Strategies for preventing terrorism

1. Strategies for preventing terrorism Lecture by Tore Bjørgo Professor of Police Science Norwegian Police University College; Senior Research Fellow Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI)

2. Main strategies for preventingterrorism • Incapacitation of (potential) terrorists by removing their capacities for carrying out action • Deterrence by threat of retaliation or punishment • Averting planned terrorist attacks • Situational prevention by increasing difficulties, costs and risks, and reducing the rewards and excuses for carrying out terrorist attacks • Social and political prevention by reducing root causes and motivations for violent radicalisation • Disengagement from terrorism – making individuals and groups discontinue their involvement in terrorism Dato Tittel

3. Principles and inclinations • The same measure may effect several different mechanisms and be part of several strategies simultaneously. Detention may e.g. be a means in the strategies of incapacitation, deterrence and averting. • Preventive actors tend to select their strategies and measures on the basis of their own capacities and political/cultural values. • Some actors have a strong preference for one single strategy as the only effective one. However, different strategies may and should complement each other. • Some strategies may also undermine other strategies, e.g. “kill or capture” vs. ”winning hearts and minds”. • Threat = Capacity X Intention

4. Incapacitation • Mechanism: ”Kill or capture”, removing the capacity of violent actors to make more damage • Actors: Military forces, police, prison services • Measures: (Violent) force, detention • Advantages: • Effective when taking key activists and groups with limited membership out of action • Governments usually possess relevant capacities • Limitations and negative side effects: • May have limited effects in groups with a high recruitment and a strong social basis • May reinforce recruitment and extremism • Repression may undermine human rights and the moral legitimacy of the state

5. Deterrence • Mechanism: Increasing the costs of terrorism by (threat of) punishment / retaliation to reduce motivation • Actors: Criminal justice system, military force, death squadrons • Measures: Repression, violent force, punishment, media attention, economic and diplomatic sanctions • Advantages: • May be particularly effective towards state sponsors of terrorism • Popular! May increase support public support of the government • Limitations and negative side effects: • Limited effects towards highly motivated terrorists, in particular suicide terrorists • Difficult to strike at actors which can not be located • May easily hit innocent third parties (“collateral damage”), e.g. family members of suicide terrorists • May turn the state into a mirror image of the terrorists • May reinforce the spiral of violence without addressing root causes • May play into the hands of terrorists, making governments respond in ways where they weaken and undermine themselves

6. Averting planned terrorist attacks • Mechanism: Preventing terrorists from carrying through prepared attacks by disclosing and stopping them in advance • Actors: Intelligence and security agencies, police, the public, news media • Measures: • Intelligence, in particular HUMINT • Apprehending terrorist before they act • Security controls • Information sharing between agencies • Information to the public • Advantages: • Targeted and concrete, saving lives, reducing suffering • High legitimacy, reinforcing confidence in the police and government • May break a potential cycle and escalation of violence • Limitations and negative side effects: • Innocent people may become targets of surveillance and arrests • Danger of stigmatising ethnic and religious minorities • Risk of striking too early for conviction or too late to prevent disaster • Requires highly competent personnel to interpret intelligence data correctly • Some prepared actions may slip through

7. Situational prevention (1): • Mechanisms: • Identify and remove possibilities for specific types of terrorist action. Influence capacities as well as intentions • Increase the efforts needed to carry through a specific attack (target hardening; control access to facilities; deflect offenders; control weapons and other tools and substances) • Increase the risksfor detection (assist natural surveillance and increase formal surveillance; reduce anonymity; extend guardianship and place managers) • Reduce the rewards for a specific terrorist action (reduce access to attractive targets; do not give in to blackmail; reduce publicity; deny benefits) • Reduce provocations which may trigger terrorist action • Remove excuses for carrying out acts of terrorism

8. Situational prevention (2): • Actors: Many! (Security guards, control agencies, various authorities, place owners, business organisations, the public, etc.) • Measures: Large spectre of possible means • Advantages: • Often immediate and measurable effects on specific problems. • Targeted, but may also impact other types of crime. • Limitations and side effects: • May displace terrorist attacks from hardened targets to “softer” targets • Increased security measures may create a control society: the Big Brother Syndrome • May also reduce other problems

9. Situational prevention (3): • Identify vulnerable targets • Prioritise targets according to needs for protection • Risk = Probability X Consequence • Analyse the specific vulnerability of the targets • Think terrorist! • Identify possible weapons and methods terrorists may use to hit targets • Find ways to limit the terrorists’ access to targets • Introduce adequate protective measures • Identify how terrorists may try to bypass protective measures, and introduce new counter-measures.

10. Social and political prevention: removing root causes of terrorism • Mechanism: Reduce motivation for terrorism by removing root causes and frustrations • Two kinds of root causes: Preconditions and precipitants • Actors: Governments, other political actors, NGOs, peace mediators, etc. • Measures: Conflict resolution, political processes, social development, non-discrimination, rule of law, etc. • Advantages: May have positive effects other social and political problems than terrorism alone • Limitations and negative side effects: • There is no single root cause of terrorism but many and complex • Many root causes are difficult to solve (e.g. protracted conflicts, deeply ingrained social problems) • Measures will often take a long time before they make an impact • Effects are difficult to measure • Terrorism is frequently sustained by other reasons than those which gave rise to the terrorist campaign initially

11. Make terrorists quit terrorism • Mechanisms: Make active terrorists quit, individually or collectively. Remove motivation for terrorism • Actors: Governments, criminal justice system, NGOs • Measures: Amnesty, witness (protection) programmes, negotiations, political processes, alternatives to violence • Advantages: • May make an end to terrorist campaignes • May reduce violence and suffering • May reduce the size of terrorist groups and prevent recruitment • May cause internal splits and weaken the terrorist group • May provide vital intelligence and witnesses in court cases • Limitations and negative side effects: • May mainly have an impact on declining terrorist groups • Amnesty programmes may easily be abused; risk of recidivism • Amnesty may be difficult to accept by the victims of terrorism • May undermine principles of the rule of law and sense of justice

12. Main strategies for preventingterrorism: • Short-term preventive strategies • Incapacitation • Deterrenceby threat of retaliation or punishment • Averting planned terrorist attacks • Situational prevention • Long-term preventive strategies • Social and political prevention by reducing root causes and motivations for violent radicalisation • Disengagement from terrorism – making individuals and groups discontinue their involvement in terrorism • Main challenge: To make short-term and long-term strategies support rather than undermine each other Dato Tittel