Connections Can Be Toxic: Terrorist Organizational Factors and the Pursuit of CBRN Terrorism
Despite plentiful scholarship relating to the prospect of terrorists utilizing chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) weapons, little of this work is both quantitative in nature and global in scope. Leveraging open-source data, this study quantitatively explores factors influencing the terrorist organizational decision to pursue CBRN weapons. The findings suggest that organizations embedded in alliance structures and based in authoritarian countries with relatively strong connections to a globalized world are more likely to seek to develop or acquire CBRN weapons. Contrary to previous qualitative studies, the present study failed to find a significant relationship between CBRN pursuit and religious ideology.
Abstract : The present study shows by example the potential amount of information available in a set of observations of targets where there are known relations between these targets. Known relations between objects significantly reduces the set of possible explanations behind a set of observations. The application here is classification of military targets. Cost functions and interaction with decision makers extend the feasibility of the present approach meaningfully to treat many observations and possible targets behind these.