focuses on organizations that were active in the post-World War II period and that used terrorism as a strategy of opposition to regimes in power.
109. 92 Crenshaw, "How Terrorism Declines," 79.
110. Arthur Stinchcombe, "Organizations and Social Structure," in Handbook of Organizations, ed. J. G. March (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1965).
111. Josef Bruderl and Rudolf Schussler, "Organizational Mortality: The Liabilities of Newness and Adolescence," Administrative Science Quarterly 35 (September 1990).
112. John Freeman, Glenn R. Carroll, and Michael T. Hannan, "The Liability of Newness: Age Dependence in Organizational Death Rates," American Sociological Review 48, no. 5 (1983).
113. and James Ranger-Moore, "Bigger May Be Better, but Older Is Wiser? Organizational Age and Size in the New York Life Insurance Industry," American Sociological Review 62, no. 6 (1992).
114. James G. March and Herbert Simon, Organizations (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1993), 89.
115. Freeman, Carroll, and Hannan, "The Liability of Newness".
116. and Ranger-Moore, "Bigger May Be Better."
117. Crenshaw, "How Terrorism Declines."
118. Ibid., 79.
119. 100 Specifically, Cronin argues that targeting bin Laden will not kill al Qaeda. She argues that al Qaeda is not driven by a cult of personality. Consistent with the results in this study, Cronin also argues that decapitation is unlikely to be effective against nonhierarchical organizations, but her conclusions are based on a limited amount of evidence.
120. See Cronin, "How Al-Qaida Ends," 40.
121. The data was collected from the MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base. See http://www.mipt.org/. The Terrorism Knowledge Base is no longer functional. These three organizations were chosen in order to obtain variation on group type: ETA is separatist, FARC is ideological, and HAMAS is religious. While HAMAS is classified as both religious and separatist, I felt that it was important to evaluate the Hamas data. Israel has aggressively targeted the leaders of Hamas, and as a result it has become an important test case for decapitation.
122. ETA experienced one case of decapitation in 1989, four in 1992, one in 1995, two in 1999, one in 2000, one in 2001, four in 2003, and four in 2004.
123. Casualty rate is the sum of deaths and injuries divided by the number of terrorist attacks.
124. Byman, "Do Targeted Killings Work?"
125. Data was collected from the Global Terrorism Database. See http://www.start.umd.edu/data/gtd/.
126. 106 Perrow, Complex Organizations: A Critical Essay.
127. Ibid. 47.
128. 108 As noted earlier, this is not true in all cases. There are a number of religious groups that take on a more centralized structure.