Violent Systems: 

Defeating Terrorists, Insurgents, and 

Other Non-State Adversaries 

Troy S. Thomas and William D. Casebeer 

INSS Occasional Paper 52 

March 2004 

USAF Institute for National Security Studies 

USAF Academy, Colorado 
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The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not 

necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of 

the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the US Government. The 

paper is approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. 

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Comments pertaining to this paper are invited; please forward to: 

 Director, USAF Institute for National Security Studies 

 HQ USAFA/DFES 

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 phone: 719-333-2717 

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 email: inss@usafa.af.mil 

Visit the Institute for National Security Studies home page at 

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Foreword vii 

Executive Summary ix 

Adversary 3 

Violent Systems 6 

 The Environment as a System 7 

 VNSA as a System 12 

 VNSA Subsystems 22 

 Support Subsystem 23 

 Maintenance Subsystem 31 

 Authority Subsystem 35 

 Conversion Subsystem 43 

 Life Cycle Vulnerabilities 47 

Coerce 52 

 Narrow and Broad 54 

 Rational Choice 55 

 Exceptions 56 

 Deterrence Strategy 61 

Conquer 69 

 Principles 70 

Conclusions 88 

Notes 91 
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FOREWORD 

We are particularly pleased to publish this fifty-second volume 

in the Occasional Paper series of the United States Air Force 

Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). This important 

paper continues the work begun by Troy Thomas and Stephen Kiser 

in Lords of the Silk Route: Violent Non-State Actors in Central 

Asia, INSS Occasional Paper #43, May 2002. The 

Thomas/Casebeer team now adds a biological system overlay to the 

systems model of violent non-state actors (VNSA) that was 

presented in Lords. This more fully developed VNSA model then 

lends itself to analysis toward designing tailored strategies to 

coerce/deter particular VNSA depending upon their specific stage 

of development, characteristics, and leverage points. Further, their 

model demonstrates that should deterrence fail, this same 

biological/ systems framework can be used to design equally welltailored strategies to fight and defeat specific VNSA. 

This development is neither simple nor simplistic—it is based 

in sophisticated application of hard and social sciences to complex 

organizations and environments. However, the journey of 

discovery is worth the effort: the oft-voiced generalization that 

VNSA are undeterrable is directly challenged by this work; and the 

extremely difficult task of crafting warfighting strategies for new 

adversaries and situations is also directly advanced. INSS is proud 

to commend this second offering in an important research series by 

a team of incredibly talented young officers. 

About the Institute

INSS is primarily sponsored by the National Security Policy 

Division of the Nuclear and Counterproliferation Directorate, 

Headquarters US Air Force (HQ USAF/XONP), and the Dean of 

the Faculty, USAF Academy. Other sponsors include the Secretary 

of Defense’s Office of Net Assessment (OSD/NA); the Defense 

Threat Reduction Agency; the Air Force Information Warfare 

Center; the Army Environmental Policy Institute; the United States 

Northern Command/North American Aerospace Defense 

Command; and the United States Military Academy Combating 

Terrorism Center. The research leading to the papers in this volume 

was sponsored by XONP, OSD Net Assessment, and the Defense 

Threat Reduction Agency. The mission of the Institute is “to 

promote national security research for the Department of Defense 

within the military academic community, to foster the development 
viii

of strategic perspective within the United States Armed Forces, and 

to support national security discourse through outreach and 

education.” Its research focuses on the areas of greatest interest to 

our organizational sponsors: arms control and strategic security; 

counterproliferation, force protection, and homeland defense; air 

and space issues and planning; information operations and 

information warfare; and regional and emerging national security 

issues. 

INSS coordinates and focuses outside thinking in various 

disciplines and across the military services to develop new ideas for 

defense policy making. To that end, the Institute develops topics, 

selects researchers from within the military academic community, 

and administers sponsored research. It reaches out to and partners 

with education and research organizations across and beyond the 

military academic community to bring broad focus to issues of 

national security interest. And it hosts conferences and workshops 

and facilitates the dissemination of information to a wide range of 

private and government organizations. In these ways, INSS 

facilitates valuable, cost-effective research to meet the needs of our 

sponsors. We appreciate your continued interest in INSS and our 

research products. 

