Terrorist groups with a shared enemy or ideology have ample reason
to work together, even if they are primarily pursuing different
causes. Although partnering with another terrorist organization has
the potential to bolster operational effectiveness, efficiency, and
prestige, international alliances may expose partners to
infiltration, security breaches, or additional counterterrorism
attention. Alliances between such organizations, which are
suspicious and secretive by nature, must also overcome significant
barriers to trust-the exposure to risk must be balanced by the
promise of increased lethality, resiliency, and longevity. In Why
Terrorist Groups Form International Alliances, Tricia Bacon argues
that although it may seem natural for terrorist groups to ally,
groups actually face substantial hurdles when attempting to ally
and, when alliances do form, they are not evenly distributed across
pairs. Instead, she demonstrates that when terrorist groups seek
allies to obtain new skills, knowledge, or capacities for resource
acquisition and mobilization, only a few groups have the ability to
provide needed training, safe haven, infrastructure, or cachet.
Consequently, these select few emerge as preferable partners and
become hubs around which other groups cluster. According to Bacon,
shared enemies and common ideologies do not cause alliances to form
but create affinity to bind partners and guide partner selection.
Bacon examines partnerships formed by the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine, Al-Qaida, and Egyptian jihadist groups,
among others, in a series of case studies spanning the dawn of
international terrorism in the 1960s to the present. Why Terrorist
Groups Form International Alliances advances our understanding of
the motivations of terrorist alliances and offers insights useful
to counterterrorism efforts to disrupt these dangerous
relationships.
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