INTRODUCTION Understanding How Terrorist Groups Take Decisions Is

1 | P a g e INTRODUCTION Understanding how terrorist groups take decisions is fundamental to examine their behaviours and motivations. Strategies and goals are important concepts to understand the decision-making behaviour of terrorist groups, as well as to define terrorism. There are different approaches towards the definition of terrorism in the literature. A study of Schmid et al. (1988) yields 109 different definitions. Violence is central to most of them, since almost 84% include the term “violence”. Terrorism could also be defined as being deliberate, political, and symbolic (Crenshaw, 2000). There are more operational definitions that combine these by approaching terrorism as a form of psychological warfare that incites fear and influences the attitudes of a population (Friedland & Merari 1985). These selected components are consistent with the Global Terrorism Database (GTD)’s definition of terrorism, which is “threatened or actual use of illegal force and violence by a non‐state actor to attain a political, economic, religious, or social goal through fear, coercion, or intimidation” (GTD Codebook, 2015: p.8). This paper uses this database as a starting point for its research, therefore it considers this definition to be acceptable. Similar to defining terrorism, approaches to a terrorist strategy is also portrayed differently in the literature. Freedman (2007) indicates a puzzle about whether to treat terrorism as a strategy or an act. Pape (2003) defends that terrorism is strategic rather than a random act, but he narrows his scope to suicide terrorism. Neumann and Smith (2005) provide the dynamics of a terrorist strategy without arguing how these dynamics vary through selection of strategies. Merari (1993) also takes terrorism as a strategic act to reach a predetermined goal, however doesn’t identify distinct types of terrorist strategies. In this regard, Kydd & Walter’s frequently cited article (2006), ‘The Strategies of Terrorism’, is a valuable source that identify specific strategies of terrorist organizations. In their article, five terrorist strategies are explored: attrition, intimidation, provocation, outbidding and spoiling. However, many other strategies, which are explored in the literature and also observed in the recent terrorist attacks, are not addressed by their article. 2 | P a g e A potential reason for this is that Kydd & Walter focus on linking these strategies with long-term goals rather than short-term. They explain the difference between a strategy and a goal, which is essential in the analysis of terrorism. However, their analysis does not focus on the relationship between such goals and terrorist strategies. They do not elaborate upon the connection between which specific goals create certain types of terrorist group strategies. Moreover, the strategies they identify, even if they are viable, are limited in covering many recent cases of terrorism. This study offers an improvement to Kydd & Walter’s approach by proposing that the short-term goals determine the choice of strategy. It extends their analysis through linking specific goals with specific strategies by asking ‘What is the relationship between the short-term goals a terrorist group pursues and the strategies it chooses?’ In order to observe this linkage, a case research is provided that treats short-term goals of the terrorist groups as an independent variable that presumably effect the choice of strategies, which is the dependent variable. This study offers three contributions to the literature: (1) Defining the specific short-term goals of terrorist groups with their links to specific strategies, (2) Exploring strategies that are not analysed in Kydd & Walter’s article but exist in the literature and observed in the case research, (3) Providing up-to-date cases in which these strategies and short-term goals are observed. In order to test the research question, the study empirically analysed 150 cases of recent terrorist attacks that caused highest number of deaths between 2010 and 2016. The findings yield presence of 19 different strategies, including the five strategies explained by Kydd & Walter. These findings also administer a linkage of these strategies to four short-term goals, which are: • Harming the enemy • Increasing recruitment and sympathizers • Increasing area of control 3 | P a g e • Getting attention The terrorist decision making process, as with all decision making processes, follows a framework. The first part of this study deals with the concept of this decision making framework by defining goals and strategies as being its components. Assuming that short- term goals determine the choice of strategies to be applied through attacks, the unit of analysis is the attacks employed by terrorist groups. This section stresses the existence of ambiguity and misconceptions concerning these terms in the literature, and suggests relevant definitions. It also analyses why Kydd & Walter’s argument is not fully consistent with the decision making framework offered by this paper. The second part evaluates the findings of the case study in order to provide evidence to test this hypothesis: The short-term goals that a terrorist group pursues determine the strategies it chooses. Evidence also indicated that Kydd & Walter’s strategies are viable, and other strategies that are not examined in their article do exist in the recent terrorist attacks. LITERATURE REVIEW Definitions and typology of terrorist decision making Defining strategic behaviour is fundamental for analysing terrorist strategies. In the dictionary of economics, strategic behaviour is defined as “making a choice of action with an awareness of how the pay-off depends on the choices of other agents, and taking into account how the choice of action will influence the choices of others” (Black, Hashimzade & Myles, 2013: p.308). The definition of a terrorist strategy should be consistent with the definition of the strategic behaviour. However, in the literature it is usually misinterpreted as a tactic. Tactics are different than strategies. They are the actions and the actual behaviours, whereas a strategy “seeks to identify how best to attain military objectives through the course of a campaign” (Krieger, 2001: p.73). The literature also exemplifies the tactics but it doesn’t identify the strategies behind the choice of one tactic over another (Carter, 2015). Regarding security politics, definition of a strategy could be as simple as ‘the plan 4 | P a g e of attack’ (Mearsheimer, 1983: p.640). This study, therefore, approaches terrorist strategy by defining it as a plan and choice of tactics to reach a goal. Relationship between strategies and goals Goals and strategies of terrorist groups are usually analysed by the literature in order to understand whether terrorism is successful or not. Scholars are divided on this point that some have found evidence that it is successful as a strategy (Kydd & Walter, 2006), and others state that it is not (Abrahms, 2011). Some empirical findings show that only 7% of terrorist groups achieve their aims (Abrahms, 2006), while some scholars insist that terrorism is sometimes successful in achieving short-term goals (Hoffman, 2006). The main difference between these approaches is that one defines terrorist goals as long-term and the other as short-term. In this sense, terrorism could be successful in achieving short- term goals but rarely achieves its long-term goals. Therefore, discerning the difference between the two is not only useful but needed for terrorism research. In the literature, long-term goals are also defined in many ways. Tilly (2004) argues that calling for autonomy, independence, toppling existing governments, or correcting some wrongdoings of an organisation are the long-term goals of terrorist groups. Wilkinson states that ultimate goals of terrorist groups are “nationalism, separatism, racism, vigilantism, ultra-left, religious fundamentalism, millennialism and single issue campaigns” (2001: p.106). San Akca’s (2015: p.8) definition of main objectives as “toppling an existing leadership, changing of regime type, demanding autonomy, secession/territorial demands, demands for policy of terrorist groups” constitutes a good summary. Short-term goals are not extensively examined in the literature, but an approach that defines the need to differentiate long and short term goals exists. Some scholars define terrorism as an instrument “to achieve or help achieve a specified set of long-run and short-run objectives” (McCormick, 2003: p.481). Abrahms (2006) categorises the objectives of terrorists as being ‘maximalist’ and ‘minimalist’ that the latter could be interpreted as short-term goals. Terrorist groups rarely change policies of the targeted population that are rooted in ethnic or religious identities (Gambill, 1998). Therefore, groups have shorter-term goals, which tend to be easier to achieve than the ultimate goals. 5 | P a g e The argument of this study also follows a similar line that short-term goals are proxy steps to achieve longer-term goals. However, it directly links short-term goals to strategies rather than long-term goals within a hierarchical decision making framework. Conceptualizing the Terrorist Decision Making Framework The relationship between long-term goals, short-term goals and strategies could be perceived as components of a terrorist decision making framework. This framework signifies a hierarchical process that starts from setting long-term goals, defining short- term goals as steps towards

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