Assessing Impact: A Measure of Effectiveness Model for Counterterrorism Amy Sturm

Twenty years into the U.S. campaign against violent extremist organizations, researchers have yet to develop and employ consistent metrics for systematic evaluation of counterterrorism effectiveness. One potential method would be to rigorously assess how a formal designation of groups such as al-Qa‘ida and ISIS as foreign terrorist organizations changes their behavior and how, in the aggregate, the frequency, lethality, and impact of terrorist attacks by designated groups change after U.S. targeting compared to trends pre-designation.

RESEARCH SHORTOPPORTUNITIES An exploration of solutions to

challenges or problems June 1, 2020

What this is:

This report is the product of academic research. As the IC’s university, NIU is uniquely positioned to use academic approaches to research—and report on—subjects of interest to the community.

What this is not:

Research Shorts are not finished intelligence and are not IC-coordinated. The opinions expressed are solely the author’s and do not represent those of the National Intelligence University, Defense Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, or any other U.S. Government agency.

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The approaching 20th anniversary of 9/11 calls attention to the lack of a consistent means for assessing the effectiveness of the U.S. campaign against al-Qa‘ida, ISIS, and aligned violent extremist groups, but few clear and validated metrics are available on terrorist organizations and U.S. Government counterterrorism (CT) interventions. 1 Leading terrorism scholars Martha Crenshaw and Gary LaFree argue measuring the effectiveness of CT activities—operations taken to prevent terrorists from using violence to instill fear to achieve their goals—is worthwhile but proves difficult given the activities’ wide scope, opaque methods and goals, and the confusion over desired end-states in associated policies.2 In Countering Terrorism they note that experts in fields as far ranging as psychology and economics find it difficult to define CT activities’ scope; conceptualize ends and means; determine metrics to measure progress; and use statistical methods in this data-limited field. Their call for useful measurement criteria has similarly appeared in leading academic journals and government publications since the early days of the U.S. campaign.3 Such measurements are also critical to IC efforts to drive resource and operational decisionmaking.

Today more fighters in al-Qa’ida, ISIS, and affiliated terrorist organizations can be found in more countries than at the end of the Soviet-Afghan conflict.4, 5, 6 This metastasis of affiliated groups and networks under global Salafi jihadist banners has occurred despite the application of four successive national CT strategies devised by three presidential administrations and the resultant targeting of terrorists by U.S. military and intelligence operations. Yet in all that time, no consistent measure of the effectiveness of U.S. and allied action against targeted terrorist groups has emerged.7 Although analysts and operators have perfected the find, fix, finish, exploit, and analyze or “F3EA” cycle—it is largely a cycle without an endpoint. Creative ways to analyze the overall effectiveness of the U.S. CT campaign can yield possible metrics to measure progress and help ground future analysis and decisionmaking in data-driven methods.8

To that end, this Research Short proposes that researchers use publicly available data on the frequency, lethality, and destructiveness of the terrorist activities of Salafi jihadist groups before and after the official designation of the groups as a foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) as one approximate measure of U.S. Government effectiveness against their behavior over time.* The 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act grants the Secretary of State the authority to designate groups as FTOs.9 Terrorist activities are defined by the U.S. State Department as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant agents by subnational groups or clandestine agents.”10, 11 FTO designation is unique in both the interagency and policy communities, as it creates a legally enforceable and publicly declared coalescence of U.S. military and intelligence resources against a named group.

Designation Focuses CT Activities Although not the only “listing” tool used by the U.S. Government, FTO designation is a recognized point of “lucidity in the often complicated interagency process of coordinating the

* This Research Short is derived from the author’s doctoral prospectus, “Assessing the Global War on Terror: Measuring the Impact of U.S. Foreign Terrorist Organization Designation on Salafi Jihadist Group Behavior,” February 2020.

