Terrorist Kidnappings: Why Don't We Negotiate?

 UN Security Council Chamber by Patrick Gruban

On Monday the UN Security Council passed a resolution condemning kidnapping by terrorist and calling for an end to appeasing terrorists through ransom payments or political concessions. UK Ambassador to the UN, Mark Lyall Grant, said of the resolution, "it is... imperative that we take steps to ensure that kidnap for ransom is no longer perceived as a lucrative business model and that we eliminate it as a source of terrorist financing." The resolution does not create any new legal obligations but it does call on Member States to encourage the private sector to adopt relevant guidelines and good practices for responding to terrorist kidnappings without paying ransoms. 

I can understand why the UN would want to adopt such a measure; the UN estimates that Islamist extremist groups have garnered $105 million in ransom money in the last three and a half years. Starving terrorist groups of this source of income would presumably have a significant impact on their operations. And yet I have my doubts regarding this resolution.

The most obvious flaw of the resolution is that no one actually knows whether or not cutting ransom payments will be an effective strategy at countering terrorist activity. For decades, the western, liberal democracies have been staunchly following the creed that we should not negotiate with terrorists for fear of encouraging further terrorism. But terrorist activity persists and no one actually knows whether refusing to negotiate with terrorists has done anything to curtail terrorist attacks. Non-negotiation is not necessarily the best strategy, it's just that we can't think of anything else to do. 

In his book, Globalisation and War, Barkawi argues that a refusal to negotiate with terrorists simply creates a spiral of terrorist attack and harsh reprisal which de-legitimises negotiation and compromise and inspires more violence. Barkawi suggests instead that to counter terror, an effective strategy requires a combination of political and coercive means. Engagement and compromise with those the terrorists claim to represent whittles away at the legitimacy of terror, undermining the incentive to carry out terrorist attacks. We need a softer, 'hearts and minds' approach to terrorism.

A second reservation I have towards this resolution is that it shifts the balance of responsibility away from governments and international bodies and towards the unfortunate individuals who face the horrific decision of whether they should fund terrorists or leave their loved ones to suffer in captivity. It seems unfair that those taken as hostages, and their friends and family back home, are left to suffer at the hands of terrorists because national governments and international organisations can't think of a better method to counter terrorism.

Barkawi may not be correct. Maybe negotiation, compromise and dialogue will do nothing to stop terrorist activity. But I don't think that we should just blindly follow the same policy that we have pursued for years, to little effect, without at least considering alternatives.

War Between Women

 Don't be fooled by the smiles; we all hate each other...sluts...

A study was recently published in the journal, Aggressive Behaviour, which apparently shows that women will act bitchy towards other women they see as promiscuous. Several websites have reported on the study but, disappointingly, haven't pointed out how epicly flawed it is. In the study, 86 participants were left in a room with another woman (either a friend or a stranger) and told they would be contributing to a study on friendship. Instead they were interrupted by another woman. Half the women encountered a pretty, blonde woman in a blue t-shirt and sensible chinos. The other half encountered the same woman in a hot-pink, low-cut top, mini-skirt and knee-high boots.

The participants' reactions to this interloper were assessed according to a 'bitchiness' score of 1-10.  The authors of the study, Vaillancourt and Sharma, found that the participants were more likely to be bitchy when the 'sexy' woman walked into the room and that their bitchiness was more pronounced when the participants were with friends, rather than strangers. The authors concluded that women stifle each other's sexuality through indirect aggression, bitchiness, because women use sex to negotiate with men and it is therefore in their best interest to punish promiscuous women to maintain a limited supply of sex. Vaillancourt's study is small but supposedly demonstrates slut-shaming in an experimental context.

To me, the first, and most obvious, criticism is the very concept of a 'bitchiness score'. Observing someone's reactions and placing them on a 'scale of bitch' seems preposterously unscientific, even by psychology's standards. Is an eye-roll more bitchy than a laugh? Is a smirk more bitchy than a glare? And facial expressions may not always accurately portray someone's opinions. A participant may have an excellent poker face - that doesn't mean she's not thinking bitchy things. Given psychologists' propensity for questionnaires, why not use a carefully crafted questionnaire to quantify the participants' opinions rather than the far less rigourous method of observation? Of course observation can be an invaluable tool for scientists in experiments but you can't arbitrarily assign numbers to vague observations and then think you can make meaningful conclusions from an analysis of those numbers. 

