Discussions about terrorism often devolve into emotional and politicized debates based

more on commonsense and incomplete information than on objective evidence. In this

introductory module we try to distinguish fact from fiction by addressing the challenges of
studying terrorism head-on, defining terrorism for the purposes of the course discussions,
and dispelling some commonly held myths about terrorism. The lectures in Module 1 will
argue that multi-disciplinary and empirically based approaches to studying terrorism are
critical for students to move beyond emotionally charged rhetoric to thoughtful and
objective discourse.

You will first hear from Dr. Gary LaFree who will present a two-part lecture series, "Nine
Myths About Terrorism." Dr. LaFree will draw on the September 11, 2001, attacks in the
United States to frame many of his myths. If you are not from the United States, you may
wish to think about prominent and/or sensationalized attacks that have shaped the way you
think about terrorism, and apply your first-hand experience to the nine myths he presents.
We encourage you to engage with us on the discussion forum if you notice any differences
or unique ideas to consider.

Next, Mr. Bill Braniff will provide two introductory lectures we hope will help you get into
the mindset of studying terrorism, not just reading about it on the news. First, he will
discuss the challenges associated with studying terrorism - how do we collect data, is it
reliable, what do we do with it? Then, he will provide an overview of the issues
surrounding the definition of terrorism as well as a few key definitions of concepts we will
regularly refer to in this class.

To conclude the module and to put its material into larger context, Dr. LaFree will provide
a two-part overview on Geographic Trends in the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) . The
GTD is START's open-source database including information on terrorist events around the
world from 1970 through 2014 (with additional annual updates planned for the future).
Unlike many other event databases, the GTD includes systematic data on domestic as well
as transnational and international terrorist incidents that have occurred during this time
period and now includes more than 125,000 cases. For each GTD incident, information is
available on the date and location of the incident, the weapons used, the nature of the target,
the number of casualties, and--when identifiable--the group or individual responsible.

Dr. LaFree will use data from 1970-2012 to share a series of trends in global terrorism. You
may wish to consider the myths Dr. LaFree discussed in his first lectures as you listen to
these videos. What surprises you? Does discussion of your region of the world line up with
your perceptions and understandings? We encourage to engage on the discussion forum
with us about your questions and comments regarding these lectures, they are full of
interesting facts and surprises that will set the stage for the more nuanced topics we'll
consider in the coming weeks.

Last, you'll notice this module has three "Spotlight Lectures." For the first video, we
coordinated with Dr. Juliette Bird, Head of Counter Terrorism, Emerging Security
Challenges Division at NATO Headquarters and asked her to answer a question that
applied the concepts we talked about in this module (specifically defining terrorism) to
NATO's operations. We asked her: Have definitional issues surrounding terrorism ever
impacted NATO? If so, how? Check out her answer after you've watched our videos and let
us know what you think on the forums. The second spotlight video is from the Institute for
Economics and Peace. They will discuss how the Global Terrorism Database is used to
form the Global Terrorism Index and the functions this index provides. In the third video,
Jason Blazakis explains how the U.S. Department of State designates foreign terrorist
organizations.

As for the readings this week, these are mostly overview and introductory pieces to
supplement (and sometimes duplicate) the videos we provide below. The "Spotlight
Lectures" will not be covered in the module quizzes. The readings are optional and
for your further study only. Only the video content will be covered in the module
quizzes.

We suggest you review materials the order presented below. You will first find a few
articles relating to issues in defining terrorism. Then, we provide materials related to Dr.
LaFree's "Nine Myths" videos. His "Discussion Point" piece further expands on his videos,
while the second link is to a 2012 recording of a similar talk at the University of Maryland.
After that, we provide a link to the Global Terrorism Database and the database's codebook
which details how the database owners define terrorism and how attacks are to the
database. There is also a link that leads you to a news story discussing how the Global
Terrorism Database was used for the 2012 and 2013 U.S. Department of State Country
Reports on Terrorism Statistical Annex. As an additional resource, we provide a tutorial
introducing you to the Global Terrorism Database and how to complete simple analysis
using the web interface. Finally, we provide the 2009 and 2011 START Research Review
to give you a taste of the far-reaching research we do at START and to provide some
insight into what is in store for the next few weeks we will spend together.

