E-Notes

Terrorism Assumptions and Reality

by Stephen Gale

September 2008

Leaderless Jihad, by Marc Sageman (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008). Review by Stephen Gale, PhD. Dr. Gale is a senior fellow at FPRI, where he co-chairs the Center on Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism, and Homeland Security, and a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania with appointments in the Departments of Regional Science and Political Science.

Marc Sageman’s latest book, Leaderless Jihad, is filled with clear analyses of new information on the behaviors and motivations of terrorists. It also does—as promised—fill a gap in the current research on terrorism by keeping to academic standards for research. If the intent is to show what using academic standards for research on terrorism could do, then Sageman has clearly succeeded. But if the objective is to help us gain insights into what can be done about the threat of terrorism in the future, Leaderless Jihad for the most part fails—and precisely because of what Sageman regards as the strengths of the book.

Sageman wants us to believe that our inability to deal with the threat of terrorism is caused by a failure in our recognition and application of existing institutional standards. The use of academic standards for research and, by extension, the proper application of the findings by the legal system, he believes, should be the foundation for current counterterrorism and homeland security policies. The measure of success, as he sees it, should be based on the degree of coherence and consistency in the research methodologies. For Sageman, the methodological “tail” is what “wags” the results—regardless of whether the research produces effective and efficient operational policies and measures that can be implemented in a timely fashion.

Understanding terrorism is not in itself a discipline or a field of study. Plain and simple, terrorism is a tactic of warfare and expertise is related solely to understanding specific contexts of battles. Sageman is one of the few so-called experts on terrorism with extensive firsthand experience. As a forensic psychiatrist and political sociologist, he has provided real insights into the psychological motivations for Islamist terrorism and has even tried to make sense out of the seemingly complex structures and operations of terrorist groups. As in his first post-9/11 book, Understanding Terror Networks , in Leaderless Jihad he uses psychological and social psychological data and analysis as the means of gaining insight into terrorists and the organization of terrorist groups. In both books, however, he falls into a variety of very serious intellectual and pragmatic traps.

Sageman is locked into a form of intellectual inertia that provides the framework—and the boundaries—to both his way of thinking and his standards of reasoning. Psychological and social-psychological analyses can, for example, help us to understand the motivations of individual terrorists and terrorist groups. However, it is not at all clear whether these types of analysis can really help to answer the questions that are at the heart of the efforts needed for counterterrorism and homeland security. Nor is it even clear whether Sageman’s call for the use of the “scientific method” is relevant. The “wag” of Sageman’s methodological “tail” has effectively led him into an intellectual trap in which the value of academic precision and objectivity has effectively obscured the fact that his quest may be intellectually sound but, ultimately, is pragmatically empty.

As with any form of analysis, scientific or otherwise, the core concern is with what questions are to be answered. In Sageman’s case, the questions have more to do with academic concerns than with questions that are relevant to effective and efficient counterterrorism and homeland security policies and measures. What we really need is clear thinking about how to sort out what has become a highly complex, dynamic world of terrorist threats.

Sageman would like us to believe that, by using the methods of scientific inquiry, we can explain the appeal of radical Islamist movements and, ultimately, use this understanding to help reduce its attraction, and perhaps even cause members to separate themselves from the movement. In effect, Sageman believes that counterterrorism and homeland security policies and measures should be driven by a combination of the “medical and legal models” of diagnostics and cure: find the causes of the “disease” and then diminish their effects on the “patients” through interventions aimed at preventing its spread, controlling its impacts, and/or severing the connections altogether. His argument is that the allure of terrorist groups can be diminished or even neutralized by showing “patients” that, in the end, jihadism will not be successful. Sageman also argues that the futility of using acts of terrorism to bring about political and social change relies upon our effective use of the legal system in arresting and successfully prosecuting terrorists.

With a strong database containing the history of individuals in the world’s various jihadist groups, Sageman demonstrates how radicals have swayed individuals and how, through interventions aimed at reducing the appeal of terrorism, we can diminish or even eliminate the attraction. With Sageman’s method, there is a bit of “patients heal thyself” and a strong dose of institutional hubris concerning the legal system’s ability to reduce the threat in a definitive and timely manner. In effect, Sageman provides us with an academically and legally sound two-step method for reducing the allure of terrorism. On the downside, however, there are, of course, the problems associated with getting this message to the terrorists and doing so in a manner in which the impacts of his procedure are recognized before the terrorists have had the time to continue their attacks. In the abstract, Sageman’s approach is methodologically tidy. What it lacks is a clear sense of just what sorts of actions we will need to take in the near-term.

The whole of Leaderless Jihad is, in fact, premised on the potential effectiveness of both his “scientific” analyses of the motivations of terrorists and the use of law enforcement methods in dealing with terrorists—assumptions that are, for Sageman, neither discussed nor open for argument. Time for Sageman is measured not by the timing of the terrorists’ game plan, but by the tick of the academic and legal clocks.

