II. A model of the effects of dominant nation repressive counter-terrorism strategies
To address this question, this study develops a model accounting for subordinate rival
violence. The model begins with the assumption that the security of the dominant nation is a
function of the capability and willingness of the subordinate rival to attack its people. (See
The task becomes to specify the linkages between dominant nation
counter-terrorism/guerrilla strategy and the will and the capability of the subordinate nation to
attack.
A. The basic model and basic debates on the relative salience of its elements
During episodes of violent competitions in resolve, the willingness of the subordinate
rival to attack is based on three elements, its estimates of the costs of dominant nation
repression, anger and hatred toward the dominant nation, and resolve/morale (Morgenthau
1949; Rosen 1972). Estimates, however rough and intuitive, of the efficacy of violence in
achieving the nation’s political aspirations is a fundamental element of resolve/morale; without
the sense that violence can succeed, the subordinate rival will not be willing to suffer the costs
Another basic element of resolve, the
changes will only fuel the discontent and thus war-proneness of the subjugated nation, particularly
to the extent that it sees its resort to violence as a rational instrument of its national interests.
13
This premise excludes at least two other national-level concerns that may factor into a dominant
rival policymaker’s calculations, the quality of relations with third parties, and the possibility of a
pretext for engaging the subordinate rival in a nearly all out war so as to destroy the subordinate
rival’s domestic authority infrastructure and/or territorial infrastructure. These omissions allow us
to focus on the purer basic security calculation. These criteria will be picked up in Part III.
14
Robert Pape, “Coercion and Military Strategy: Why Denial Works and Punishment Doesn’t.”
Journal of Strategic Studies 15(December 1992). Pape, concerned primarily but not exclusively
with conventional inter-state war, suggests that the feeling of efficacy must be brought to nil before
8
Convention