Terrorism and Game Theory

The interactions between terrorist and their "targets" make game theory perfect for understanding terrorist behaviors. Terrorism is the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims (google). Since terrorist are active players these models below do not cover all complexities, but the more things these scenarios take into account the more accurate they become. Game theory is used to gain insight into terrorist behavior and hopefully lead to helpful counterterrorism plans. Examples of game theory in terrorism are seen below:

Game theory in the idea of deterrence cost:
Scenario 1:
1) home country
2) foreign country
3) terrorist group
Goal: to prevent terrorist attack on your country
If the home country increases their deterrence efforts, the cost of a terrorist attack on the home country will also increase, therefore the relative cost of attacking the foreign country will be decrease, leaving the foreign country more vulnerable, in which case they need to increase their deterrence efforts. This will again even out the cost of terrorist attack for both countries so the home country will again increase there deterrence efforts, and this becomes an endless cycle and leads to overspending on deterrence efforts.

In this example if the two countries were non cooperative they would choose to differ, in reality, the optimal choice is to cooperate and preempt






Scenario 2:
1) 2 allied countries
2) terrorist group
Goal: allied countries to freeze terrorist assets
desired outcome can only be achieved when both countries choose to freeze assets so they must be cooperative








Scenario 3:
1) home country
2) foreign country
3) terrorist group
Goal: intelligence gathering and sharing  without discovery

no collaboration vs collaboration

Game theory and the idea of Terrorist Attacks:
Scenario 1:
2 distinct terrorist subgroups that are part of the same overall group, no chance of failed attack

terrorist net pay out for an attack: +4
+4 (pride points)  +1 (resource point from supporting nations) -1 (cost of attack) = 4

terrorist net payout for an attack done by other terrorist group: + 1
+2 (pride points) - 1 (resource points) = 1

dominate strategy: both groups to attack


Scenario 2:
takes into account short term change in military allocations based on actions of the terrorist groups

m_A - percent of military allocations used to suppress terrorist A

m_B-  percent of military allocations used to suppress terrorist B

note: m_A + m_B = 1, terrorist receiving 100% of military attention have payout of -1, terrorist receiving 0% have payout of 0

dominate strategy: do not attack

Scenario 3:
Takes into account long-term military allocations, including reinforcements or withdrawals, and strength of military

M - strength of military (0 <= M <= 1)
m_A - percent of military allocations used to suppress terrorist A
m_B -  percent of military allocations used to suppress terrorist B
change in M - attack causes increase in M
- change in M - no attack causes decrease in M


dominate strategy: do not attack

Scenario 4:
Takes into account long term military and possibility of failure in attack


Successful attack payout: (same as scenario 1) terrorist net pay out for an attack: +4
+4 (pride points)  +1 (resource point from supporting nations) -1 (cost of attack) = 4

terrorist net payout for an attack done by other terrorist group: + 1
+2 (pride points) - 1 (resource points) = 1

Unsuccessful attack:
net payout for attack group: -6
-4(shame points) -1(resource points) -1 (resources spent)

net payout for other group: -1
-2(shame points) + 1(resource point)

These different scenarios lead us to a generalized game for two terrorist groups:

which we will decipher tomorrow in class!

One of the four pillars of United States terrorism policy is "no concessions to terrorist". Although this is always the goal, we see from the complexities of just these simple scenarios, that this is not always as easy as it sounds.