The Future of Terrorism

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The Future of Terrorism

• John L. Petersen
• The Arlington Institute

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1. Understand the System
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Global Environment
Domestic Environment
Issues
Issues
Basic Inputs
Basic Inputs
Terrorists
Us
Support
Support
Political Financial - Organizational
Political
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Basic Inputs

• Pervasive Western media images Hollywood
• Rise in global communications technology driving
  . . .
• Rapid globalization
• Poverty, lack of hope
• Relative level of social development

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e.g. Roots of terrorism

• The roots of terrorism do not lie in American
  foreign policy, but in the extremely abusive
  families of the terrorists.
• Children who grow up to be Islamic terrorists are
  the products of a misogynist, fundamentalist
  system that segregates the family into separate
  areas.

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Basic Inputs

• About ethos and mores . . .
• Memes
• Ideas and concepts that are so strong that they
  drive behavior
• Not fashion
• Method of defining social development

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This is why . . .

• From surveys in Iraq
• For the Islamic world, fundamental differences
  are around
• Sex and women
• Tribal orientation
• In most areas of terrorist conflict one society
  is essentially focused on the past, while the one
  essentially looks toward the future

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Memes

• The two most crucial elements of a meme
• The information that it transmits
• Its need to replicate that information
• Removal or deliberate edition of the memes
  information will result in a complete change in
  its character.
• Example A mutation in a gene, when found to be
  interfering with the function of an essential
  protein, will have harmful if not lethal
  implications.

Source Richard J. Pech
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Memes

• It can be argued that certain violent acts become
  immortalized.
• Some individuals justify their violent behaviors
  by projecting themselves into the role and
  circumstances of their hero predecessor.
• These memes are transmitted through the media,
  and are generally emphasized with words such as
  terrifying, traumatized, horrified, frightening,
  etc.
• Certain individuals and groups are emotionally
  aroused and feel justified in their actions when
  associating their circumstances with the message
  conveyed by such memes.

Source Richard J. Pech
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How memetic engineering can inhibit the
replication of an act of terrorism
Terrorist meme provides inspiration and momentum

• Media Influence
• Disinhibition
• Formation of aggressive
• scripts
• Cognitive priming

Memetic engineering
State of disidentification provides
justification, motivation, and a state of
pitilessness
mimic
Primed and motivated
Act of terrorism
Source Richard J. Pech
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Sensationalizing Terrorism

• Re-labeling acts will curtail the copying
  process, as communication of the violent act
  cannot evolve into a meme, a cognitive behavior
  that is copied from mind to mind, thereby
  inhibiting the replication process.
• Oklahoma Coward or Washington Weakling
• Sniper, raises to a level of respectability and
  copying will occur as a result of such a
  conceptual transformation.
• Conversely, by attaching a socially unacceptable
  label to such random acts of violence, there will
  be no bonding or connection with the offender,
  thereby makng the act undesirable and less likely
  to be copied.
• The question is, will the media allow such items
  to be de-sensationalized.

Source Richard J. Pech
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Advancing Technology
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Technological Changes

• In the 21st century we are facing technological
  changes that will dwarf in their effects all
  previous technological changes put together.
• Will this have a net effect of making
  civilization easier or harder to defend?
• One view these advances will make civilization
  harder to defend.

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Assume State-Sponsored Terrorism is Extinct

• Survivors will be splinter groups, rogue
  operations, and individuals.
• As of now, that is less of a threat than a large
  network. But the power of the individual keeps
  increasing as technology increases.
• Eventually, we are going to have to develop the
  capability to identify and thwart a lone
  terrorist with no connections to anyone.

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Sustaining a Defense

• A massive worldwide surveillance society,
  Sensors would be deployed throughout the world to
  watch for dangerous actions by individuals.

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Possibility

• Developing an info structure that allows
  positive control of people via invasive
  chipping ala pet I.D.s of people/populations
  of interest and wide area biometric and visual
  populations/vehicle tracking nets of the rest
• Non-citizens and citizen criminal parolees will
  be invasively chipped first as conditions of long
  term entry and parole release. This is an
  administrative law end run on a large number of
  civil rights laws that will past constitutional
  muster given who is being chipped.

