Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide TerrorismRandom House Publishing Group, 2006 M07 25 - 368 pages Includes a new Afterword Finalist for the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award One of the world’s foremost authorities on the subject of suicide terrorism, the esteemed political scientist Robert Pape has created the first comprehensive database of every suicide terrorist attack in the world from 1980 until today. In Dying to Win, Pape provides a groundbreaking demographic profile of modern suicide terrorist attackers–and his findings offer a powerful counterpoint to what we now accept as conventional wisdom on the topic. He also examines the early practitioners of this guerrilla tactic, including the ancient Jewish Zealots, who in A.D. 66 wished to liberate themselves from Roman occupation; the Ismaili Assassins, a Shi’ite Muslim sect in northern Iran in the eleventh and twelfth centuries; World War II’s Japanese kamikaze pilots, three thousand of whom crashed into U.S. naval vessels; and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, a secular, Marxist-Leninist organization responsible for more suicide terrorist attacks than any other group in history. Dying to Win is a startling work of analysis grounded in fact, not politics, that recommends concrete ways for states to fight and prevent terrorist attacks now. Transcending speculation with systematic scholarship, this is one of the most important studies of the terrorist threat to the United States and its allies since 9/11. “Invaluable . . . gives Americans an urgently needed basis for devising a strategy to defeat Osama bin Laden and other Islamist militants.” –Michael Scheuer, author of Imperial Hubris “Provocative . . . Pape wants to change the way you think about suicide bombings and explain why they are on the rise.” –Henry Schuster, CNN.com “Enlightening . . . sheds interesting light on a phenomenon often mistakenly believed to be restricted to the Middle East.” –The Washington Post Book World “Brilliant.” –Peter Bergen, author of Holy War, Inc. |
Contents
The Growing Threat | 3 |
THE STRATEGIC LOGIC OF SUICIDE TERRORISM | 27 |
CONCLUSION | 39 |
THE SOCIAL LOGIC OF SUICIDE TERRORISM | 79 |
THE INDIVIDUAL LOGIC OF SUICIDE TERRORISM | 171 |
The Demographic Profile of Suicide Terrorists | 199 |
Portraits of Three Suicide Terrorists | 217 |
Other editions - View all
Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism Robert Anthony Pape No preview available - 2005 |
Common terms and phrases
achieve acts al-Qaeda altruistic American Arabia army associated bomb belt bomb bomb car bomb campaigns car bomb car carried cause cide coercive committed countries death effect effort enemy explain fact forces foreign occupation fundamentalism goals groups Hamas Hezbollah homeland identity important independence Indian individuals International Iraq Islamic Israel Israeli Jaffna Jihad July killed Kurds Laden lead leaders Lebanese Lebanon liberation living logic LTTE major martyrdom martyrs means militant military million mission motives movement Muslim nationalist occupation occur operations ordinary organizations Palestinian percent Persian political population presence Press reason rebellion region religion religious difference resistance Salafi Saudi Shia shows Sikh Sinhalese social society sources Sri Lanka strategy suicide attacks suicide terrorism suicide terrorist Sunni Tamil territory terrorist groups threat Tigers tion troops Turkey United University violence withdrawal York