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How seriously should we take the terrorist threat?

Econlog repeats the claims of John Mueller that the threat from terrorism is being taken too seriously. Bryan Caplan, the brilliant analyst who is one of the two men behind Econlog, argues that we have enough data now to be clear that the risk posed by terrorists is small in the scheme of things.

Mueller's arguments deserve to be taken seriously, but I am not convinced:

First, the probability of an event is not really the thing you should be worrying about. In his excellent book Fooled by Randomness, the mathematician and Wall Street trader Nassim Nicholas Taleb discusses what he calls the issue of asymmetry. He explains (rather impatiently since he regards the issue as obvious) that you may believe, say, that financial markets will probably go up, while you behave, sensibly, as if they will go down. The reason? Because you think it very likely that they will go up a little, but, in the unlikely event that they go down, you think they will go down a great deal.

“How could people miss such a point?” he complains. “Why do they confuse probability and expectation, that is probability and probability times the payoff?” The probability of, say, a nuclear terrorist attack might be tiny but the consequences, the “payoff” as it were, would be huge. It is expectation, not probability, that should determine policy towards terrorism.

The second problem with Mueller’s paper is simple: the low incidence of terrorist outrages occurred when there was already a firm policy in place to prevent it. His argument, the “bloody nuisance” argument, depends on the idea that, without additional measures domestically and internationally, the number of terrorist incidents is unlikely to rise greatly.

There is, however, lots of evidence that crime doesn’t work like that. Instead of falling gently or rising gently in response to policy measures, crime behaves like a contagious disease. Potential offenders catch the idea of offending from each other. And just like a disease that starts with only a few people and becomes an epidemic, once it reaches a tipping point the amount of criminal behaviour explodes.

Why smart people become suicide bombers

What worried many people in the wake of the recent attempted attacks in London and Glasgow, (including Alice Miles in this superb column) was that the alleged attackers were doctors. A tough point to come to terms with if, like me in the past, you argue that there’s a link between social deprivation and terrorism.

Tim Harford, the undercover economist, argues that we shouldn’t be surprised when the most audacious suicide bombings are carried out by highly educated people. For terrorist groups, it’s a matter of brutal efficiency:

All in all, the research that professor Krueger gathers together suggests that if there is a link between poverty, education, and terrorism, it is the opposite of the one popularly assumed. We should not be surprised to find that terrorists can add up, read, and even write prescriptions.

What is more surprising is that the attackers in London and Glasgow were so incompetent. Claude Berrebi and Harvard economist Efraim Benmelech studied —there's no nice way to put this — the human-resources policy of Palestinian terrorist groups. They found that older, better-educated terrorists secured more important suicide missions and killed more people. Having more than a high-school education doubles the chance of escaping capture, for example.

If the terrorists in this case do turn out to be the doctors and other professionals who are, as I write, suspected of the crime, it would demonstrate that even years of education and experience do not guarantee a successful attack. Blowing up innocent people is obviously harder than it looks, and for that we can all be grateful.

So intelligent, yes. But also out of their right minds.

Murad Ahmed

The self-defeating mind of a terrorist

Why does terrorism fail? Due to an evolutionary brain glitch, that's why.

Bruce Schneier, the security analyst, provides readers of Wired and his own blog with a constant stream of fascinating facts about terrorism. His latest post makes use of correspondent inference theory to explain the problem that terrorists face.

He explains the theory thus:

People tend to infer the motives - and also the disposition - of someone who performs an action based on the effects of his actions, and not on external or situational factors. If you see someone violently hitting someone else, you assume it's because he wanted to - and is a violent person - and not because he's play-acting. And - more importantly for this column - if you read about a terrorist, you assume that terrorism is his ultimate goal.

He concludes:

The theory posited here is that terrorist groups that target civilians are unable to coerce policy change because terrorism has an extremely high correspondence. Countries believe that their civilian populations are attacked not because the terrorist group is protesting unfavourable external conditions such as territorial occupation or poverty. Rather, target countries infer the short-term consequences of terrorism - the deaths of innocent civilians, mass fear, loss of confidence in the government to offer protection, economic contraction, and the inevitable erosion of civil liberties - (are) the objects of the terrorist groups.

The whole (reasonably short) post is worth reading, including a link to a paper asssessing the low political success rate of terrorists.

Urban poetry for the politically incorrect

While I’m on the subject of political incorrectness, a colleague told me over lunch that she likes to perform Mel Brooks’s Nazi rap for a friend to cheer him up every once in a while. If you’ve never seen it before, watch it below.

This reminded me of the time I met a very old childhood friend of mine for the first time in years. Without prompting, he started performing a jihadist rap (much like this one). If you’ve ever seen anyone spontaneously rap, you’ll know the first few seconds are amusing, but once someone moves onto the third verse it starts to get a little uncomfortable. Listening to a full jihadi rap made me want to blow myself up.

Only kidding.

Murad Ahmed

This should make you feel safe

Yesterday, Gordon Brown told the House of Commons that the status of radical Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir was being kept under review.

At least when a decision is made, he'll know where to find them.

What drives the engine of terror?

Sunday's Observer brought a superb piece on Islamic fundamentalist terrorism from a former Jihadi. Hassan Butt begins his piece with this cold splash of common sense in the face:

When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.

By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed the 'Blair's bombs' line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology.

The comprehensive guide to terrorism

Want to know more about 30,000 bombings, 13,400 assassinations and 3,200 kidnappings? Then I have the perfect database for you.

