one percent doctrine and expected value
Global Guerrillas: JOURNAL: Why al Qaeda hasn’t attacked the US since 9/11
One good explanation is from a brief I wrote back in 2004 on (see the brief “Terrorist Death-March”) how terrorism suffers from diminishing returns against stable enemies. Simply, the more it is used, the less valuable it is (which is a good thing). The reason for this is psychological. Target Western populations (and the press) become inured to terrorism in much the same way they do with petty crime. Each subsequent attack has less of a psychological impact than the first. In order to compensate for this, a terrorism planner must make each subsequent attack even more damaging or symbolically devastating than earlier attacks. The result is a death march until entire terrorism campaign runs out of steam. This approach in part explains why the US hasn’t suffered another attack since 9/11 — the other factors being improved security
(debatable) and the break-up of camps in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda has not opted to attack the US is because it hasn’t been able to muster an attack that could exceed 9/11 in damage.A good example of this framework in action is found in the recent revelations unearthed by Ron Suskind in his new book called “The One Percent Doctrine.”
So isn’t this a good argument for the “one percent doctrine”? If the next Al Qaeda attack against the U.S. is likely to be nuclear, doesn’t it make sense to take action if there is even a one percent chance of forestalling the nuclear attack? People don’t seem to understand the concept of expected value. Let’s say 9/11 cost us, conservatively, 3000 lives and $100 billion (to say nothing of the cost of the war in Iraq.) A nuclear attack could easily cost us 300,000 lives and $1 trillion. One percent of one trillion is ten billion dollars and one percent of 300,000. Is it worth breaking a few laws to save 3000 lives and ten billion dollars? (as Dr. Evil would say). Maybe…
Technorati Tags: Global Guerillas, Al Qaeda, One Percent Doctrine, Ron Suskind
Technorati Tags: Global Guerillas, Al Qaeda, One Percent Doctrine, Ron Suskind
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