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This project answers four questions: (1) Under what conditions does leadership decapitation result in the dissolution of a terrorist organization? (2) Does leadership decapitation increase the likelihood of organizational collapse beyond the baseline rate of collapse for groups over time? (3) In cases where decapitation does not result in group collapse, to what extent does it result in organizational degradation and hinder a group's ability to carry about terrorist attack? And (4) what explains the success and failure of decapitation?
One of the central pillars of US counterterrorism policy is that capturing or killing a terrorist group's leader is effective. Yet this pillar rests more on a foundation of faith than facts. In Leadership Decapitation, Jenna Jordan examines over a thousand instances of leadership targeting—involving groups such as Hamas, al Qaeda, Shining Path, and ISIS—to identify the successes, failures, and unintended consequences of this strategy. As Jordan demonstrates, group infrastructure, ideology, and popular support all play a role in determining how and why leadership decapitation succeeds or fails. Taking heed of these conditions is essential to an effective counterterrorism policy going forward.
This thesis evaluates the effectiveness of leadership decapitation as a counterterrorism strategy against Islamist terrorist groups by evaluating attack data and other historical and contextual factors in three case studies: al-Qaeda in Iraq, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, and the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria. My main finding is that leadership decapitation is not correlated with the reduction of terrorist activities by these groups. Theories on leadership decapitation did not predict the increase or decrease in a group's attack capabilities in any consistent or reliable manner. In all of these cases, experts heavily attributed the changes in a group's operational capability to factors other than leadership decapitation. The key lesson policy-makers and military planners can draw from this study is that the experiences and outcomes of leadership decapitation against one terrorist group should in no way be directly applied to or expected in another.
When President Barack Obama announced the assassination of Osama bin Laden, many Americans hoped the killing of al-Qaida’s leader would sound the death knell for the organization. Since 9/11, killing and capturing terrorist leaders has been a central element in U.S. counterterrorism strategy. This practice, known as leadership decapitation, is based on the logic that removing key figures will disrupt the organization and contribute to its ultimate failure. Yet many scholars have argued that targeted killings are ineffective or counterproductive, questioning whether taking out a terror network’s leaders causes more problems than it solves. In Targeting Top Terrorists, Bryan C. Price offers a rich, data-driven examination of leadership decapitation tactics, providing theoretical and empirical explanations of the conditions under which they can be successful. Analyzing hundreds of cases of leadership turnover from over two hundred terrorist groups, Price demonstrates that although the tactic may result in short-term negative side effects, the loss of top leaders significantly reduces terror groups’ life spans. He explains vital questions such as: What factors make some terrorist groups more vulnerable than others? Is it better to kill or capture terrorist leaders? How does leadership decapitation compare to other counterterrorism options? With compelling evidence based on an original dataset along with an in-depth case study of Hamas, Targeting Top Terrorists contributes to scholarship on terrorism and organizational theory and provides insights for policy makers and practitioners on some of the most pressing debates in the field.
"The effects of terrorist organization leadership decapitation on organizations' demands and behavior has not been widely studied by International Relations scholars. Research does not support decapitation as an effective counter-terrorism policy. Aided by more recent literature on behavioral economics citing pro-social orientations, national identities and cognitive research this article argues that decapitation increases the amount of unlikely demands by the group. I argue specifically that, for externally induced leadership decapitation unlikely demands should increase, while for internally induced leadership decapitation unlikely demands should decrease. I examine these hypotheses using data on terrorist leadership decapitation for the 1970-2008 period; this model suggests support for the prevailing literature on terrorist organization leadership decapitation as a successful counterterrorism policy."--Boise State University ScholarWorks.
