An Interesting Theory
I came across this article sometime back which gives empirical evidence that terrorism for the most part doesn't actually work. The author also attempts to explain why this is the case. Basically, terrorism doesn’t work because people infer the consequences of actions are the purpose behind the action. Therefore when terrorists kill and maim large numbers of civilians, people infer that the slaughter of civilians is what the terrorists are after, and not some specific policy objective.
But wait a minute! Wouldn’t such a theory work in reverse? When the US and its allies carry out airstrikes in Iraq and Afghanistan that cause large numbers of civilian casualties, is it not reasonable to assume that the people there will judge that the purpose of these airstrikes was to kill and maim civilians? After all, we’ve caused more civilian deaths this year than the terrorists have.
This doesn’t just explain why terrorists so rarely achieve their objectives, but why the current counterinsurgency strategy continues to fail as well.