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actions of Executive agencies, by giving them a central focal point upon which the efforts converge.”12 Obtaining an FTO designation allows the U.S. Government to “collect and share information about and take action on terrorists posing a threat to the national security of the United States.”13 Since 1997, the U.S. Government has used an interagency process to formally designate more than 80 foreign groups engaged in or capable of terrorist activity that threatens the security of the United States and its citizens.14, 15, 16 The list includes groups with vastly divergent ideologies and tactics, from the FARC in Colombia to the Haqqani Network in Pakistan. So far, only 13 organizations have been removed from the list.

Assessing the impact of designation on groups during the past 20 years can provide a useful proxy to measure effectiveness of U.S. targeting across the totality of the campaign. Limiting the focus to designated Salafi jihadist terrorist organizations—including al-Qa‘ida and ISIS—will provide more consistent comparisons across similar groups that are considered the “most dangerous terrorist threat to the Nation.”23 Limiting the study to Salafi jihadist organizations provides a significant dataset as these groups make up the vast majority of FTO designations. Focusing on Salafi jihadists also helpfully narrows the aperture of any measure of effectiveness by referring only to groups who advocate a return to a pure form of Islam and believe that violent jihad is a religious obligation. Salafi jihadists usually, but not always, also advocate for a war against the unbelievers, typically the West. These criteria help to distinguish Sunni political groups from Salafi jihadists and to delineate groups that target the West and are, therefore, broadly of concern to U.S. national security. This specification is consistent with academic and think tank research on the evolution of the Salafi jihadist threat.24, 25, 26

CT Policy Goals Consistent Since 2001 Executing this proposed methodology requires an understanding of the objectives of U.S. CT policy, particularly since 9/11, and more specifically how the U.S. Government has used the FTO process and follow-on actions to unite U.S. Government actions against target groups. Since 1997, the government has provided a publicly available framework—FTO designation—to define terrorist organizations of U.S. national security concern and consolidate interagency agreement and actions. Since 2001, U.S. national security policy has centered on disrupting two key jihadist groups, al-Qa’ida and ISIS. Despite some differences in definitions and targets, the four U.S. Government CT strategies created by Presidents Bush,

Designation is not without controversy. Critics have questioned FTO designation’s constitutionality, alleging that the use of highly classified supporting material violates defendants’ due process rights during IC review.17 Former government officials have also claimed that the list is largely political or symbolic, suggesting it has little actual impact.18 Critics point, for example, to the delay in designating the Haqqani Network as an FTO, which did not occur until 2012, years after it was an established U.S. national security concern.19 Acute criticism and debate have also arisen over the designation of groups, such as Iran’s Quds Force, that are part of a foreign government or operate as an extension of a foreign government—as well as over designating domestic groups or drug cartels.20,

21 Potential politicization is another reason this paper will focus on less controversial Salafi jihadist groups aligned with or affiliated with al-Qa‘ida and ISIS.22

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Obama, and Trump are remarkably consistent (see Appendix).27, 28, 29, 30 Each has described success in strikingly similar terms. All four call for defeating international terrorism by:

• Denying terrorists the ability to attack U.S. territory, citizens, or interests.

• Eliminating terrorist organizations and their aspirants (as either a primary or secondary goal).

• Hardening defenses to prevent terrorist attacks against critical infrastructure or the use of weapons of mass destruction.

Measuring FTO Designation’s Impact A December 2019 Perspectives on Terrorism review of literature on effectiveness in CT and countering violent extremism identified more than 200 academic articles since 2008 that attempted to aggregate, measure, and analytically frame metrics of effectiveness since the beginning of the global campaign against violent extremist organizations in 2001.31 The many authors generally agreed that a one-size-fits-all approach is largely ineffectual; instead, effective CT actions must address the ideology, geography, and history of specific groups.32, 33, 34, 35, 36 Within that broad perspective, interventions were argued to be effective if they reduced both a terrorist organization’s ability to sustain their organization (their processes) and their ability to conduct operations (measured as incidents of violence)—or what the U.S. military calls an “effects-based” approach to targets.