The new Global Terrorism Database has information about 80,000 terrorist incidents.

Where is al-Qaeda now?

The global war on terror is set to get, well, even more global. Why? Well, the evidence is that al-Qaeda is trying to spread its bases much further than the caves and deserts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Bruce Riedel, writing in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, surveys the spread of al-Qaeda and finds patterns in where it succeeds and fails.

According to Riedel’s analysis, al-Qaeda has established bases in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan with the aim of overthrowing the governments there. Other emerging targets are Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Bangladesh and Somalia.

Meanwhile attempts to bring down dictatorships governments in other Muslim countries such as Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia (hardly bastions of secular or “moderate” Islam) have failed. In some cases, al-Qaeda has been largely destroyed in those countries.

So what’s the difference between a Somalia and a Jordan?

In Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan, the governments have strengthened the secret police and given them carte blanche to strike al-Qaeda and its sympathisers. The United States and its allies in Europe have also provided additional counterterrorism assistance to the targeted regimes and stepped up cooperation with their security forces.

The lesson is clear: al-Qaeda is still too weak to overthrow established governments equipped with effective security services; it needs failed states to thrive

This might seem like an argument for nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Riedel prescribes different pills for either nation. For Afghanistan:

A critical first step toward decapitating al-Qaeda is for Washington to enhance its commitment in Afghanistan. President Bush promised to do so last February, but more needs to be done. Defeating the resurgent Taliban will require a significant increase in NATO forces, and that will require U.S. leadership. The United States should urgently divert more troops from Iraq to Afghanistan as a way to encourage U.S. allies in Afghanistan to help supply the additional troops and equipment needed. NATO should also encourage its partners in the Mediterranean Dialogue -- especially Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Tunisia -- to contribute to the stabilization of Afghanistan. It should also create a contact group led by a senior NATO diplomat to engage with all of Afghanistan's neighbours to secure the country's borders, especially the 1,500-mile one with Pakistan. This group should include Iran, which has generally been a helpful player in Afghanistan in the last few years. NATO should reach out to India as well: New Delhi has already provided half a billion dollars in aid for Afghanistan, and, having long been a target of Islamist terrorism, India has a national interest in defeating it

But for Iraq:

Iraq is, of course, another critical battlefield in the fight against al-Qaeda. But it is time to recognize that engagement there is more of a trap than an opportunity for the United States. Al-Qaeda and Iran both want Washington to remain bogged down in the quagmire. Al-Qaeda has openly welcomed the chance to fight the United States in Iraq. U.S. diplomacy has certainly been clumsy and counterproductive, but there is little point in reviewing the litany of U.S. mistakes that led to this disaster. The objective now should be to let Iraqis settle their conflicts themselves. Rather than reinforce its failures, the United States should disengage from the civil war in Iraq, with a complete, orderly, and phased troop withdrawal that allows the Iraqi government to take the credit for the pullout and so enhance its legitimacy.

The piece is well worth reading in full.

Murad Ahmed

How useful is the word 'Islamist'?

Both Melanie Phillips and Stephen Pollard are incensed at David Cameron's suggestion that the word "Islamist" should not be used to describe Muslim fundamentalist terrorists. Their argument is that Cameron is denying the ideological basis of the terrorist activity - something that is very dangerous.

Or at least it would be, if that is what Cameron was doing.

Considering that about two and a half people in the country agree with Stephen, Melanie and me about the War on Terror, I prefer to build alliances rather than trying to identify traitors.

This is what Cameron actually said:

We do need greater understanding of the true nature of the terrorist threat. There's too much complacency about it among non-Muslims, and too much denial of it in the Muslim community. But our efforts are not helped by lazy use of language. Indeed, by using the word 'Islamist' to describe the threat, we actually help do the terrorist ideologues' work for them, confirming to many impressionable young Muslim men that to be a 'good Muslim', you have to support their evil campaign.

I have used the term Islamist until now, but is worth at least debating whether using the term is a good idea.

In a fascinating post, Melanie writes about Ed Husain's new book The Islamist. This book shows how his dangerous radicalism grew from small increments in his fundamentalism. At the earliest possible stage - the handing out of a book by a teacher - no distinction was made between dangerous literature and mainstream Muslim thinking.

Perhaps using an alternative phrase to Islamism would help distinguish between the radicals and the rest of Islam. I certainly think this is worth discussing temperately, rather than lambasting anyone for making the suggestion.

But me? I'll go on using Islamism until I can find a better term. It is vital to understand the ideological basis of the terrorist action and telling that Mr Cameron, by his own admission, hasn't got an alternative suggestion.

Real segregation is all in the mind

Last week Nick Johnson, director of policy and public sector at the Commission for Racial Equality, warned that Britain faced US-style racial segregation and growing intercommunal suspicion. His solution was pretty much to bus children around to mix school pupils up so that no school was all black or all Muslim or all white. He said:

Schools are where our children first learn how to get along with people from other cultures and backgrounds

Now consider this about Omar Khyam, the ringleader of the fertiliser bomb plot:

Khyam’s hatred for the West is at odds with his family background. His grandfather was a colonel in the British Army during the Second World War, and many other relatives went on to join the military or intelligence services (ISI). Khyam’s parents deliberately sent him to a predominantly white secondary school, where he became captain of the cricket team

Seems to me that "alienation" and cultural separatism is all in the head of the aggrieved, and is utterly unrelated to whether people are actually segregated or not.

Robbie Millen