How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns

by Audrey Kurth Cronin

Fourth, and related, talks can divide followers of a cause into factions; this tendency may enable a state to hive off different parts of a movement and to turn them against each other. “Divide and conquer” works just as well in counterterrorism as it does in other types of conflict—in some respects, better.

States are mainly overt actors, terrorist groups mainly covert: anything that increases the information available to the government increases its relative strength.

Interesting observation

Quite apart from the effects that talks have on current members of violent groups, negotiations provide an alternative narrative for passive supporters or neutral observers of a group’s activities.

Negotiations can be a way to shift public opinion within a group’s constituency, even if the group itself has no genuine interest in conciliatory measures and the state has no interest in offering them. The attempt alone has appeal.

Israel--Hamas

Many people counter that negotiations only add legitimacy to a group or to a cause, demonstrating that terrorism “wins.” In this view, a government that has maintained it will not negotiate with terrorists, but is then forced to alter its position, loses credibility.8

In the face of an inflexible government policy, subsequent talks may seem to demonstrate that groups can “bomb their way” to the negotiating table. Likewise, for a fragile government coalition, negotiations may be so controversial that continued attacks are preferable to collapsed political support or even sectarian discord among factions within the state in response to concessions. Not uncommonly, governments prefer terrorist attacks that can be blamed on others to the disintegration of their own side: as painful as they might be, riding out terrorist attacks may be the least bad alternative for a weak or faltering government. Ending terrorism is not always the top priority.

Even political leaders in strong governments, with a mandate to negotiate, may be harmed by disappointing outcomes if they undertake talks.

Petro--FARC

On the other hand, a state’s refusal to engage in talks may enhance a group’s position with its constituency, strengthening the argument that the only way to get the attention of the state is to commit increasingly violent acts.

Israel--Hamas

Perspective matters: the incentives and disincentives to negotiate look different depending on whether you are the sovereign power seeking the status quo (or status quo antebellum), or the challenger entity using terrorism. If the goal is to understand how negotiations end terrorism, then focusing exclusively on the calculus of the incumbent side (as most studies do) analyzes only half of the equation. The behavior of groups that use terrorism is equally important, as are the reactions of the audiences observing them.

There are important differences between state-to-state coercion and bargaining, and state-to-terrorist group bargaining. For one thing, most states want a conflict to end (albeit on their own terms); it cannot be assumed that most terrorist organizations want this, and many do not.

Nor do terrorist groups behave in the same way as factions in a civil war, being typically smaller and less likely to hold territory. Whether effected in the presence of external stabilizing powers or not, cease-fires are difficult to negotiate if one side has little else besides its ability to strike.13 Terrorists signal through surprise violence. Without violence, some feel that they have no voice.

Transferring models that apply to insurgencies or guerrilla warfare may likewise be an error, as terrorists groups may not have the broad support of a constituency. Although they engage in rational strategic behavior, groups are not unitary rational actors.

Most terrorist groups choose not to negotiate at all.

only about 18 percent of recent terrorist groups have actually negotiated. In other words about 82 percent of the almost five hundred groups that by virtually any scholarly definition engaged in “terrorism” did not enter negotiations.

18% of Recent Terrorist Groups have entered negotiations with a State Actor

Groups that negotiate have longer average life-spans than others, and nearly always pursue (or have in the past pursued) causes related to control of territory. This is as might be expected, since many are connected in some way to the decolonization movement of the latter twentieth century.17 In our analysis, the mean among group life-spans that have negotiated over their fundamental aims was between 20 and 25 years, while the figure for terrorist groups overall was 5–9 years.18 There is a strong, statistically significant relationship between participation in negotiations and longer group life-spans.

popular international ideologies spur and catalyze terrorism, but they do not fully define its goals over time.

Globalization of O7/Palestinian Justice/Global South/Leftists

Another interesting conclusion emerging from the data is that, among those 18 percent that did negotiate, the proportion of talks that clearly failed is small: only about 1 in 10.20 (See table A.2.) About half of the groups that negotiated continue to be active in their violence, although usually at a lower level of intensity and frequency. On the other hand, in the 9 out of 10 cases where talks have not failed outright, very few groups can be said to have fully achieved their objectives through negotiations.

Generalizing about the goals of a group, labeling groups “absolutist,” or “contingent,” or even “rational” or “irrational,” may say more about an observer’s superficial understanding than it does about the group’s inherent logic, negotiability, or staying power.