It logically follows then that measuring these process and outcome impacts can provide insight into a CT policy’s effectiveness. These measures are typically applied by researchers to individual groups but not aggregated across a range of similar organizations or over as long a period of time as this research proposes. Process impacts include removing terrorist leadership; disrupting the recruitment cycle; impeding communication, travel, and funding; disrupting group cohesion; and degrading a group’s technical or learning capacity.37, 38, 39, 40, 41 Outcome impacts include reducing not only the frequency of attacks, but their sophistication and resulting casualties, property damage, and political or economic effects. Added outcome impacts would be reducing or eliminating operational safehavens and logistical support.42, 43,

44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52

The proposed methodology dovetails with the three desired outcomes consistently identified in all four national CT strategies, which can be used as dependent variables to measure the impact of CT programs.

• Using open-source data on terrorist attack frequency, location, and targets—to include a breakdown of U.S. and non-U.S. casualties and failed attacks—will determine if the number of terrorist attacks against U.S. territory, citizens, or interests has fallen.

• Tracking the number of terrorist groups and their approximate membership will show whether any groups have been eliminated as a threat.

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• Analyzing attack data on frequency, lethality, whether several occurred simultaneously, and types of weapons can indicate success in hardening defenses.

According to the model presented here, output effectiveness—the FTO designation—can be compared to outcome effectiveness, or the impact the laws and regulations have on prohibited behavior.53 Impact effectiveness can then measure the lasting impact, or not, of the application of U.S. operations over time. This novel approach provides a framework for measuring CT’s overall effectiveness, building on one proposed by David Easton in 1975.54 Using this approach, analysts and scholars can aggregate the goals of U.S. CT policy since 9/11—and more specifically the FTO process and follow-on actions—and compare those goals against measurable terrorist behavior to obtain a comprehensive measure of U.S. CT effectiveness against Salafi jihadi groups over time. See Figure 1.

Although U.S. Government actions resulting from FTO designation are not implemented uniformly, designation does coalesce government agency attention, activities, and focus, which suggests FTO designation can impact terrorist group behavior. A follow-on Research Short will provide the author’s assessment of designation’s impact across the full range of actions that accompany U.S. FTO designation—expanding on current research that is often limited to one or two U.S. Government activities following designation. For example, the academic literature suggests the impact is most significant in reducing terrorist financing, because FTO designation immediately freezes the designated organization’s assets in any financial institution in the United States.55, 56 FTO designation also allows the U.S. Government to prosecute individuals who provide material support to the listed terrorist organizations and to ban from the country those who give support to listed organizations—but this tactic is not universally applied post-designation.57 A 2019 study of the impact of FTO designation on

Figure 1

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attack behavior of terrorist groups found that U.S. and allied countries experienced a small but statistically significant decrease in attacks by designated groups, but this study was not limited to Salafi jihadist groups and did not consider the designation process and its impact as part of the coordinated U.S. Government CT strategy.58

Difficulties With This Approach

Designation provides a unique point of comparison across groups, yet the relationships between designation, follow-on U.S. activities, and terrorist outcomes are not likely to be uniform or linear.59, 60 , 61 Therefore, an interrupted time-series analysis methodology is best suited for cross-comparison between groups over time. 62 , 63 In seeking measures of effectiveness, it is not the mere act of designation that changes terrorist behavior, but rather the accompanying financial, legal, operational, and immigration consequences brought to bear by the government behind the designation.64, 65, 66 To account for this causality, researchers will need to consider specific CT activities as intermediate or intervening variables by compiling and analyzing data on specific U.S. Government interventions against targeted groups and their reactions—a more historical exercise than the forward-leaning intelligence analysts are usually asked to provide. This data can be derived largely from captured extremist media, to include internal letters and reflections of progress, as well as through official government records of tactics used against specific groups.

