Abstract
The employment of drone strikes has been ongoing and the public continues to debate their perceived benefits. A question that persists is whether drone strikes contribute to an increase in radicalization. This paper presents a data-driven approach to explore the relationship between drone strikes conducted in Pakistan and subsequent responses, often in the form of terrorist attacks carried out by those in the communities targeted by these particular counterterrorism measures. Our exploration and analysis of news reports which discussed drone strikes and radicalization suggest that government-sanctioned drone strikes in Pakistan appear to drive terrorist events with a distributed lag that can be determined analytically. We leverage news reports to inform and calibrate an agent-based model grounded in radicalization and opinion dynamics theory. This enabled us to simulate terrorist attacks that approximated the rate and magnitude observed in Pakistan from 2007 through 2018. We argue that this research effort advances the field of radicalization and lays the foundation for further work in the area of data-driven modeling and drone strikes.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alizadeh M, Cioffi-Revilla C, Crooks A (2017) Generating and analyzing spatial social networks. Comput Math Organ Theory 23(3):362–390. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10588-016-9232-2
Arroyo J, Hassan S, Gutiérrez C, Pavón J (2010) Re-thinking simulation: a methodological approach for the application of data mining in agent-based modelling. Comput Math Organ Theory 16(4):416–435. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10588-010-9078-y
Axtell RL, Epstein JM (1994) Agent-based modeling: understanding our creations. Bull Santa Fe Inst 9(4):28–32
Barabási A-L, Bonabeau E (2003) Scale-free networks. Sci Am 288(5):60–69. https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican0503-60
Baran Z (2005) Fighting the war of ideas. Foreign Aff 84(6):68–78. https://doi.org/10.2307/20031777
Brennan J (2012) The efficacy and ethics of the president’s counterterrorism strategy. Speech delivered at the Wilson Center, Washington, DC. http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/the-efficacy-and-ethics-us-counterterrorism-strategy
Bureau of Investigative Journalism: Drone Warfare (2020). https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/projects/drone-war Accessed 2021/10/10
Caiani A, Godin A, Caverzasi E, Gallegati M, Kinsella S, Stiglitz JE (2016) Agent based-stock flow consistent macroeconomics: towards a benchmark model. J Econ Dyn Control 69:375–408. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jedc.2016.06.001
Cioffi-Revilla C, Harrison JF (2011) Pandemonium in silico: individual radicalization for agent-based modeling. In: Annual convention of the international studies association, Montreal, Canada, pp. 1–15. http://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/8643
Crooks A, Malleson N, Manley E, Heppenstall A (2019) Agent-based modelling and geographical information systems: a primer. Sage, London
Defense Science Board (2015) Task force on Department of Defense strategy to counter violent extremism outside of the united states. Report, Department of Defense. https://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/2010s/DSB-CVE-FinalReport-April172015.pdf
della Porta D (2018) Radicalization: a relational perspective. Annu Rev Polit Sci 21:461–474. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-042716-102314
Diallo SY, Gore R, Lynch CJ, Padilla JJ (2016) Formal methods, statistical debugging and exploratory analysis in support of system development: towards a verification and validation calculator tool. Int J Model Simul Sci Comput 7(01):1641001
Doosje B, Moghaddam M, Fathali Kruglanski AW, de Wolf A, Mann L, Feddes AR (2016) Terrorism, radicalization and de-radicalization. Curr Opin Psychol 11:79–84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2016.06.008
Galam S, Javarone MA (2016) Modeling radicalization phenomena in heterogeneous populations. PLoS ONE 11(5):1–15. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0155407
Genkin M, Gutfraind A (2011) How do terrorist cells self-assemble: insights from an agent-based model of radicalization. SSRN. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1031521
Grimm V (2002) Visual debugging: a way of analyzing, understanding and communicating bottom-up simulation models in ecology. Nat Resource Model 15(1):23–38. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1939-7445.2002.tb00078.x
Grimm V, Berger U, Bastiansen F, Eliassen S, Ginot V, Giske J, Goss-Custard J, Grand T, Heinz S, Huse G, Huth A, Jepsen J, Jorgensen C, Mooij W, Muller B, Pe’er G, Piou C, Railsback S, Robbins A, Robbins M, Rossmanith E, Ruger N, Strand E, Souissi S, Stillman R, Vabo R, Visser U, Deangelis D (2006) A standard protocol for describing individual-based and agent-based models. Ecol Model 198(1–2):115–126. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2006.04.023
Helfstein S, Wright D (2011) Covert or convenient? Evolution of terror attack networks. J Confl Resolut 55(5):785–813. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022002710393919
Heppenstall A, Crooks A, Malleson N, Manley E, Ge J, Batty M (2021) Future developments in geographical agent-based models: challenges and opportunities. Geogr Anal 53(1):76–91. https://doi.org/10.1111/gean.12267
Jaeger DA, Siddique Z (2018) Are drone strikes effective in Afghanistan and Pakistan? On the dyanmics of violence between the United States and the Taliban. CESifo Econ Stud 64(4):667–697. https://doi.org/10.1093/cesifo/ify011
Jensen MA, Seate AA, James PA (2020) Radicalization to violence: a pathway approach to studying extremism. Terror Polit Violence 32(5):1067–1090. https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2018.1442330
Klausen J, Libretti R, Hung BWK, Jayasumana AP (2020) Radicalization trajectories: an evidence-based computational approach to dynamic risk assesssment of “homegrown’’ Jihadists. Stud Confl Terror 43(7):588–615. https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2018.1492819
