Leadership Decapitation: Strategic Targeting of Terrorist Organizations

One  of the central pillars of U.S. counterterrorism policy is that  capturing or killing a terrorist group's leader is effective.  yet this  pillar rests more on a foundation of faith than facts.  Leadership  decapitation is not always successful and existing empirical work is  insufficient to account for this variability.  this talk will examine  whether leadership decapitation "works" and results in the degradation  or decline of terrorist organizations.  It will draw upon an examination  of over a thousand instances of leadership targeting-involving groups  such as Hamas, al Qaeda, Shining Path, and ISIS - to identify the  successes, failures, and unintended consequences of this strategy.

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Location:  CLE Lecture Hall

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Presenter:   Jenna Jordan is an associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of  International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology.  Her book,  by the same title as the lecture, evaluates the efficacy of leadership  targeting as a counterterrorism strategy.