As a reminder, prior to beginning Module 1, please complete two mandatory course

surveys. You can find the links to the surveys in the Introduction Module under "Surveys."
For both surveys, you will receive two codewords after you complete the surveys. You will
then enter the two codewords as the answer for question #10 and #11 on the Module 1 quiz.
Remember, we are not grading you on the answers you provide, only on your participation.

With the start of this module, we ask that you participate in the discussion forums to get to
know your your peers in this session. Start by posting in your "home" region. Posters in
the home region are those who currently live in the region or who have otherwise
amassed personal experience living, working, studying, and/or traveling in the region.
You should also make two additional posts in a region other than your original
selection. Don't wait to start engaging! The forums are a great way to engage with your
peers in this session.

Thank you for sharing your perspectives, and we hope you enjoy this first module!
Mitos

I want to talk about what I call nine myths about terrorism. What I'm talking about here is myth in
the everyday sense of something that's not shown to be true by empirical or scientific evidence.

And the fact that terrorist cases often attract a huge amount of attention, sometimes even
international attention

supported here by the START Center, called the Global Terrorism Database, or the GTD. It
contains now, up through 2012, going back to 1970, it now contains over 113,000 terrorist

SAS, Nassim Taleb, defines an event as a Black Swan incident outside of regular life

stereotypes could affect our images of terrorism and maybe give us incorrect assumptions about
terrorism, this Black Swan idea sort of fits in, that black swans can have a huge impact,

If we talk about the first of these myths, I would say it's this, that terrorist attacks were rapidly
increasing in the years leading up to 9/11. If you think about all the publicity generated by an
attack like 9/11, it's easy to think that it was representing a kind of big upsurge

which have generated a huge amount of publicly, can have a kind of Black Swam effect. In other
words, they contribute to our stereotypes about terrorism

and in fact, there was a major increase in terrorist attacks in 1992, just after the collapse of the
Soviet Union.

9/11 were actually at about the same level as they had been in the mid-1970s. In fact, in the four
years prior to 9/11, worldwide terrorist attacks were at their lowest level in about 20 years.

Okay, myth number two. Terrorist attacks reach every corner of the world. The fact that we live in
such an interconnected world, where we get a media presence, even in relatively isolated and
faraway places, gives us the impression that terrorism is happening everywhere and that it could
happen anywhere. we can see that, in fact, terrorist attacks tend to be highly concentrated.

But in fact, our analysis of the GTD indicates that terrorist attacks happen in relatively few places.

Well, it means about 5% of all countries in the world account for more than 50% of all terrorists
attacks.

Myth number three. The U.S. is more frequently targeted by terrorists than any other country in
the world.

U.S. ranks about 14th in the world, in terms of total attacks, and about 16th, in terms of total
fatalities. The most frequently attacked country in our data set is Colombia, and the country with
the most terrorist fatalities is Iraq.
Myth number four. Most terrorists attacks involve disgruntled groups and individuals from one
country attacking civilians in another country.

in fact, domestic assailants, domestic groups, attacking domestic targets

than 90% of the 17,000 attacks that were attributed to these groups were actually domestic
attacks. So that means nine times out of ten, these groups operated at home against local targets.

Most of the attacks were actually domestic, happening in their own country against citizens from
their own country.

Myth number five. Terrorism is unrelated to traditional political grievances.

many of these organizations actually have a pretty specific political agenda. Mostly, this agenda
involves having access to some land for some particular group.

I call Black Swan nature of terrorist attacks. That is the tendency for people to be overly influenced
by a few high profile attacks

So myth number 6, is the idea that most terrorist attacks are incredibly lethal, and this certainly
makes a lot of sense when we think about the terrorist attacks that we are most likely to receive
publicity.

113,000 cases we find that more than half of all terrorist attacks since 1970 involve no fatalities.

fact result in fatalities. Well, there are several reasons for this. On the first of these and perhaps
the most obvious is sometimes terrorists don't plan to do fatalities. Sometimes they are directing
their efforts to destroy property. So lots of attacks that are on facilities, they could be attacks on
bridges, on electric structures, on factories, and so on. A lot of attacks by environmental groups
like the ELF, or animal rights groups like the ALF, have been of this type, where they're aimed at
targeting particular kinds of institutions, not at the individuals who are in them. It can also be the
case that attacks are aimed at civilians but they fail.

Brian Jenkins, many years ago to suggest that terrorists want a lot of people watching, not a lot of
people dead.