Additionally, not all changes in terrorist behavior can or should be attributed to designation or the associated activities of the United States or its allies. Some occur in response to group dynamics that have little or nothing to do with CT actions.67 When measuring CT effectiveness, for example, analysts must also consider the internal dynamics driving terrorist behavior, such as al-Qa‘ida’s use of affiliation and franchising to expand from 2001 to 2014—a strategy also adopted by ISIS, which now claims affiliates of its own. Academic studies suggest patterns of affiliation and splintering improve the longevity of terrorist movements, which makes them both a survival strategy and potential measure of CT effectiveness. Moreover, U.S. Government actions against terrorist groups are not universally applied post designation, and not all groups that pose a U.S. national security threat are designated, or designated immediately, so the process should not be considered to be strictly linear, but rather illustrative of when U.S. operations were focused on particular actors.68, 69, 70, 71 Case studies from captured extremist media can be used to assess the behavior and change between and within specific groups targeted by U.S. CT policy as an additional qualitative test on the relationship between U.S. targeting and short outcomes and long-term impact. See Figure 2.

Figure 2

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ConclusionU.S. Government resources needed to counter major nation-state actors require the U.S. CT mission to be cheaper, faster, and more effective than ever before, particularly in light of rising challenges from near-peer state competitors—a priority of the current administration—and the rise in far-right and other domestic terrorist threats.72, 73, 74 Having the tools to measure the effectiveness of the U.S. CT mission would allow policymakers to more efficiently allocate resources toward those activities having the greatest success. Using FTO designation as a benchmark for measuring U.S. effectiveness against Salafi jihadist groups can help the intelligence and academic communities track U.S. policy decisions through to their impact on targeted organizations, informing future operations. Lessons from publicly available data, albeit limited in scope, can inform IC and broader U.S. Government adoption of more rigorous metrics to improve CT efforts, but more rigorous assessments that include IC input can and should inform future operations.

Amy Sturm is an NIU Research Fellow. She is using this methodological approach to assess if U.S. CT goals are being met. She recently completed her doctoral prospectus, “Assessing the Global War on Terror: Measuring the Impact of U.S. Foreign Terrorist Organization Designation on Salafi Jihadist Group Behavior.”

If you have comments, questions, or a suggestion for a Research Short topic or article, please contact the NIU Office of Research at NIU_OOR@dodiis.mil.

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Appendix

COMPARISON OF OBJECTIVES FROM FOUR U.S. COUNTERTERRORISM STRATEGIES 2003, 2006, 2011, 2018

Objectives (Goal - Objective) Feb-03 Sep-06 Jun-11 Oct-18

Defeat - Identify Terrorists and Organization X (X) (X) (X)

Defeat - Locate Terrorists and their Organizations X (X) (X) (X)

Defeat - Destroy Terrorists and their Organizations X X X (Specifically AQ)

X

Deny - State Sponsorship of Terrorism X X X

Deny - Establish international accountability X X X

Deny - Strengthen international counterterrorism collaboration

X X X X

Deny - Interdict and disrupt material support to terrorism X X X X

Deny - Eliminate Terrorist Sanctuary/Safehaven X X (Specifies Legal, Cyber,

Financial)

X X

Diminish - Partner capacity building X X X

Diminish - Delegitimize terrorism (War of Ideas/Counter-radicalization/Strategic Communication)

X X X

Defend - U.S. Citizens and Interests (Home and Abroad) X X X (#1) X

Defend - Implement National Strategy for Homeland Security

X

Defend - Attain domain awareness (threat identification) X

Defend - Identify and protect critical infrastructure X X X

Defend - Integrate defensive measures for U.S. citizens abroad

X

Defend - Create integrated incident management capability X

Prevent Attacks by Terrorist Networks - Deny terrorists entry into the U.S. and disrupt international travel

X (X) X

Prevent Attacks by Terrorist Networks - Defend potential targets of attack

X

Deny WMD to Rogue States and Terrorists - Determine Terrorist Intentions and Capabilities in WMD

X X

Deny WMD to Rogue States and Terrorists - Deny Material Access

X X

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Objectives (Goal - Objective) Feb-03 Sep-06 Jun-11 Oct-18