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Wild Card A Global Surveillance Society

• In a world of no privacy there will need to be a
  counter value proposition to keep civil unrest
  during the transition through, the right to self.
  That is speech, cognition, emotions, sensations.
  Give people the right to do what they want with
  their body and mind, so far as it doesnt impinge
  or hurt someone else and then I could imagine a
  relatively peaceful transition to giving up all
  privacy.

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Wild Card

• Breakthrough in Technology Capabilities
• Cell networking
• Smart Mobs

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Cynefin Domain
Hidden Order CE discoverable
Complex Un-order CE coherent in retrospect
ProbeSenseRespond
Sense Analyse Respond
Visible Order CE obvious
Chaotic Un-order No perceivable CE
ActSenseRespond
SenseCategorise Respond
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Wild Card

• Change in Nature of Threat
• Decapitate terrorist leadership
• Produce continuing chaotic attacks

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Challenges of small terrorist groups

• No deterrence is possible.
• Retaliation is very difficult.
• One cannot strike leaders as there is no
  hierarchy.
• There may be no doctrine to attack by suasion.
• Further, if there are temporary alliances,
  between terrorist cells, very large targets can
  be attacked on occasion with enormous effect.

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Wild Card

• Consolidation of Forces
• Drugs/militia/terrorists/ecoterrorists
• Shining Path hooked up with narcos

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Wild Card

• Change in Global Environment
• Exogenous - Rapid climate change
• Related- Big bomb Patriot Act V

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Wild Card

• BSE gets into the food chain
• Large-scale serious concern
• Americans Turn Against Government

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So What is Going On?
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Large-scale social evolution

• The diffusion of destructive power outward into
  smaller and smaller groups is the main physical
  driving force for democracy and egalitarianism
• It is also empowering terrorists
• Major social evolution

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Alternative Futures
Two Front War
9/11
UNCERTAINTY
Iraq War
Mortgaging the Future
Learning
UNCERTAINTY
The Great Islamic War
No Learning
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John L. Petersen

• The Arlington Institute
• www.arlingtoninstitute.org
• johnp_at_arlingtoninstitute.org

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The Future of .

• I could see a nut releasing airborne Ebola onto a
  city street. Sensors on nearby citizens start
  screaming in their ear, and relaying the data via
  wireless to BioContam servers to be evaluated by
  programs. Sensor in the doorway of the nearby
  Starbucks also begin screaming.
• Im down the street, and my cell phone calls get
  overridden with a computer voice telling me of a
  serious biohazard in the vicinity. I also see
  flashing signs up the street that are embedded
  into the sidewalk that glare warning the color
  changes to red as the viral cloud disperses down
  the street toward me. Then as Ive trained myself
  to, I hit the 1 button on my cell phone which
  gets me a pre-chosen menu of date from the net on
  things like local airspeed, symptoms, etc. . .
• My right hand is reaching behind me to the
  robovalet that carries my stuff. I take the
  biohazard equipment that is on the robovalet, and
  don it quickly. Sensors in the suit alert me to
  an open vent that Id forgotten to close.

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• The cloud reaches me, but Im safe behind my thin
  shield.
• Down the street, the nutter reaches for another
  vial. One of those nearest to him, a guy,
  realizes whats going on, and did not bother to
  put on his suit, He shoots the nutter between
  the eyes. Only one vial gets released. The
  others are set for a dead man's relay, but a
  smart lady tosses the thing in a post office box.
• Helicopters from Decontam and the Emergency
  Services are already spinning up, and shortly the
  E.R. people are grabbing the infected and tossing
  them in sealed containers which have sterilizing
  liquids in them.
• The virus has barely time to set up shop, and
  counter-insurgency troops in the form of drugs
  are hunting for it already.
• My boss wonders why Im an hour late to work, but
  I show him the note from my cell phone form the
  Decontam medic, and so they take it easy on me
  for the rest of the day.
• Meanwhile court orders are issues, and
  surveillance tapes from companies, individuals
  and government are opened.
• It turns out that he was the craziest of a small
  group of idiots who receive appropriate penalties
  for plotting to do something they would never
  have had the nerve to do. Except one of their
  number was more dedicated than they, and he took
  their mad ideas seriously.

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