Brian Jenkins recently revisited his earlier statement. And after reviewing what's been going on
for the last decade, has revised his statement to say, many of today's terrorist, not only want a lot
of people watching, but a lot of people dead.

Myth number 7, most terrorist attacks rely on sophisticated weaponry.

But contrary to this view of terrorism that we commonly get from Hollywood, the vast majority of
terrorist attacks rely on non-sophisticated, readily accessible weapons, and this is clear in the next
slide that you'll see. According to the GTD database, 80% of all attacks rely on explosives and
firearms which are among the most accessible kinds of weapons that we can get. And for the most
part the explosives used are relatively calm and the most common one is being dynamite and
grenades.

So fortunately for us, in fact, for the world, sophisticated weapons, chemical weapons, biological,
radiological, nuclear weapons are rare exceptions.
 Myth number 8, most terrorist organizations are long-lasting and difficult to eradicate. Given the
persistence of groups like Al-Qaeda, like the ETA, like the LTTE, like the FARC, like the IRA. It's easy
to think that all terrorist organizations are long lasting and very difficult to eradicate.

he GTD allows us to identify more than 2000 separate terrorist groups that have operated
somewhere in the world from 1970 to the present.

Now, one simple way to gauge how long a group lasts, is simply by looking at the time between
their first attack and their last known attack. If they had a last known attack in many years we can
assume that at least in terms of terrorism, they've gone out of business.

When we do this, we find that nearly 75% of the terrorists organizations identified in the GTD,
have lasted for less than a year. In other words, terrorist organizations are a bit like business
startups. They've very likely to go away in the first year of existence.

Forming and maintaining terrorist organizations is not all that easy,

So why do we have the impression that terrorist groups are long lasting and difficult to eradicate
even when the evidences does not suggests this is the case? I think the reason for this is a kind of
psychological explanation that because the ones we hear about, the IRAs, the Al-Qaedas, the
Isis' because these organizations get so much attention, we assume that all terrorist organizations
are around for a long time and probably receiving attention. But for every Al-Qaeda, and for every
ETA there are many more short lived relatively unknown groups that you probably will never hear
about.

Finally, let's talk about myth number 9, that terrorist groups are impervious to governmental
counter terrorist policies and that they rarely make mistakes.

We could call this the myth of the super terrorist. And again it follows very dramatically from big
events, black swan events, like 911,

which suggest that in fact terrorists groups are not infallible, that they frequently make mistakes.

the rapid decline of ASALA was a strategic shift they made. A strategic, we would say, a strategic
error in their targeting strategies. Before the early 1980s, ASALA was careful to target Turks and to
avoid non-Turkish targets, especially Armenians, as casualties or fatalities. And this was very
important because Armenian support groups in ASALA

Attacks were declining just before 911, and very few attacks involved disgruntled groups from one
country attacking civilians in another country.

religion, politics, and violence at the same time, the three very topics that you're not supposed to
discuss in polite company.

And the first challenge is just getting past the emotions that it evokes.

First, while terrorism is an ancient phenomenon, the social-scientific study of terrorism is actually
a fairly new, a recent phenomenon.

is the fact that terrorism doesn't have one definition.

we're clearly not seeing eye to eye.

Terrorism is a tactic that perpetrators use to draw attention to emotional and divisive issues and
to polarize people into one or other side of a given debate.

Terrorism is often used to rip at the social fabric between segments of a population or to rip at the
social contract between the government and its constituency.

. Instead, it's their reliance on illegal violence to advance those beliefs that makes somebody a
terrorist.

And finally, terrorism doesn't fit neatly within any one academic discipline. Terrorism is a criminal
behavior and so criminology helps us understand terrorism to some degree.

Sociology helps us understand the relationship between terrorist organizations, broader

movements, and how they both relate to society.

But we of course need things like psychology to understand individual motivations and individual
behavior.

No one flavor of academic theory therefore gives us a holistic understanding of terrorism. No one
methodology is robust enough to describe this really complex human phenomenon.

Terrorism, as I mentioned in the last lecture, is famously difficult to define.

Those 109 responses had 22 different definitional components. So piece-parts of a definition of

terrorism, and each answer had an average of eight definitional components per definition.

Alex Schmidt and Albert Youngman

So why is terrorism so hard to define? I think there are multiple reasons. I think the first are
political reasons. It's inconvenient in some instances for a government to label a terrorist group
or movement as a terrorist group or movement.

