Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (2005; ISBN 1-4000-6317-5) by Robert Pape is a cogent analysis of suicide terrorism. Pape compiled a database at the University of Chicago where he directs the Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism.
Pape claims to possess the world’s first “database of every suicide bombing and attack around the globe from 1980 through 2003 — 315 attacks in all” (3).
He states: “what nearly all suicide terrorist attacks have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland” (4).
It is imperative that Americans understand his point.
How can the U.S. respond? Pape has a few suggestions.
Victory should be defined as defeating the current crop of terrorists and preventing a new group arising.
He states: “the taproot is American military policy” (244).
Pape suggests a policy of “‘off-shore’ balancing”: establishing local alliances while maintaining the capacity for rapid deployment of military forces (247-50).
The local alliances, this is my point, Pape is not responsible for this, should be to increase the involvement of Middle Eastern states, the Russians, and Chindia.
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