Terrorist organizations change over time because of processes such as
recruitment and training as well as counter-terrorism (CT) measures, but the
effects of these processes are typically studied qualitatively and in
separation from each other. Seeking a more quantitative and integrated
understanding, we constructed a simple dynamic model where equations describe
how these processes change an organization's membership. Analysis of the model
yields a number of intuitive as well as novel findings. Most importantly it
becomes possible to predict whether counter-terrorism measures would be
sufficient to defeat the organization. Furthermore, we can prove in general
that an organization would collapse if its strength and its pool of foot
soldiers decline simultaneously. In contrast, a simultaneous decline in its
strength and its pool of leaders is often insufficient and short-termed. These
results and other like them demonstrate the great potential of dynamic models
for informing terrorism scholarship and counter-terrorism policy making.Comment: To appear as Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science v2:
vectorized 4 figures, fixed two typos, more detailed bibliograph