The Mitchell Commission report recommended a “two track process,” with decommissioning running in parallel with negotiations. The report also put forward six steps to nonviolence, later known as the Mitchell Principles.

by the early 1990s both sides of the sectarian divide seemed to sense a stalemate, with a danger that the relentless tit-for-tat violence could escalate.

A second important element was the increasing sense of the investment that all sides had in the process. All of the parties found it increasingly difficult to return fully to an armed strategy, although splinter groups continued their armed dissent.

Third, the Good Friday Agreement was an extraordinarily complex document, containing what might be called areas of deliberate “strategic ambiguity” that enabled participants to describe the accord in terms that were palatable to their constituents.

Pro-unionist negotiators argued that the accord had maintained the union and perpetuated British sovereignty. On the other hand, Sinn Féin argued that its constitutional agenda was being advanced, and highlighted the practical security concessions made and the enhanced role for the party in governing the territory alongside the British government. The hostile reactions by some unionist factions may have made it easier for the republicans to sell the accord to their supporters.59 Clarity would have been undermining. Finally, the changing international context within which the negotiations occurred was crucial. Right from the outset local participants on both sides drew parallels with conflicts in other regions, particularly in South Africa and Israel/Palestine.60

The example of the Palestine Liberation Organization (and its various factions and offshoots) is often cited by those who assert the futility of negotiating with terrorist groups.

These negotiations were a joke lol

As a grassroots, mass uprising, the intifada gave Palestinians a national identity that they had not had before, returning their cause to the forefront of world attention and resulting in pressure on the Israelis to negotiate over an independent Palestinian state. The intifada likewise changed the nature of Palestinian internal political dynamics, undercutting PLO/Fatah dominance and encouraging the rise of more extreme, radical factions, especially Hamas, spurring the PLO leadership to reassert its authority. The uprising demonstrated that the Palestinians, some half of whom had by now been born under Israeli rule, considered their leadership remote from the daily realities of life in the West Bank and Gaza.68 But it also exacted an enormous economic cost and demonstrated that a popular uprising could not, in the end, succeed in forcing the Israelis to abandon the occupied territories. By 1990, the intifada had lost direction and Palestinian groups were fighting mainly among themselves: in 1991, the Israelis killed fewer Palestinians (about 100) than did the Palestinians themselves (about 150).69 On the Israeli side, the intifada had demonstrated the limitations of military force against popular resistance, with the role of occupier causing serious strain on values and social cohesion.70 The IDF’s killing of so many civilians, particularly children (most of whom admittedly were throwing stones), was shocking and earned worldwide condemnation.71

Terrorism during the second intifada therefore does not seem to be directly related to the peace process, but instead to internal dynamics among competing Palestinian factions.

Judging the outcome of the peace process directly according to the situation that held when each phase began is an oversimplification. The choice to enter negotiations itself changed the dynamics of the violence. The violence would probably have proceeded in its absence, and probably at higher levels. The process itself may have engendered attacks, but the absence of a process might also have done so. Thus the real question is not whether violence went up or down over the course of the negotiations, but—a much more complex assessment—whether it was higher or lower than what it would have been in the absence of talks.106

The Palestinians began to see terrorist attacks as complementary to the peace process instead of at odds with it, because they believed that negotiations alone would never lead to Israel’s withdrawal. Polls indicate that the peace process was not perceived as at odds with the violence, but rather as another dimension for carrying it out, even as the much-desired benefits of heightened security for Israelis and better daily life for Palestinians continued to elude them both.

Alternating talking and fighting has characterized the conflict in Sri Lanka from the outset.

Framing this case only as terrorism is not accurate, as the conflict is as much a large insurgency against the Sri Lankan military as it is a classic terrorist campaign targeting civilians.

A wide range of variables can determine the efficacy of negotiations to end terrorism, including the nature of the organization of the group (hierarchical groups having an advantage over groups that cannot control their members’ actions), the nature of the leadership of the group (groups with a strong leader having an advantage over those that are decentralized), and the nature of public support for the cause (groups with constituencies who support peace being more likely to compromise). There must also be negotiable aims, which are more likely to exist with territorially based groups than with those that primarily espouse left-wing, right-wing or religious/spiritualist ideologies—although a careful study of the record indicates that over time groups evolve in their goals, or their dedication to them, invalidating superficial assumptions on this score.128

The overall quantitative analysis of groups, in combination with the three case studies examined in more depth here, indicate that whether negotiations are likely to succeed or not hinges on seven key factors: a political stalemate, strong leadership on both sides, whether or not there are third-party sponsors, the presence of suicide attacks, the splintering of groups (and government coalitions), the role of spoilers, and the international setting.

