How Terrorist Groups End: Implications for Countering al Qa'ida

T he United States cannot conduct an eff ective counterterrorism campaign against al Qa’ida or other terrorist groups without understanding how such groups end. While it is clear that U.S. policymakers will need to turn to a range of policy instruments to conduct such campaigns—including careful police and intelligence work, military force, political negotiations, and economic sanctions—what is less clear is how they should prioritize U.S. eff orts. A recent RAND research eff ort sheds light on this issue by investigating how terrorist groups have ended in the past. By analyzing a comprehensive roster of terrorist groups that existed worldwide between 1968 and 2006, the authors found that most groups ended because of operations carried out by local police or intelligence agencies or because they negotiated a settlement with their governments. Military force was rarely the primary reason a terrorist group ended, and few groups within this time frame achieved victory. Th ese fi ndings suggest that the U.S. approach to countering al Qa’ida has focused far too much on the use of military force. Instead, policing and intelligence should be the backbone of U.S. eff orts.