The Evolution of Strategic Culture In Counterterrorism Studies

1. The Evolution of Strategic Culture In Counterterrorism Studies Alex Burns (alex@alexburns.net) PhD Confirmation Talk PSI Symposium, Monash University 26th October 2012

2. Project Overview • Analytical and theory-building project • Strategic Culture as a theoretical framework • Counterterrorism Studies context informed by National Security, Civil-Military Affairs and Grand Strategy knowledge • Mixed methods research • Al Qaeda, Aum Shinrikyo and FARC as comparative case studies • Different to: (1) analogical reasoning (Neustadt & May 1986) and (2) prospect theory (Kahneman & Tversky 1979)

3. Project Original Contributions • First in-depth study of Strategic Culture in a Counterterrorism Studies context (precursors: Cronin 2003; Donnelly 2006) • Levels of Analysis shift: nation-states and nuclear strategy → terrorist organisations • Build sub-field links between Counterterrorism Studies, Political Psychology, Intelligence Analysis and ‘parent’ field International Security • Mixed methods: Discovery, Coding and Analysis phases • In-depth case studies: Al Qaeda, Aum Shinrikyo and FARC

4. Defining Strategic Culture (Snyder) • “The sum total of ideas, conditionsemotional responses and patterns of habitual behaviour that members of a national strategic community have achieved through instruction and imitation with each other with regard to nuclear strategy.” (Snyeder 1977: 8).

5. Defining Strategic Culture (Johnston) • “An integrated system of symbols (e.g. argumentation structures, languages, analogies, metaphors) which acts to establishpervasive and long lasting preferences by formulating concepts of the role and efficacy of military force in interstate political affairs, and by clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the strategic preferences seem uniquely realistic and efficacious.” (Johnston 1995a: 36) [emphasis added].

6. Defining Strategic Culture: This Study • “Strategic culture is a set of ideational constructs, derived from cognitive filters, experience and learning that enables national security elites to choose, evaluate and to prioritise decisions about the strategic use of force.”

7. Theory-Building Barriers • Early exemplars left • Definitional and epistemological stance differences • Levels of analysis and methodological differences • Divergent case studies • Citation patterns in the literature • Little theory-testing of construct validity • Unclear on mid-range variable, theoretical construct or Lakatosian research program

8. Counterterrorism Studies • Applied sub-field of international security • Terrorism (political violence) as a national security problem • ‘Eventisation’ model (Lisa Stampnitzky) • Speculative Bubble model (John Mueller) • Key contributions: Martha Crenshaw; Audrey Kurth Cronin; Louise Richardson; Jessica Sterling; BrynjarLia, Jerrold M. Post; David Rapoport; Mark Juergensmeyer; Adam Dolnik; Walter Laqueur; Patrick Porter; and others

9. Key Research Questions • What are the descriptive, causal, and evaluative criteria for establishing that a strategic culture construct is valid? What are the judgment criteria? • Who are the keepers of ‘strategic culture’ in Counterterrorism Studies, and how is it culturally transmitted within the sub-discipline? • What do the case studies on Al Qaeda, Aum Shinrikyo and FARC reveal about the possibility of strategic cultures in terrorist organisations?

10. Research Hypotheses • Cultural Transmission Hypothesis • Organisational Coherence Hypothesis • State Emulation Hypothesis

11. Progress To-Date • PhD project is part of a long-term research program • 3 draft chapters on Strategic Culture, Counterterrorism Studies, and Methods/Research Design • Working notes for forthcoming chapters • Journals identified for possible academic publications • Two co-authored papers accepted for International Studies Association’s annual convention in April 2013 in San Francisco

12. Comparative Case Study Selection • Literature has divergent, competing hypotheses and theories • Large potential ‘case universe’ of terrorist organisations • Under what conditions might a terrorist organisation have a strategic culture? • Selected groups will identify differential factors in a strategic culture theory and the potential variances in variables • Across-case comparison (George & Bennett 2005; Yin 2009)

13. Research Methods • National Security and Grand Strategy Frameworks • Historical Analysis • Political Psychology • Propaganda and Intelligence Analysis • Argumentation Analysis

14. Analytical Variables • IV1 Group survival, continuity and cultural transmission of values and worldviews over time • IV2 An articulated grand strategy of ranked, ordered preferences, such as from senior leadership or from specific group strategists • IV3 Organisational capabilities and learning: via combat experience, from attacks, historical experience, covert research programs, etc • IV4 Reaction to the domestic grand strategy of their ‘host’ nation-state --- how the nation-state’s strategic culture has conceptualized the group as a national security problem • IV5 Diffusion of military innovations --- from ‘host’ nation-state, other criminal and terrorist groups, other military forces

15. Discovery Phase • What is the existing literature on each group? What are the existing, dominant explanatory theories about each group? • Historical analysis methods in military history, grand strategy, and international relations (Trachtenberg 2006; Murray & Sennreich 2006; Gaddis 2004; Gaddis 2011) • Source analysis: civilian academic; war college; journalism and media; think-tank; intelligence estimative assessment • Identification of potential cognitive biases (Kahneman & Tversky 1979; Kahneman 2011) such as anchoring, framing, and representativeness biases

16. Al Qaeda Sources • Al Qaeda communiques, interviews, and propaganda • Bin Laden letters (Center for Combating Terrorism, West Point), interviews, and other primary documentation • Investigative Journalism: Lawrence Wright (2006), Peter Bergen (2002, 2006, 2011, 2012), and Steve Coll (2004, 2008) • Intelligence Analysis: Michael Scheuer (2011) • Al Qaeda strategist profiles: Lia (2008) on Abu Mus’ab Al- Suri

17. Aum Shinrikyo Sources • Interviews: Robert Jay Lifton’sDestroying the World to Save It (1999) • Tatsuya Mori’s A (1998) and A2 (2001) documentaries • Journalism: Haruki Murakami’s Underground (2003) • Jerrold M. Post’s profiles of Aum Shinrikyo’s leadership (2007) • Milton Leitenberg’s Russia-Aum analysis in The Soviet Biological Weapons Program (2012) • Recent PhD dissertations and religious scholarship

18. FARC Sources • Oslo peace talks currently underway in 2012 • International Institute of Strategic Studies dossier on Raul Reyes’ emails: The FARC Files (2011) • Other data: area and country studies; recent dissertations; reports by non-government organisations; journalism; memoirs by ex-kidnap victims; estimative assessments by intelligence agencies; civil-military affairs analysis; counter-narcotics analysis

19. Coding Phase • Pre-coding and initial coding of Strategic Culture frameworks • A sample of public data from the Discovery phase will be coded • In vivo, emotion, values and versus coding (Saldana 2009) • NVivo 9 for electronic coding and analytic memos • Codebook and codelist will be developed and released publicly

20. Analysis Phase • Hypothesis coding and holistic coding for theory comparison (Saldana 2009) • Applied Thematic Analysis techniques to re-examine codebook and codelist (Guest, MacQueen & Namey2012) • Argumentation analysis (Besnard& Hunter 2008; Walton, Reed & Macagno, 2008) for post-coding • Identify causal and explanatory mechanisms if possible (Morgan & Winship 2007; Pearl 2009; Gerring 2012) • Intelligence Analysis: retrospectives (Jervis 2010)