The United States government has utilized leadership decapitation strategies to counter illicit or insurgent organizations since the kingpin strategy was first developed in the late 20th century by the Drug Enforcement Administration. Most critical analysis of this strategy, however, deals with terrorist organizations rather than transnational criminal organizations (TCOs). This study looks to the findings in these critical studies that may also be relevant to countering TCOs and, based on them, asks: what are the main factors that determine the effectiveness of leadership decapitation in countering TCOs? This study applies the four factors found in the literature to impact vulnerability to leadership decapitation-institutionalization, popular support, history of violent rivalry, and law enforcement efforts-to four TCOs. It finds that Medellin and Cali cartels did not gain an advantage from any of the factors. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) received protection from leadership decapitation from three of the four factors but ultimately was defeated. In the final case, the Sinaloa cartel, all four factors were present to provide the organization with protection from decapitation. These results are important for governments and law enforcement organizations to understand as they work to defeat TCOs.This compilation includes a reproduction of the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community.Chapter I hypothesized that the same four factors that determine a terrorist organization's vulnerability to leadership decapitation would be applicable to TCOs. Similarly, there is a potential for ancillary results based on the different motivations of the organizations-profit or ideology-that impact how the organization responds to leadership decapitation efforts: peace negotiations versus a fight until the end. Additionally, this chapter examined and defined the different factors from the literature and their potential to impact the vulnerability to leadership decapitation of the chosen case studies. Chapters II through IV analyze historical case studies and determine their relevance in predicting the effectiveness of leadership decapitation. The Medellin and Cali cartels were defeated by leadership decapitation and were made vulnerable by all of the defined factors. Both organizations were highly centralized wheel networks with all power and authority held at the top of the organization before filtering down. This structure made them highly susceptible to leadership decapitation. The popular support for both groups was varied throughout Colombia's population and tended to be localized rather than widespread leading to further vulnerability to leadership decapitation. Despite having long histories of violent rivalries and protracted law enforcement efforts and well-developed alliance structures, neither the Medellin or Cali cartel gained protection from leadership decapitation from these factors. The literature suggested that these relationships should have highlighted organizational and operational vulnerabilities and then provided the operating space for them to make changes and adapt. However, neither organization addressed their organizational vulnerabilities and ultimately this led to a fatal vulnerability to leadership decapitation that was exploited by the Colombian strategy.
Military Strategy: A Very Short Introduction adapts Clausewitz's framework to highlight the dynamic relationship between the main elements of strategy: purpose, method, and means. Drawing on historical examples, Antulio J. Echevarria discusses the major types of military strategy and how emerging technologies are affecting them. This second edition has been updated to include an expanded chapter on manipulation through cyberwarfare and new further reading.
What is the effect of leadership decapitation—the targeted killing or capture of a leader—on the violence levels of terrorist groups? Strong evidence has yet to emerge, as existing literature examines its effect on group degradation, measured as the duration of group existence post-decapitation. However, this outcome variable does not allow us to fully explore the question. Rather than ending the group or not, terrorist groups may utilize higher levels of violence post-decapitation. Instead of simply being ineffective, leadership decapitation may in fact be counter-productive. Building on a principal-agent model as a theoretical lens, I explore the full effects of leadership decapitation. Without the leader’s more strategic perspective and assertion of operational control, group operative’s more violent preferences are often realized. Yet, without the organization and resources provided by a leader, these mechanistic groups are less efficient in their attacks post-decapitation. Consistent with this theory, examining 42,000 attacks from 133 terrorist groups over 46 years, leadership decapitation has the countervailing effect of a greater number of attacks post-decapitation, but lower levels of fatalities per attack.
How does the tactic of leadership decapitation - the removal of an organization's leader or leadership by state efforts to arrest or kill - affect the activity of terrorist organizations? Over the past decade, leadership decapitation has become one of the main strategies that states employ in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency campaigns. Despite the increased reliance on leadership decapitation, the strategy has received surprisingly little attention from social scientists studying conflict. To advance this literature, I develop a game-theoretic model to apply to the study of leadership decapitation. The Counterterrorism Escalation Game models the interaction between a terrorist group and a state to examine how the organization responds to offensive counterterrorism tactics, such as leadership decapitation. In subsequent chapters, I use quantitative methods to evaluate hypotheses derived from the game, thus offering new insights into the behavioral dynamics of violent non-state actors in an asymmetric conflict.