Bruce Hoffman

Trends in Outside Support for Insurgent Movements

Abstract : State support or sponsorship of an insurgency as an instrument of foreign policy was common during the Cold War. The United States, the Soviet Union, and a host of regional powers backed their favored proxies, often transforming local quarrels into international contests. The end of the Cold War did not end the use of insurgents, but the dimensions and nature of outside aid and the identity of the providers have changed significantly. Hundreds of millions of dollars no longer regularly flow from Washingtons and Moscows coffers. Leading state sponsors today such as Iran, Rwanda, Angola, and Pakistan, for example, devote far smaller amounts of money and resources to their proxies. Indeed, state support is no longer the only, or necessarily the most important, game in town. Diasporas have played a particularly important role in sustaining several strong insurgencies. More rarely, refugees, guerrilla groups, or other types of non-state supporters play a significant role in creating or sustaining an insurgency, offering fighters, training, or other important forms of support. This report analyzes these changes in the nature of outside support for insurgencies starting with the end of the Cold War. It describes the nature and motivations of state backers and examines the role of diasporas, refugees, and other non-state supporters of insurgencies. The report concludes by assessing which forms of outside support are most important and also offers implications for the analysis of insurgency today.

“Holy terror”: The implications of terrorism motivated by a religious imperative

One of the distinguishing features of international terrorism the past fifteen years has been the resurgence and proliferation of terrorist groups motivated by a religious imperative. Such groups are far more lethal than their secular counterparts, regarding violence as a divine duty or sacramental act conveyed by sacred text and imparted by clerical authority. Moreover, religious terrorism is not restricted to Islamic terrorist groups exclusively in the Middle East. The same characteristics—the legitimization of violence based on religious precepts, the sense of profound alienation and isolation, and the attendant preoccupation with the elimination of a broadly defined category of “enemies”—are also apparent among American Christian white supremacists, among some radical Jewish messianic terrorist movements in Israel, and among radical Sikh movements in India. Finally, as many of these groups embrace strong millennialist or apocalyptic beliefs, we may be on the cusp of a new and potentially more dangerou...

Rethinking Terrorism and Counterterrorism Since 9/11

This article examines what has been learned since 11 September 2001 about the nature of twenty-first-century terrorism, the challenges that it poses, and how it must be countered. It attempts to better understand Usama bin Laden and the terrorist entity that he created and to assess whether we are more or less secure as a result of the U.S.-led actions in Afghanistan and the pursuit of the al Qaeda network. The article considers these issues, placing them in the context of the major trends in terrorism that have unfolded in recent months and will likely affect the future course of political violence.

Al Qaeda, Trends in Terrorism, and Future Potentialities: An Assessment

This article assesses current trends in terrorism and future potentialities. It examines first the presumed state of Al Qaeda today with particular reference to its likely agenda in a post-Iraq War world. It then more broadly focuses on some key current terrorism trends in order to understand better both how terrorism is changing and what the implications of these changes are in terms of possible future attacks and patterns. The discussion is organized along three key questions: (1) What is the state of Al Qaeda today and what effects have nearly two years of unremitting war had on it? (2) What do broader current trends in terrorism today tell us about future potentialities? (3) How should we be thinking about terrorism today and tomorrow?‐

The confluence of international and domestic trends in terrorism

This article assesses the changing nature of terrorism in the 1990s within the context of the growing overlap between international and domestic terrorist trends and its potential implications for aviation security. It argues that the emergence of either obscure, idiosyncratic millenarian movements or zealously nationalist religious groups possibly represent a very different and potentially far more lethal threat than more ‘traditional’ terrorist adversaries. Further, as these threats are both domestic as well as international, the response must therefore be both national and multinational. In this respect, national cohesiveness and organisational preparation will necessarily remain the essential foundation for building the effective multinational approach appropriate to these new threats.