Negotiations are most likely to be initiated when both sides sense that they have achieved a situation where additional violence is counterproductive.

Governments may employ military strategies of attrition; terrorist groups largely cannot.

Zartman also detailed four stages of insurgency—articulation, mobilization, insurgency, and warfare.

As terrorist campaigns are above all characterized by sharp imbalances that drive groups to target civilians, negotiations are least of all likely to resolve them alone.

Contrary to popular perception, the political context within which talks occur is more important than the substance of the talks.

Governments must be mindful that there is no guarantee that the military situation will be improved by negotiations, especially in the short term.

Some sources on conflict resolution argue that a change of leadership can increase the likelihood of succeeding in negotiations. Charles King, for example, argues that, in civil wars, leadership changes often offer promising opportunities for negotiations, especially in situations where the presence of a key leader is the primary obstacle to peace, and his successors all want peace.136 It is not at all clear that this dynamic operates in the same way with campaigns that are characterized mainly by terrorism, however.137

Although negotiations may serve other purposes, such as determining the priorities of the disaggregated parts and exploring the potential to buy them off, groups that persist often become more difficult following a leadership change.

On the government side, the importance of strong leadership is commonly recognized and highly valued, as is strong bipartisan consensus in favor of a peace process.140 Negotiations by democratic states are virtually impossible without both. But as reviled as he is likely to be, a strong, charismatic terrorist leader who pursues talks and can at least pretend to be relatively untainted by the violence can be equally crucial.

The role of third-party states is crucial, as are mediators, outside guarantors, and other external actors willing to push along or support negotiations.

early facilitators for talks are especially important in negotiations, both because terrorist groups are normally clandestine and hard to reach, and because the domestic political cost to a government that engages with a terrorist group is potentially high.

Ensuring continued interaction of the parties, providing a potential avenue out of terrorism, offering the elusive hope of a peace dividend may be the best that can be expected for a while. For this reason, international lawyers may not be the best agents for change in terrorist conflicts: good agreements may heighten the hopes of beleaguered constituencies by avoiding the brittleness of legal contracts between states. Clarity in the negotiations is not necessarily a desirable goal, and can indeed undermine long-term prospects for peace.

The inclusion of suicide attacks in a terrorist campaign seems to make resolution through negotiation even more problematic, as it reduces the willingness or ability of the factions to live side by side. Negotiations occurring in the aftermath (or midst) of suicide campaigns are especially difficult to conclude successfully, for a number of reasons. The constituencies involved are more than ever driven to be separated from each other territorially; intermingling among different ethnic, religious, or national groups becomes virtually impossible when civilian counterparts might be human bombs. Suicide terrorism is a problem not only for security forces manning checkpoints, but also for ordinary people going about their daily activities in the fear that other ordinary human beings among them might want to destroy them all. Almost nowhere is safe. In addition, the attention given to attacks that involve suicide is higher than for normal attacks.145 The operatives’ deaths that are so publicly part of such attacks are a kind of communal “sacrifice investment” that in itself raises the stakes, as it is very difficult for communities to admit that human life has been purposely discarded in vain.146 Suicide attacks both engender and reflect an arguably unique level of ideological commitment by the operative. It is therefore especially difficult to remove the negotiations from the angry passions that surround them. The level of personal distrust imbued by suicide attacks may also be...

Despite the successful negotiated outcomes that can result between the major parties, a common effect of political processes is the splintering of groups into factions that support the negotiations (or their outcome) and those that do not.

From a counterterrorist perspective, dividing groups can be a purpose of the negotiations, as it isolates and potentially strangles the most radical factions.150

As in traditional war, governments confront huge difficulties negotiating with organizations with which they are still fighting.

According to one study of the efficacy of terrorist attacks in the context of negotiations, between 1988 and 1998, 14 peace agreements were signed between parties to civil wars. If terrorist attacks occurred in association with the talks, only one in four peace treaties were put into effect. If they did not occur, 60 percent took effect.154 The record for accords where the principal type of violence is terrorism is likely worse.

Modeling negotiations between terrorist groups and governments as a dichotomous “game,” as in the study of Hamas, distorts as much as it clarifies: because of the inherent asymmetry of the violence involved and the parties engaging in it, peace processes with terrorist organizations are never a simple matter of two parties interacting as if they were at war, for example.