Terrorism, state or independent

Links between the two. Funding. Apologetics. Historical origins and counterparts. Myths. Do people become terrorists because they are crazy, or out of conviction, or because they enjoy blowing things up? Why do they remain terrorists? When and how do they retire from terrorism (the ones who do), and what do they do afterwards? What do people who would otherwise become terrorists do when they lack opportunity? (Do they ever lack opportunity? What about eras before gunpowder and mass armies?)

What can we do about people who want us to die for their convictions?

See also: Revolution; Social Networks; War

John Arquilla, David Ronfeldt, Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy [From RAND, the people who brought you the American strategy in Indochina. But nonetheless interesting. Online.]
Scott Atran, "Mishandling Suicide Terrorism", The Washington Quarterly 27:3 (Summer 2004): 67--90 [PDF]
Samidh Chakrabarti and Aaron Strauss, "Carnival Booth: An Algorithm for Defeating the Computer-Assisted Passenger Screening System" [online]
Aaron Clauset, Maxwell Young, and Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, "Scale Invariance in the Severity of Terrorism", physics/0606007 [Surprising, but well-supported]
Mary DeRosa, "Data Mining and Data Analysis for Counterterrorism", CSIS Report, March 2004 [Sound look at what data mining can and can't do for counterterrorism, and suggestions on how it should and should not be used. I agree with the recommendation that decisions about what actions to take should not be made on the basis of automatic data analysis. The only thing which gives me pause there is the literature on clinical vs. actuarial judgment, which shows that it's very hard to identify situations in which human experts are more reliable than automated decision-rules. Document page, including link for PDF download and option to buy hardcopy.]
Gilles Keppel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam [Argues that spectacular terrorism was actually linked to the decline of Islamism in the 1990s]
James Joll, The Anarchists [People often seem to think that non-state terrorism is an innovation of the last few decades, but that's really not so: this book has a chapter or two on the relevant bomber-throwers who, while be no means typical of all anarchists, certainly managed to blow up a respectable number of heads of state, cabinet ministers, and innocent bystanders.]
Gordon H. McCormick, "Terrorist Decision Making", Annual Review of Political Science 6 (2003): 473--507
John Mueller, Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them
Marc Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks [Really limited to the networks of the global Salafi jihad, but, subject to that disclaimer, very good. Blurb, link to sample chapter]
Bruce Schneier, Beyond Fear
Austin T. Turk, "Sociology of Terrorism", Annual Review of Sociology 30 (2004): 271--286 [Ignore the blather about social construction at the beginning; the rest is worthwhile.]

Mariam Abou Zahab and Olivier Roy, Islamist Networks: The Afghan-Pakistan Connection
Sean Anderson and Stephen Sloan, Historical Dictionary of Terrorism
Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon
- The Age of Sacred Terror
- The Next Attack: The Failure of the War on Terror and a Strategy for Getting It Right
Jason Burke, Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam
Matthew Carr, The Infernal Machine: A History of Terrorism [Review by Ken MacLeod]
Richard A. Clarke et al., Defeating the Jihadists: A Blueprint for Action [Full text online, as chapter-by-chapter PDFs]
David Cole, Enemy Aliens: Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism
Audrey Kurth Cronin, How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns [blurb]
Laura K. Donohue, The Cost of Counterterrorism: Power, Politics, and Liberty [blurb]
Michael Faia, " `Three Can Keep a Secret, if Two of Them Are Dead': Weak Ties as Infiltration Routes," Quantity and Quality 34 (May 2000): 193--216 [Online as HTML, PDF]
Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog, "Engieers of Jihad" [PDF. Via Henry Farrell, who summarizes.]
Adam Garfinkle (ed.), A Practical Guide to Winning the War on Terrorism [Online]
Karen J. Greenberg (ed.), Al Qaeda Now
Philip B. Heymann
- Terrorism, Freedom and Security: Winning without War [Blurb, sample chapter]
- Terrorism and America
Michael Kenney, From Pablo to Osama: Trafficking and Terrorist Networks, Government Bureaucracies, and Competitive Adaptation [Blurb]
Sundri K. Khalsa, Forecasting Terrorism: Indicators and Proven Analytic Techniques [Color me extremely skeptical]
Alexander T. J. Lennon (ed.), The Battle for Hearts and Minds: Using Soft Power to Undermine Terrorist Networks
Eileen MacDonald, Shoot the Women First
Jaime Malamud-Goti, Game without End: State Terror and the Politics of Justice
Robert A. Pape, "The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism", American Political Science Review 97 (2003): 343--361
Darius Rejali, Torture and Democracy [blurb]
Christoph Reuter, My Life Is a Weapon: A Modern History of Suicide Bombing [Blurb, intro]
Louise Richardson, What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat
Jake Shapiro and David Siegel, "Underfunding in Terrorist Organizations", Journal of Conflict Resolution submitted [PDF preprint]
Jessica Stern, The Ultimate Terrorists [Blurb]
Leon Trotsky, In Defense of Terrorism
Michel Wieviorka, The Making of Terrorism [Blurb]

Notebooks

Terrorism, state or independent