Deny WMD to Rogue States and Terrorists - Deter employment of WMD

X X

Deny WMD to Rogue States and Terrorists - Disrupt movement of WMD materials, facilitation

X X

Deny WMD to Rogue States and Terrorists - Prevent and Respond to WMD-terrorist attack

X X

Deny WMD to Rogue States and Terrorists - Define nature and source of terrorist-employed WMD device

X

Institutionalize Strategy - Enhance interagency collaboration

X (intellectual and human

capital)

X (X)

Degrade Links Between Terrorist Organizations X

Priority Action (New 2018) - Amplify Impact of CT Operations Using Strategic Communications

X

Attack Capability - Prevent Development of Cyber X

Deploy integrated Federal CT Community at Local Level X

Support Intervention, Reintegration, and Counter Recidivism Efforts

X

Combat Terrorist Influence Online X

Institutionalize Prevention Architecture X

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Endnotes 1 The Joint Chiefs of Staff’s definition of counterterrorism is operationally useful, specifying that “CT activities and

operations are taken to neutralize terrorists, their organizations, and networks in order to render them incapable of using violence to instill fear and coerce governments or societies to achieve their goals.” Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 3-26: Counterterrorism, November 2009, http://purl.fdlp.gov/GPO/gpo28939.

2 Martha Crenshaw and Gary LaFree, Countering Terrorism (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2017), 165-93, in particular 167.

3 A 2005 Congressional Research Service report that advocated for the “formulation of practical, useful measurement criteria” to evaluate counterterrorism’s effectiveness and more broadly blamed “the inherent secrecy and compartmentalization of both terrorist organizations and government responses.” Raphael Perl, Combating Terrorism: The Challenge of Measuring Effectiveness, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 2005.

4 Richard Barrett et al., Beyond the Caliphate: Foreign Fighters and the Threat of Returnees (New York: Soufan Center, 2017), http://thesoufancenter.org/research/beyond-caliphate.

5 The Terrorist Diaspora: After the Fall of the Caliphate: Hearing Before the Task Force on Denying Terrorists Entry to the United States of the Committee on Homeland Security, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fifteenth Congress, First Session, July 13, 2017 (Washington: U.S. Government Publishing Office, 2018).

6 Seth Jones et al., The Evolution of the Salafi-Jihadist Threat, Center for Strategic and International Studies, November 20, 2018, https://www.csis.org/analysis/evolution-salafi-jihadist-threat.

7 Crenshaw and LaFree, Countering Terrorism, Chapter 6, 165-95. 8 Perl, Combating Terrorism. 9 For a full history of the early utility of the FTO designation process, see Audrey Kurth Cronin, The “FTO List” and

Congress: Sanctioning Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, October 21, 2003.

10 22 U.S.C. §2656f(d)(2). 11 The academic and policy communities use other definitions, but the State Department definition sets consistent

parameters for the measures of effectiveness methodology presented in this Short. The University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Response to Terrorism (START) also uses this definition to compile open-source data on terrorist incidents. National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, Global Terrorism Database Codebook: Inclusion Criteria and Variables, (2019): 10, https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/downloads/Codebook.pdf.

12 Cronin, The “FTO List” and Congress. 13 U.S. Government Accountability Office, GAO-15-629: Combating Terrorism: Foreign Terrorist Organization

Designation Process and U.S. Agency Enforcement Actions, June 25, 2015, https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-15-629.

14 See “Designation of foreign terrorist organizations,” in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, 8 U.S.C. §1189; U.S. State Department, Foreign Terrorist Organizations, Bureau of Counterterrorism, https://www.state.gov/foreign-terrorist-organizations/.

