Suicide Bombings and the Arc of Instability

A study on suicide bombers by Robert Pape of Chicago University has examined the common characteristics of every suicide bombing in the world since 1980. Pape's database of suicide bombings has included information on groups responsible, number of attacks, terrorist goals and the response of the intended targets. These findings have been published by Pape in "Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism." For those who follow terrorism closely, it is perhaps no surprise that the most prolific suicide bombers in this study are Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers.

The study's main finding is that suicide bombing is not necessarily linked to religion (this dealing a major blow to the common conception that suicide bombing is an almost exclusively Islamist strategy) but "to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory
the terrorists view as their homeland." This has several implications for the region of territory to Australia's north known as the Arc of Instability.

Certainly few people would dispute the disruptive nature of suicide bombing as a strategy. Indeed, it is difficult to think of a country that has suffered at the hands of a suicide bomber in the last 20 years that itself could be called stable and prospering. It must surely be in everybody's interests to deter such acts in the region. But the only notable acts of suicide bombing in the Arc of Instability have been in Sri Lanka and of course Bali in 2002.

Sri Lanka's case can be explained by the ongoing dispute between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government over an independent state for the Tamils. Thus Pape would explain this situation as the Tamil's attempting to gain strategic military advantage by use of suicide bombers. But what of Bali? No foreign power militarily occupies any part of Indonesia, a necessary precursor to any ongoing suicide bombing campaign, according to Pape's study.

We are therefore left with the distinct possibility that suicide bombing in the region will remain a rarely used tactic. The motivation for an individual to give their life in such an act is simply not as strong in most of the Arc of Instability as it is in places such as Sri Lanka, Iraq and the Occupied Territories. Going on the logic of Pape's study, it would be surpring if groups such as Jemmah Islamiah, Abbu Sayyef etc were able to recruit enough members willing to be suicide bombers for an ongoing campaign. Until there is direct military occupation of territory, this will thankfully be a rare occurence in this region.