Terrorist Targeting, Information, and Secret Coalitions

Tinbergen Institute Discussion Paper 10-001/1

38 Pages Posted: 6 Jan 2010 Last revised: 26 Jan 2010

See all articles by Maurice Koster

Maurice Koster

University of Amsterdam - Department of Quantitative Economics (KE)

Ines Lindner

Free University Amsterdam

Gordon C. McCormick

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Guillermo Owen

Naval Postgraduate School

Date Written: January 5, 2010

Abstract

We consider a game played by a state sponsor of terrorism, a terrorist group, and the target of terrorist attacks. The sponsoring state wishes to see as much damage inflicted on the target of attack as possible, but wishes to avoid retaliation. To do so, his relationship with the terrorist group must remain ambiguous. The target of attack, for his part, wishes to bring these attacks to an end as quickly as possible and will consider the option of retaliating against the sponsor to do so. We approach the problem by introducing an “evidence” variable in a dynamic setting. We show that the interplay of different strategic and non-strategic effects boils down to three qualitatively different scenarios, determined by key parameters. Based on this result, two alternative instruments to retaliation are identified in order to resist terrorist activities. First, assuming that the target is able to change some parameters by monetary investments, the paper provides an economic analysis of how to invest optimally in order to make the sponsor lose incentives to support the terrorist group. Second, we propose changing the structure of the game. Here, the key insight is that the target country can make a unilateral statement as to his strategy. The sponsor cannot do so as he is in fact claiming that there is no cooperation with terrorist groups. While our discussion, in this article, is motivated by an important problem in contemporary counterterrorism policy, it applies more generally to the study of secret coalitions.

Keywords: Secret Coalitions, Security Economics, Noncooperative Games

JEL Classification: C72, D82

Suggested Citation

Koster, Maurice and Lindner, Ines and McCormick, Gordon C. and Owen, Guillermo, Terrorist Targeting, Information, and Secret Coalitions (January 5, 2010). Tinbergen Institute Discussion Paper 10-001/1, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1531477 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1531477

Maurice Koster (Contact Author)

University of Amsterdam - Department of Quantitative Economics (KE) ( email )

Roetersstraat 11
Amsterdam, North-Holland 1018 WB
Netherlands

HOME PAGE: http://www.uva.nl/profiel/k/o/m.a.l.koster/m.a.l.koster.html

Ines Lindner

Free University Amsterdam ( email )

De Boelelaan 1105
1081 HV Amsterdam
Netherlands

Gordon C. McCormick

affiliation not provided to SSRN ( email )

Guillermo Owen

Naval Postgraduate School ( email )

1522 Cunningham Road
Monterey, CA 93943-5201
United States

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