15 U.S. State Department, Patterns of Global Terrorism, https://www.state.gov/country-reports-on-terrorism/. 16 U.S. State Department, Foreign Terrorist Organizations. 17 Jason Poblete, “Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Listing Process in a Post 9/11 Context,” National Security Law

Seminar, George Mason University School of Law, March 28, 2005. 18 Karen DeYoung, “Obama Administration Divided Over Designating Haqqani Network as Terrorist Group,”

Washington Post, August 31, 2012. 19 Joshua Foust, “The U.S. Finally Blacklists an Afghan Terrorist Group,” Atlantic, September 15, 2012. 20 Suzanne Maloney, “What Both Trump and His Critics Get Wrong About the IRGC Terrorist Designation,”

Commentary, Brookings Institution (2019), published electronically, April 11, 2019, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/04/11/what-both-trump-and-his-critics-get-wrong-about-the-irgc-terrorist-designation/.

21 Scott Englund, “Mexican Drug Cartels are Violent—But They’re Not Terrorists,” War on the Rocks, February 24, 2020, https://warontherocks.com/2020/02/mexican-drug-cartels-are-violent-but-theyre-not-terrorists/.

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22 Tim Legrand, “‘More Symbolic—More Political—Than Substantive’: An Interview with James R. Clapper on the

U.S. Designation of Foreign Terrorist Organizations,” Terrorism and Political Violence 30, no. 2 (March 4, 2018): 356-72.

23 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, December 2017, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf.

24 Seth Jones et al., The Evolution of the Salafi-Jihadist Threat. 25 Sam Heller, “Rightsizing the Transnational Jihadist Threat,” International Crisis Group, December 12, 2018,

https://www.crisisgroup.org/global/rightsizing-transnational-jihadist-threat. 26 Katherine Zimmerman, Beyond Counterterrorism: Defeating the Salafi-Jihadi Movement, American Enterprise

Institute, October 8, 2019, https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/beyond-counterterrorism-defeating-the-salafi-jihadi-movement/.

27 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, February 2003, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030214-7.html.

28 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, September 2006, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/nsc/nsct/2006/.

29 National Strategy for Counterterrorism, June 2011, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2011/06/29/national-strategy-counterterrorism.

30 National Strategy for Counterterrorism of the United States of America, October 2018, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/NSCT.pdf.

31 Joshua Sinai, Jeffrey Fuller, and Tiffany Seal, “Effectiveness in Counter-Terrorism and Countering Violent Extremism a Literature Review,” Perspectives on Terrorism 13, no. 6 (2019): 90-108.

32 Ben Connable, Embracing the Fog of War: Assessment and Metrics in Counterinsurgency (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2012), 29.

33 Richard English, Does Terrorism Work? A History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 123-24. 34 Seth G. Jones and Martin C. Libicki, How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering Al Qa'ida (Santa Monica,

CA: RAND Corporation, 2008), 51. 35 Tricia Bacon, Why Terrorist Groups Form International Alliances (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,

2018), 281-83. 36 Crenshaw and LaFree, Countering Terrorism, 129. 37 Brian A. Jackson et al., Aptitude for Destruction. Volume 1, Organizational Learning in Terrorist Groups and Its

Implications for Combating Terrorism, prepared for the National Institute of Justice (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corp., 2005), ix-xv, https://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG331.html.

38 R.V.G. Clarke and Graeme R. Newman, Outsmarting the Terrorists [in English] (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2006), 79-83.

39 Stephen Vertigans, The Sociology of Terrorism: Peoples, Places and Processes [in English] (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2011), 140-47.

40 Susanne Martin and Leonard Weinberg, The Role of Terrorism in Twenty-First-Century Warfare (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017), 228, 231-32.

41 Jacob N. Shapiro, The Terrorist's Dilemma: Managing Violent Covert Organizations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013).

42 Diego Muro, When Does Terrorism Work? [in English] (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2019). 43 Andreas Wenger and Alex S. Wilner, Deterring Terrorism: Theory and Practice (Stanford: Stanford University

Press, 2012). 44 Peter M. McCabe, ed., JSOU Report 18-5: Countering Transregional Terrorism (MacDill Air Force Base, FL:

JSOU Press, 2018), https://jsou.libguides.com/ld.php?content_id=43990994. 45 Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, National Military Strategic Plan for the War on Terrorism,

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2006, http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS66747. 46 David Kilcullen, Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2013). 47 Jacob N. Shapiro, The Terrorist's Dilemma: Managing Violent Covert Organizations (Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 2013).