Many nations gain independence through the use of violent tactics, to include terrorism.

And a government that wants to get into power in a situation like that, or stay in power after that
kind of violence is used, will shy away from the term. This is a problem that we see famously in the
United Nations.

And a government that wants to get into power in a situation like that, or stay in power after that
kind of violence is used, will shy away from the term. This is a problem that we see famously in the
United Nations.

. Terrorist organizations are also sometimes used as a form of deterrence.

In addition, there's just the idea of empathy for the cause. Sometimes, it's just not politically viable
for a policymaker in a given country to affix the term terrorism to a group or movement, because
that political leader knows that this would alienate a part of his or her constituency, who might
have empathy for the stated goals of that organization.
If terrorism is defined in terms of war, the Defense Department or defense agencies will get a
larger share of the budget allocated to counter terrorism.

Finally, there's a bit of arbitrariness in terms of defining terrorism for a given project or a given
purpose, and what I mean is that terrorism is a tactic. And it's a tactic that can be used by different
organizations or entities. So a nation-state can use terrorism as a tactic

we're going to talk about non-state actors for example.

I really didn't understand the definition. So the definition itself can be educational. It can change
the way you perceive events going on around you.

So the definition that the GTD uses, it's one that we inherited but I think it's a pretty good
one. Acts by non-state actors involving the threatened or actual use of illegal force or violence to
obtain a political, economic, religious, or social goal through fear, coercion, or intimidation. Global
Terrorism Database

Criterios

So our three inclusion criteria that are mandatory. One, intentional, the violence has to be
intentional.

Second, they use violence or the threat of violence. And third, the actor is a non-nation
state. Now, we do include state-sponsored terrorism. So if a nation state were to use a sub-state
actor as a proxy, we would include that.

t least two of the three following criteria. There was a political, social, religious, or economic goal
motivating the attack. The attack was intended to coerce or intimidate an audience beyond the
immediate target. And that the event occurred outside of the context of legitimate warfare.

Terrorism is a tactic, and I mentioned this, but it's a tactic which has been used by organizations in
concert with other tactics as part of differing strategies. terrorist organizations can oftentimes
employ very different tactics in addition to that terrorist behavior. Second, propaganda by the
deed. This is a phrase coined by an Italian Republican named Carlo Pisacane. And I think the
phrase is really useful because it highlights the violent spectacle, the theater that is terrorism.

It's an entirely different thing to signal to the world how serious you are by paying a price
yourself, maybe giving up your life, or by making others pay a price by taking theirs. So this is what
Andrew Kydd and Barbara Walters referred to as costly signalling. Terrorism is propaganda by the
deed.

Rational behavior now is not the same thing as good or justifiable behavior, that's not what I'm
suggesting. Instead, what I mean is that if you understand the underlying assumptions, the starting
assumptions, that an individual or group operates from, then their behaviors following those
assumptions can become logical. They can be perceived or understood as logical behaviors, even
in some cases somewhat predictable.

But in general, when we talk about terrorism, we're not talking about an irrational phenomenon
or a phenomenon driven by the insane.
Terrorist groups use violence as a form of political communication.
Terrorist organizations communicate with one another through actions, sometimes they're
competing, sometimes they're collaborating.
So, in conclusion, terrorism is the use of violence in order to influence the organization of
society, whether along political, religious, social, or economic lines.

I'd argue that counterterrorism is inherently a political practice as well. Counterterrorism is not
the focus of this class, but I think this is an important concept to highlight.

Terrorism and counterterrorism is a competition of nuance disguised as brute force.

And interestingly, these locations change over time. If there can be any good news about
terrorism, it's that if you're in a high terrorism area during one period of time, it's very likely that
that's going to be true forever. It's very likely that within ten years or even less that
terrorist attacks are going to be concentrated in fact somewhere else in the world.

half of the terrorist attacks in the GTD are concentrated in just three regions, the Middle East
North Africa which is about 20%, South Asia which is about 19% and South America which is about
17%.

North America and Russia each account for around 2% of the total.

. It accounts for 15% of worldwide fatalities, but only 7% of worldwide attacks. So in other words
each attack in Sub-Saharan Africa tended to kill more people.

