Dying to Win:
The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism
By Robert A. Pape
(Random House, 335 pages, $25.95)
Is there anything interesting left to be said about suicide
terrorism? Robert A. Pape sure thinks there is, and so will you if
you’re fooled by the cockeyed statistics in Dying to Win: The
Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. “The data show,” Pape
explains, “that there is little connection between suicide
terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism.” Occupation, not Islam, is
the best predictor of suicidal behavior: Before September 11, 75
out of 186 suicide attacks since 1980 had been committed by Hindus
— the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka. Furthermore, the fundamentalist
Islamic countries in which the United States has not stationed
troops (Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Egypt, and Nigeria), have
produced one al Qaeda terrorist for every 71 million citizens,
while those in which the United States has done so (Saudi Arabia
and the Gulf states), have produced one for every one million
citizens.
It follows that “What nearly all suicide 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,” particularly when the
occupier and occupied are of different religions. Democratic states
are especially vulnerable during such nationalist uprisings because
terrorists perceive them as easier to coerce. Of 13 separate
campaigns against democracies, “seven correlate with significant
policy changes” in favor of the terrorists. No wonder the annual
rate of suicide terrorism has increased over the past 25 years
while the rate of suicide attacks has fallen. It works,
convincingly so.
With 14 pages of charts in hand, Pape does not hesitate to offer
comprehensive alternatives to a Bush administration approach that
he casually describes as “embarking on a policy to conquer Muslim
countries.” Pape, a professor at the University of Chicago, is also
of the school of “offshore balancers” that generally argues
imperial overstretch dooms major powers. To avoid provoking weaker
powers into coalescing against them, hegemons should not interfere
with the internal affairs of countries within their Kissingerian
spheres of influence. Effective and secure powers float offshore,
on the aircraft carriers and destroyers that supposedly ensure
regional peace without rankling local sentiments. If it is true, as
Pape argues, that suicide terrorists only come from countries that
are occupied by democracies of a religion different from that of
the occupied, then the United States, as a democratic, Christian
nation, can avoid that danger by simply not occupying any Muslim,
Hindu, or Buddhist nation. (President Bush can apparently feel safe
invading and occupying Europe — at least the Protestant Low
Countries — should he so desire.) Democratization, oil stability,
Israeli security and nuclear arms control will suffer, sure, but at
least the United States will be certifiably free from suicide
terrorism.
Before we cancel the next shipment of armored Hummers, let’s
double check Pape’s math. Indeed, one doesn’t need more than a
glancing familiarity with concepts like sample size and
distribution to realize his statistics are not only misleading but
also meaningless. First of all, factoring 315 suicide terrorists
into a billion people is just foolishness, a sort of statistical
homeopathy. And with such a small set —only 15 total campaigns
over 30 years — one group can easily flood the average. It is
technically true that if the Tamil Tigers are included almost half
of all pre-September 11 suicide attacks were committed by
non-Muslims. But if they are excluded, it is clear from Pape’s own
charts that every single other suicide attack since 1980 was
committed by a Muslim. Since September 11 this has included
bombings by Kashmiris, Chechens, Palestinians, Afghanis, Saudis,
and Iraqis. The Tamils are obvious outliers — and even Pape
acknowledges that they didn’t start using suicide bombers until
after a number of them returned from training in Lebanon.
Pape plays similar tricks in trying to demonstrate that
occupation, not Islam, is the fertile seed of suicide bombing. “The
best test,” of whether a country is occupied, he says, “is…if the
local government requires the power of foreign ‘stabilizing’ troops
or police in order to maintain order.” Accepting his definition, it
isn’t at all obvious that al Qaeda, the group we are really
concerned about, qualifies. The United States did station thousands
of troops in Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War, but it is hard to
argue the Saudis needed American troops to maintain internal order:
soldiers were explicitly required not to leave their bases and
forbidden from receiving pornography, hardly the footprint of a
triumphant colonial army. Pape resolves this incongruity with a
little sleight of hand, adding that “the perspective of the
resistance” is what matters and that “owing to the United States’
strong economic interests in maintaining the flow of oil from the
Persian Gulf, the troops might well be used to prop up” Saudi
Arabia if necessary.
The definition, however, is too broad to be useful. Policymakers
need to be able to make distinctions between risks. If a risk can
only be calculated by taking into account a potential enemy’s
subjective experience, especially without the predictable
institutional guideposts that ease relations between nation-states,
then one either has to act as if the threat didn’t exist, or not
act at all for fear of provoking another unfortunate subjective
experiences. Pape’s definition of occupation describes all cases
where non-Christians feel the United States is an occupation force,
however others define it, and where the United States has interests
that might force it to occupy another country. As this includes the
entire Middle East, Asia and Africa, and maybe even Catholic South
America, perhaps we really ought to just fold up the entire army
and spend the money on public schools and universal health care
instead.
Policymakers should not be misled by Pape’s graphs and
appendices. The truth is, despite a flood of books and articles
since September 11, we still don’t know very much about terrorists,
let alone suicide ones. They strike infrequently, especially in
comparison to the total number of insurgencies and revolutionary
movements worldwide. The historical set is a muddle of poor
Palestinians, fundamentalist Saudis, disgruntled Iraqi Sunnis and
yes, a good-sized number of Tamils. But the only thing we can be
sure of is that there are now, presently, perhaps thousands of
Muslim men actively threatening and preparing to commit suicide
attacks against American interests. Some may be from countries
where the United States is stationing troops. Others may not be.
Despite what Pape claims, we will never know exactly where, and we
will never know — could never know — exactly why.