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48 Blake W. Mobley, Terrorism and Counter-Intelligence: How Terrorist Groups Elude Detection (New York:

Columbia University Press, 2012). 49 David Omand, Securing the State [in English] (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010). 50 John Mueller and Mark Stewart, Chasing Ghosts: The Policing of Terrorism (New York: Oxford University Press,

2016). 51 Richard A. Posner, Countering Terrorism: Blurred Focus, Halting Steps (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield,

2007). 52 Crenshaw and LaFree, Countering Terrorism. 53 Crenshaw and LaFree, Countering Terrorism, 193. 54 David Easton, A Framework for Political Analysis (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1965). 55 Brian Phillips, “Foreign Terrorist Organization Designation, International Cooperation, and Terrorism,”

International Interactions 45, no. 2: 316-43. 56 Jason I. Poblete, “Foreign Terrorist Organizations and the Listing Process in a Post-9/11 Context,” SSRN Electronic

Journal (2005). 57 U.S. Government Accountability Office, GAO-15-629: Combating Terrorism: Foreign Terrorist Organization

Designation Process. 58 Phillips, “Foreign Terrorist Organization Designation.” 59 Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, 3rd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), 313-41. 60 William Faizi McCants, The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State

(New York: St. Martin's Press, 2015). 61 Daniel L. Byman and Jennifer R. Williams, “ISIS vs. Al Qaeda: Jihadism’s Global Civil War,” Brookings,

February 24, 2015, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/isis-vs-al-qaeda-jihadisms-global-civil-war/. 62 An interrupted time series analysis is “based on assessing whether some form of intervention (such as harsher

prison sentences, peace accords) has a measurable impact on a specific metric related to counterterrorism (number of attacks or fatalities).” From Crenshaw and LaFree, Countering Terrorism, 186.

63 For an example of the technique in use, see Gary LaFree, Laura Dugan, and Raven Korte, “The Impact of British Counterterrorist Strategies on Political Violence in Northern Ireland: Comparing Deterrence and Backlash Models,” Criminology 47, no. 1 (February 2009): 17-45.

64 U.S. Government Accountability Office, GAO-15-629: Combating Terrorism: Foreign Terrorist Organization Designation Process.

65 Phillips, “Foreign Terrorist Organization Designation.” 66 Legrand, “‘More Symbolic—More Political—Than Substantive,’” 356-72. 67 Audrey Kurth Cronin, How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009). 68 For example, academic studies suggest patterns of affiliation and splinter in terrorist movements affect the

longevity of terrorist movements, which makes them both a survival strategy and potential measure of CT effectiveness. Competition between splinter groups can increase violence or shift targets, suggesting U.S. policies that promote splintering can occasionally backfire and increase terrorist attacks, at least in the short term. See Charles W. Mahoney, “Splinters and Schisms: Rebel Group Fragmentation and the Durability of Insurgencies,” Terrorism and Political Violence 32, no. 2 (2017).

69 Brian J. Phillips, “Terrorist Group Cooperation and Longevity,” International Studies Quarterly 58, no. 2 (2014). 70 Stephen Nemeth, “The Effect of Competition on Terrorist Group Operations,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 58,

no. 2 (2014). 71 Stephen Nemeth, “The Effect of Competition on Terrorist Group Operations." 72 National Strategy for Counterterrorism of the United States of America. 73 “Intelbrief: White Supremacists and the Weaponization of the Coronavirus (COVID-19),” The Soufan Center,

March 25, 2020, https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-white-supremacists-and-the-weaponization-of-the-coronavirus-covid-19/.

74 Souad Mekhennet, “Far-right and Radical Islamist Groups Are Exploiting Coronavirus Turmoil,” Washington Post, April 10, 2020.