And we see the opposite pattern in places like Western Europe, North America, and South
America. To a lesser extent Eastern Europe and East Asia. These are regions that have a higher
proportion of attacks than fatalities. And of all of these, the region that's most striking is Western
Europe, which accounts for 14% of total terrorist attacks. But only 3% of total terrorist fatalities.

Western Europe dominated the 1970s. Attacks from Latin America, and here I'm including both
Central America and South America, dominated the 1980s. During the 1990s, attacks were fairly
evenly spread between the Middle East, North Africa, South America South Asia and Western
Europe. And finally attacks have been concentrated during the last ten or 12 years in the Middle
East, North Africa, and South Asia.

The two groups in the Middle East/North Africa had the most attacks in the 1990s were the
Kurdistan Workers Party, also known as the PKK in Turkey, and Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya or IG in
Egypt.

And the two groups from South Asia that had the most attacks in the 90s were the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam, also known as the LTTE in Sri Lanka. And the Muttahida Qaumi Movement,
the MQM in Pakistan.

The lead South Asian groups in the first decade of the 21st century, where the Taliban in
Afghanistan and Pakistan and the communist party of India.
The only decades where North America region is among the top five most active regions was the
1970s. And this was primarily because of leftist organizations operating in the United States during
this period.

Five regions, Russia and the newly independent states, Eastern Europe, East Asia, Australasia
Oceania and Central Asia are never listed among the top five regions in any of the four decades.

Iraq and Colombia together account for nearly 15% of all terrorist attacks, despite the fact that
they represent less than 1% of the world's total countries. And this is a theme that we will come
back to repeatedly In these lectures, that terrorism, like crime, tends to be concentrated in hot
spots. It's not randomly distributed.

for 72% of all terrorist attacks happen in less than 10% of all countries of the world. Nearly 27% of
all terrorist attacks in the GTD took place in just four countries, Colombia, Iraq, India, and Peru.

there are only three countries that are ranked among the top five in two consecutive decades. So
Peru which accounts for 29% of attacks among the top five in the 1980s and 18% of attacks among
the top five in the 1990s. And Pakistan which accounts for 17% of attacks in the top five in the 90s
and 19% of attacks among top five in the first decade of the 21st century. And finally India, which
accounts for 18% of attacks in the 1990s and 20% of attacks in the first decade of the 21st century.

So no country is among the top five more than twice over the four decades examined.

Terrorism related fatalities are even more concentrated than attacks. Nearly 80% of total fatalities
from terrorism since 1970 took place in just 20 countries of the world. Countries with the most
attacks generally also have the most fatalities. But there are some exceptions. In general, Burundi,
Russia, Rwanda and Angola are ranked higher on fatalities than attacks. Spain, Chile, South Africa
and Thailand are ranked higher on attacks than fatalities.

In fact, only 4 of the 20 largest cities in the world, this would be Istanbul, Karachi, New York, and
Bogata, are among the top 20 terrorist locations in terms of either total attacks or fatalities. And in
fact, of these four cities, only Karachi is among the top 20 cities in terms of both attacks and
fatalities.

And New York City is among the top 20 for total fatalities only. And in fact, New York City, the
reason it's in the top 20 for fatalities is almost entirely due to the four coordinated attacks of 9/11.

The slide also shows that compared to the link between city population size and terrorist attacks
and fatalities, the link between attacks and fatalities is much stronger. Thus, ten cities appear on
both the high fatality and the high attack list. This includes Baghdad, San Salvador, Karachi, Bogata,
Medellin, Guatemala City, Beirut, Mosul, Mogadishu, and Kirkuk.

Belfast is the city with the single largest number of attacks in the 1970s. Lima has the largest
number of attacks in the 1980s. Karachi has the largest number of attacks in the 90s, and Baghdad
has the largest number of attacks in the first decade of the 21st century.

Taken as a whole, then, the results show that the total population of cities as an imperfect
predictor of how often they are attacked by terrorists and how many fatalities will result.
But in fact our analysis suggests that terrorism, like many things in life, including crime, is highly
concentrated. It's concentrated by region of the world, concentrated by country and concentrated
by city.

Geographic concentrations as we've been seeing also change over time. Western Europe was the
predominant area for attacks in the 70s. Latin America was a predominant location for attacks in
the 80s. In the 1990s, it was split pretty evenly between the Middle East, North Africa, South
America and South Asia.

About half of all terrorist attacks in the GTD since 1970 have taken place in just ten countries. And
there is much change in these ten countries over time.