Kruglanski AW, Gelfand MJ, Bélanger JJ, Sheveland A, Hetiarachchi M, Gunaratna R (2014) The psychology of radicalization and deradicalization: how significance quest impacts violent extremism. Polit Psychol 35:69–93. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12163
Mahmood R, Jetter M (2019) Military intervention via drone strikes. IZA discussion paper 12318, IZA: Institute of Labor Economics, Bonn, Germany. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3390307
Marten K, Johnson TH, Mason C (2008) Misunderstanding Pakistan’s federally administered tribal area? Int Secur 33(3):180–189. https://doi.org/10.1162/isec.2009.33.3.180
McCauley C, Moskalenko S (2008) Mechanisms of political radicalization: pathways toward terrorism. Terror Polit Violence 20(3):415–433. https://doi.org/10.1080/09546550802073367
McCauley C, Moskalenko S (2017) Understanding political radicalization: the two-pyramids model. Am Psychol 72(3):205–216. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000062
Medina R, Hepner G (2008) Geospatial analysis of dynamic terrorist networks. In: Karawan IA, McCormack W, Reynolds SE (eds) Values and violence. Springer, New York, pp 151–167
Mir A, Moore D (2019) Drones, surveillance, and violence: theory and evidence from a us drone program. Int Stud Q 63(4):846–862. https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqz040
Moghaddam FM (2005) The staircase to terrorism: a psychological exploration. Am Psychol 60(2):161–169. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.60.2.161
Moon I-C, Carley KM (2007) Modeling and simulating terrorist networks in social and geospatial dimensions. IEEE Intell Syst 22(5):40–49. https://doi.org/10.1109/MIS.2007.4338493
National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), University of Maryland, Global Terrorism Database (GTD) (2019). https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd. Accessed 10 Oct 2021
Nawaz S (2009) Fata—a most dangerous place: meeting the challenge of militancy and terror in the federally administered tribal areas of Pakistan. Report, Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), Washington, D.C. https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/media/csis/pubs/081218_nawaz_fata_web.pdf
Neumann P, Kleinmann S (2013) How rigorous is radicalization research? Democr Secur 9(4):360–382
Orsini A (2020) What everybody should know about radicalization and the DRIA model. Stud Confl Terror. https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2020.1738669
Ozik J, Sallach DL, Macal CM (2008) Modeling dynamic multiscale social processes in agent-based models. IEEE Intell Syst 23(4):36–42. https://doi.org/10.1109/MIS.2008.71
Pew Research Center (2014) Global opposition to U.S. surveillance and drones, but limited harm to America’s image. Report, Pew Research Center, Washington, DC. http://pewrsr.ch/1rbygYx
Pfeffer J, Carley KM (2012) Rapid modeling and analyzing networks extracted from pre-structured news articles. Comput Math Organ Theory 18(3):280–299. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10588-012-9122-1
Plaw A, Fricker MS, Colon CR (2016) The drone debate: a primer on the u.S. use of unmanned aircraft outside conventional battlefields. Rowman & Littlefield, New York
Sageman M (2004) Understanding terror networks. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia
Sageman M (2008) Leaderless Jihad: terror networks in the twenty-first century. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia
Sawyer JP, Hienz J (2017) What makes them do it? Individual-level indicators of extremist outcomes. In: LaFree G, Freilich JD (eds) The handbook of the criminology of terrorism. Wiley, Malden, pp 47–61
Shah A (2018) Do U.S. drone strikes cause blowback?: Evidence from Pakistan and beyond. Int Secur 42(4):47–84. https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00312
Shults FL, Gore R (2020) Modeling radicalization and violent extremism. In: Verhagen H, Borit M, Bravo G, Wijermans N (eds) Advances in social simulation. Springer, Cham, pp 405–410
Shults FL, Gore R, Wildman WJ, Lynch CJ, Lane JE, Toft MD (2018) A generative model of the mutual escalation of anxiety between religious groups. J Artif Soc Soc Simul. https://doi.org/10.18564/jasss.3840
Silber MD, Bhatt A (2007) Radicalization in the West: the homegrown threat. Report, New York Police Department Intelligence Division, New York, NY . https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/radicalization-west-homegrown-threat
Smith AG (2018) How radicalization to terrorism occurs in the United States: what research sponsored by the national institute of justice tells us. US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice, Washington, DC
Tobler WR (1970) A computer movie simulating urban growth in the Detroit region. Econ Geogr 46(Supplement 1):234–240. https://doi.org/10.2307/143141
United States House of Representatives (2009) Reassessing the evolving Al-qaeda threat to the homeland security. Hearing. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-111hhrg55595/html/CHRG-111hhrg55595.htm
Webber D, Kruglanski AW (2018) The social psychological makings of a terrorist. Curr Opin Psychol 19:131–134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.03.024
Webber D, Kruglanski AW (2017) Psychological factors in radicalization: a “3N’’ approach. In: LaFree G, Freilich JD (eds) The handbook of the criminology of terrorism. Wiley, Malden, pp 33–46
Wilensky U (1999) NetLogo. Center for connected learning and computer-based modeling, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo
Xu J, Hu D, Chen H (2009) The dynamics of terrorist networks: understanding the survival mechanisms of global Salafi Jihad. J Homel Secur Emerg Manage. https://doi.org/10.2202/1547-7355.1477
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Shapiro, B., Crooks, A. Drone strikes and radicalization: an exploration utilizing agent-based modeling and data applied to Pakistan. Comput Math Organ Theory 29, 415–433 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10588-022-09364-1
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10588-022-09364-1