In effect, the credibility of Leaderless Jihad is based on two critical beliefs/assumptions. First is that it is possible to create a meaningful database of the factors associated with the behaviors and motivations of terrorists and would-be terrorists. As with Networks, the objectivity of the data is at the heart of Sageman’s belief in the strength of his database and his methods of analysis.

Second, Sageman believes that terrorism can—and should—only be dealt with through the use of existing legal procedures and institutions. In effect, he rejects any implication that acts of terrorism may, in fact, be acts of war. Notwithstanding the fact that the destruction and deaths on 9/11 were on a par with the impacts of the Japanese Empire’s attacks on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Sageman would have us believe that counterterrorism and homeland security measures must be treated as matters for the judicial system.

Sageman builds his entire case in Leaderless Jihad on two beliefs that are unverifiable. Who is going to deny the value of the scientific method? Who would claim that acts of terrorism are not violations of any number of legal statutes? Just as we in the West naturally look to legal systems as the means for controlling illegal actions (such as terrorism), so too do we in the West have faith in the scientific method as a means for explaining and understanding behaviors and motivations.

I will certainly not stand against the use of the scientific method and the legal system. But readers of Leaderless Jihad should also remember that both science and the law have limitations. Sageman has built a database of the characteristics of individual terrorists from the available public records. What he has not been able to do, however, is to account for the inevitable response bias or even the forms of “ecological fallacy” that always accompanies the classification and categorization processes. All said and done, while Sageman’s analyses and conclusions have the appearance of the authenticity of science, there are nevertheless a wide variety of problems in the application of the scientific method where the raw observations are drawn from a wide variety of public records.

Similarly, legal systems have been developed for organizing and regulating actions within nation-states—although there are examples of the application of international legal codes, these have generally been contentious and difficult to enforce, particularly where the actions are intended to be acts of war. We in the West may have faith in our methods of science and jurisprudence, but that faith is founded not on worldwide acceptance of our standards, but simply on our desire to reduce the complexities associated with the use of a variety of standards.

As social scientists are all too well aware, developing meaningful samples from elusive populations—and particularly from sources of information that are themselves very weak—often leads to highly questionable inferences. And, to his credit, Sageman seems to be conscious of this problem. Notwithstanding this potentially very significant methodological limitation, however, Sageman plows ahead with the construction of a database that is then employed in statistical analyses of the characteristics of groups and classes. But while Sageman does give a nod to the limitations of his methods, his only recourse is to the time-honored tradition that points to the need for further study and verification by other “scientists.”

All this adds up to the use of a rather interesting collection of observations in what turns out to be a weak statistical analysis of the motivations and behaviors of groups of terrorists and potential terrorists. This approach is, however, wrong-headed if what we need are methods for dealing with the kinds of terrorism that we fear today. Explanations of this type may provide insights and, at times, even very modest predictions; however, they rarely provide the needed basis for changing behaviors in a timely manner.

Aside from the problems resulting from his belief that the “scientific method” should be at the heart of any analysis of terrorists and terrorist groups, Sageman also falls into a far more important trap. Sageman ignores not only the findings of the July 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, but also the wealth of evidence that has al Qaeda very much alive and reasonably well. In a sense, it almost seems as if Sageman’s beliefs about the importance of “informal local groups” are linked more to the need to support his call for the use of the legal system than it is on any evidence.

In effect, if al Qaeda were moribund and power had shifted to local groups, then the use of local law enforcement procedures just could be a viable means for reducing the current threat. On the other hand, if there is a much higher level of centralization and coordination of terrorist actions aimed at defeating the U.S. and the West, Sageman’s assumption about the role of the legal system would simply be a non-starter. Given the failure of his assumptions, Sageman’s analysis of the current terrorism threat and the means that could be used to reduce the threat thus turns out to be on shaky ground. In the end, Leaderless Jihad is thus a “scientific” and legal analysis predicated on unproven assumptions couched in the terminology of “science” and the law.

The greatest strength of Leaderless Jihad is the wealth of raw observations Sageman has put together. The raw data, for example, provide not only the foundation for Sageman’s database, but could also provide the core information needed for the development of “mini case studies” of individuals that have been involved in one or another terrorist group. Regrettably, Sageman does not want us to see the data as a basis for case studies; rather, he wants us to believe that that its real value is as a sufficiently robust sample that can be used as the basis for statistical inferences about the behaviors and motivations of individuals and groups. Sageman erroneously believes in the value of his methodological “tail” and that methodology, not the effectiveness and efficiency of potential solutions, is what will carry the day.

I hope that Leaderless Jihad is simply Sageman’s way of expressing his very real concerns about the U.S.’s and the West’s very limited options for dealing with the terrorist threat: in the absence of a neutralized al Qaeda and without the ability to use law enforcement methods in a far more effective manner, there may indeed be no simple ways to understand and deal with terrorism. If this is the case, then I can only wonder why Sageman was not more forthright in Leaderless Jihad. At face value, the book remains an odd sort of text. But if it is a description of the kinds of problems that we in the U.S. and the West will continue to face if al Qaeda is not neutralized and if law enforcement is not given the tools needed to deal with terrorists, it could serve as an important call for change.

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