I also question whether the woman's differing outfits really convey what the authors want them to convey to the participants. 'Sexiness' is an incredibly subjective attribute. I don't think her outfit looks sexy, I think it looks immensely unflattering (hot-pink is no one's friend). And even if we were to decide that there is only one universally recognised standard of 'sexiness', sexy is not coterminous with promiscuous. I can think that someone is sexy and not think of them as a potential home-wrecker.

Even if we were to accept that bitchiness can be objectively measured, and that 'sexiness' and 'promiscuity' were both coterminous and universally recognised, the study still fails to show that women slut-shame other women because it excludes men. Various news sites have picked up on this study to conclude that there exists a war between women. But if men also show this same behaviour against people they perceive to be their sexual rivals, clearly we don't have a war between women but just war between people. Other studies have in fact shown that both men and women display competitive behaviour, using strategies of self-promotion and competitor derogation. This experiment is only half of the story and any conclusions about female behaviour, as separate from human behaviour more generally, are completely unfounded.

War as a Driving Force for Civilisation

Andrew Brown at The Guardian posted an article at the weekend about war. I, unsurprisingly, have opinions.

The article itself is actually pretty good at showcasing a point that is often overlooked by people who aren’t as into war as yours truly. Brown discusses a recent study which uses computer modeling to show how war has been the driving force behind the emergence of civilised societies (societies with bureaucracies, networks of mutual trust, public order etc.) The authors of the study mapped Europe, Asia and North Africa and found a strong correlation between the development of military technology and the development of ‘ultrasocial’ societies. This is a fascinating rebuttal to those who, like Edwin Starr, think that war has only played a destructive role in the development of human societies.

While I don’t disagree with the content of the article, what irks me is that Brown is presenting this information as if it’s new! What about Charles Tilly? What about Philip Bobbitt? While the use of computer modeling to show the relationship between war and human society is new, the argument that war is a powerful driving force for societal innovation is certainly not.

Charles Tilly argued in 1975 that “war made the state”. According to his theory, military innovation (such as large, conscripted armies and gunpowder) made war extremely expensive. Only the richest, most populous states could maintain the military capability required to guarantee their security and survival. Thus the modern state, with its taxes, and the bureaucracies required to collect those taxes, developed as a way of feeding the war machine.

This idea is expanded upon by Bobbitt in his excellent book ‘The Shield of Achilles’. Bobbitt takes an epicly broad, historical perspective to demonstrate the importance of war in shaping constitutional innovation, the nation state and the free market. His book is too immense (the book’s nearly 1,000 pages long) to summarise for a blog but his core argument is that there is a reciprocal interplay between military strategy and constitutional innovation. So the French revolution brought about the Napoleonic revolution in military strategy, and the innovations in artillery during the Renaissance brought about the princely states.

Brown writes books on religion so I don’t really expect him to have an encyclopedic knowledge of war literature. But Tilly is a classic! Even the most perfunctory of Google searches on war and the development of the modern state would have revealed that the study Brown is discussing is hardly groundbreaking. Since Brown quite regularly discusses war, it might not be a bad idea for him to peruse some Bobbitt. 

Books:

Tilly C (1975) The Formation of National States in Western Europe 

Bobbitt P (2002) The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History

Bits and Bobs

Last weekend didn't have a 'Bits and Bobs' post because I had a pretty busy Bank Holiday weekend. So here's some interesting things I've read over the last two weeks...

- Here's some amazing photography of elements taken up close.

- About a month ago I wrote an article about the 'princess phenomenon' and how the problem with young girls looking towards princesses as role models isn't really a problem with princesses but with our narrow definition of what a princess is (pretty, quiet and acquiescent). The Atlantic has just published a similar article looking toward a more expansive definition of princess.

- The Guardian has a pretty interesting profile of J Crew Creative Director, Jenna Lyons.

- I loved this poignant piece in the New Yorker about memory and war.

- Reading this article about the psychology behind 'fat talk' was pretty eye-opening. I'm now very aware of how often my friends and I engage in this type of conversation and just how damaging it is.

- In the wake of the murder of Drummer, Lee Rigby, in Woolwich, the Wall Street Journal suggests a new way to look at fundamentalism and terrorism.