RESPONDING TO TERRORISM ACROSS THE TECHNOLOGICAL SPECTRUM

The ‘revolution in military affairs’ arguably heralds a new era of warfare dominated by the American militarys mastery of the conventional battlefield. This ‘revolution’, however, will have little if any impact on American military capabilities so far as countering terrorism, insurgency, or guerrilla warfare are concerned. With regard to terrorism specifically, a combination of the resurgence of terrorism motivated by a religious imperative and the implications that it has to trigger acts future of mass, indiscriminate violence; the proliferation of ‘amateur’ terrorist groups which may contribute to the loosening of previous self‐imposed constraints on operations and lethality, and the growing sophistication of established, more ‘professional’ groups is likely to lead to higher levels of lethality and destruction than in the past.

Change and Continuity in Terrorism

Received 25 November 2000; accepted 13 April 2001. This article was the after dinner address delivered at the “Terrorism and Beyond: The 21st Century” Conference, co-sponsored by the Oklahoma City National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism and The RAND Corporation, 17 April 2000. Address correspondence to Bruce Hoffman, The RAND Corporation, 1200 South Hayes Street, Arlington, VA 22202-5050 . Change and Continuity in Terrorism

Terrorist targeting: Tactics, trends, and potentialities

This article analyzes recent trends in international terrorism in the context of tactical and technological innovation. It argues that, while terrorists were undeniably more active and considerably more lethal during the 1980s compared to the 1970s, the targets they chose, the weapons they used, and the tactics they employed remained remarkably consistent. Thus radical in their politics, the vast majority of terrorist organizations appear to be conservative in their operations, adhering largely to the same limited operational repertoire year after year. What innovation does occur is mostly in the methods used to conceal and detonate explosive devices, not in their tactics or in their use of nonconventional weapons (i.e., chemical, biological, or nuclear). If, however, terrorist lethality continues to increase and the constraints, self‐imposed and otherwise, imposed on terrorists in the commission of mass murder erode further, actions involving chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons could become more att...

Assessing the Jihadist Terrorist Threat to America and American Interests

Al Qaeda and allied groups continue to pose a threat to the United States. Although it is less severe than the catastrophic proportions of a 9/11-like attack, the threat today is more complex and more diverse than at any time over the past nine years. Al Qaeda or its allies continue to have the capacity to kill dozens, or even hundreds, of Americans in a single attack. A key shift in the past couple of years is the increasingly prominent role in planning and operations that U.S. citizens and residents have played in the leadership of Al Qaeda and aligned groups, and the higher numbers of Americans attaching themselves to these groups. Another development is the increasing diversification of the types of U.S.-based jihadist militants, and the groups with which those militants have affiliated. Indeed, these jihadists do not fit any particular ethnic, economic, educational, or social profile. Al Qaedas ideological influence on other jihadist groups is on the rise in South Asia and has continued to extend into countries like Yemen and Somalia; Al Qaedas top leaders are still at large, and American overreactions to even unsuccessful terrorist attacks arguably have played, however inadvertently, into the hands of the jihadists. Working against Al Qaeda and allied groups are the ramped-up campaign of drone attacks in Pakistan, increasingly negative Pakistani attitudes and actions against the militants based on their territory, which are mirrored by increasingly hostile attitudes toward Al Qaeda and allied groups in the Muslim world in general, and the fact that erstwhile militant allies have now also turned against Al Qaeda. This article is based on interviews with a wide range of senior U.S. counterterrorism officials at both the federal and local levels, and embracing the policy, intelligence, and law enforcement communities, supplemented by the authors’ own research.

Radicalization and Subversion: Al Qaeda and the 7 July 2005 Bombings and the 2006 Airline Bombing Plot

This article analyzes the suicide bomb attacks on four London transportation targets on 7 July 2005 and the plot to bomb simultaneously at least seven American and Canadian passenger airliners as they departed from Londons Heathrow Airport. American, British, and Pakistani authorities thwarted this planned attack in August 2006. Both incidents are among the most important Al Qaeda operations in recent years. Initially, they were dismissed by the authorities, pundits, and the media alike as the work of amateur terrorists—untrained “bunches of guys” acting entirely on their own with no links to Al Qaeda. Subsequent evidence, however, has come to light, which reveals clear links to senior Al Qaeda commanders operating in Pakistans lawless frontier border area with Afghanistan.