(Economic) Policy for dealing with acts of Terrorism

Only certain conclusions and brief arguments supporting the conclusions are presented. Details reasoning will be added later.

Conclusions.

1. Terrorists in their objective function are hypothesized to maximize media exposure which in turn is maximized by maximizing damage from combined damage to ostentatious buildings and human casualties. This leads to inference that terrorist activities may be more concentrated to certain times and day of the year, to certain locations (see 2 below).

2. Terrorists like any rational agents would like to minimize costs of operations or losses/risks subject to objectives defined. In Indian context it can inferred that terrorist activities would be mostly confined to border states lying closest to origin of terrorist networks. This is because longer the distance traveled greater the risk of exposure before the events though this is not the only reasons why border area will be most vulnerable.

3.Point 2 also leads to inference that deployment of counter terrorist resources must be skewed towards these areas – not just in capital .

4. Maximizing Media exposure as stated in point 1 is the main intermediate objective. This suggests the need for Indian media for strong self regulation. Strng states with high control over media (China, Russian in previous incarnation as USSR) probably had fewest acts of terrorism though this theory needs to be tested over other countries.( were there fewer terrorist acts before sudden burst of electronic media in last few decades?)

5. Developed countries ( as proxy for better ant terrorist resources) will see fewer but more devastating acts of terrorism which will have great deal of randomness/unpredictability associated with their approach(9/11 could be superseded by bolder/newer/more inventive acts in developed countries or countries target of terrorist networks). This is because only way terrorist organizations can maintain their tempo against ever sophisticated and stricter vigilance is by more detailed planning, more training, more mobilization – requiring many years of planning. Lower population density and need to max “profits” from such acts in these countries adds to the argument.

6. A strong innovative and highly rewarding whistle blowing policy must be combined with stringent punishment. Latter will involve treating all involved in the outer fringes of terrorist planning on par with actual perpetrators and planners. The “Outer fringe people “have lower commitment to the cause and lower capacity to endure (capital) punishment and possibly more susceptible to monetary awards. This will help to increase the costs of planning terrorist activities and substantially increase risk of failure.

7. In dealing with acts of terrorism, too little emphasis is place on technical substitutions between armed response and other possibilities. ( According to one commando( “ He (“terrorist”) did not deserve to be saved”- post Mumbai 26/11). Imagine the kind of information that could be extracted if there were more than one surviving terrorists post 26/11’. By extracting such information more and more planning networks are destroyed,(edited) forcing them to plan afresh from beginning, apart from furnishing many other proofs). A second aspect of technical substtiution is information that can be gathered without risking lives and more productive action that canbe taken. E.g Flying robotic insects capable of transmitting photos and sound, weapons that can think their way through buildings and immobilize people instantly , tags that can tracks people and trawlers/boats are already available or well within realm of possibility since some of these technology are used in space missions and recent wars.

8. It follows from 5 but also applicable to other countries that terrorist acts requiring greater resources will be bunched together. i.e one act is an indication of anothsimilar terrorist act in pipeline or happening elsewhere in proximity. (edited: This follows from economies of scale argument since there may be large fixed costs assocaited with carrying out most/large terrorist acts) There is some evidence from histroical data but needs closer scrutiny.
To be continued………