JAMES M. SMITH 

 Director 
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

Inter-state war no longer dominates the landscape of modern 

conflict. Rather, collective violence and challenges to the 

international system come increasingly from violent non-state 

actors (VNSA). With few exceptions, VNSA play a prominent, 

often destabilizing role in nearly every humanitarian and political 

crisis faced by the international community. The broad spectrum of 

objectives and asymmetric methods of these contemporary Barbary 

Pirates fractures our traditional conceptions of deterrence and 

warfighting. We contend that deterrence remains a viable strategy 

for meeting their challenge if adapted to an understanding of VNSA 

as dynamic biological systems. The prolonged utility of deterrence 

hinges on insight into VNSA life cycles and a broader conception 

of the psychology inherent to organizational decision-making. 

Bundled as “broad biological deterrence” (BBD), we develop 

deterrent strategies that tackle the VNSA threat throughout its life 

cycle. 

However, we also realize that deterrence may not work in every 

case. This sets up a counter-VNSA (C-VNSA) strategy that goes 

beyond coercion to the defeat of the enemy. At its core, our CVNSA strategy defeats a VNSA by: 1) denying the negative 

entropy, or stores of energy, required to survive attack; and 2) 

disrupting congruence, or fit, among sub-systems to achieve system 

failure. By also understanding the indicators of organizational 

change during its developmental life-cycle, preemptory defeat 

before the VNSA reaches maturity becomes feasible. Importantly, 

our approach allows for measuring campaign progress by assessing 

changes in VNSA effectiveness. Thus armed, prospects improve 
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for inter- and intra-governmental collaboration, on-target 

intelligence collection and analysis, and successful execution of a 

multi-facetted, effects-based strategy. 

Our work is not a panacea, but it should add multiple 

dimensions to a strategy that sometimes focuses too much on the 

product of the system and not enough on the system itself. Our 

inter-disciplinary application of open systems theory provides a 

powerful framework for diagnosing adversaries, shaping their 

development, and structuring an effects-based strategy for coercion 

and conquering. It is a global approach to a global challenge. 
VIOLENT SYSTEMS: DEFEATING TERRORISTS, 

INSURGENTS, AND OTHER NON-STATE 

ADVERSARIES 

Troy S. Thomas and William D. Casebeer 

Interstate war no longer dominates the landscape of modern 

conflict. Rather, collective violence and challenges to the 

international system come increasingly from violent non-state actors 

(VNSA). With few exceptions, VNSA play a prominent, often 

destabilizing role in nearly every humanitarian and political crisis 

faced by the international community. From the fedayeen in Iraq to 

the warlords of Afghanistan to the drug lords of Colombia, the 

United States (US) and its allies are engaged in open conflict with 

highly adaptive, transnational organizations. As non-state armed 

groups gain greater access to resources and networks through global 

interconnectivity, they have also come to dominate the terrain of 

illegal trade in drugs, guns and humans. The broad spectrum of 

objectives and asymmetric methods of these contemporary Barbary 

Pirates fractures our traditional conceptions of coercion and 

warfighting. Successfully countering VNSA across the geopolitical 

landscape is complicated by a host of factors, including but 

certainly not limited to the dynamic, adaptive character of the threat 

and the difficulty of developing and implementing a coherent 

strategy that engenders measurable victories. 

This paper establishes the interdisciplinary application of 

systems theory as a valuable framework and methodology for 

understanding the adversary in a manner that facilitates the coercion 

and defeat of the full range of VNSA: Hezbollah to Revolutionary 

Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to the Basque Fatherland and 

Liberty (ETA) group. In applying systems analysis to this 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

2

intensifying problem, we begin by defining the VNSA and 

providing general adversary characteristics. We follow with a 

robust discussion of systems theory, outlining its general principles 

and laying out the three levels of analysis framework: environment, 

VNSA systems, and subsystems. The environment, or supersystem 

of violence, is reviewed by drawing out the key points of a previous 

Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) Occasional Paper 

(#43), Lords of the Silk Route: Violent Non-State Actors in Central 

Asia, by Troy S. Thomas and Stephen D. Kiser. At the second-level 

analysis, we debut the general characteristics of the VNSA as a 

system and introduce the seminal concept of life cycle, which is 

essential to understanding the continued, although changed, value of 

coercion. Moreover, this section introduces key organizational 

properties, such as negative entropy, which is central to 

understanding how VNSA survive crises. By going inside the 

adversary to look at its four subsystems—support, maintenance, 

authority, conversions—we reveal how each contributes to negative 

entropy, system congruence, learning, and other key behaviors that 

inform the prosperity, adaptability, and survival of VNSA. 

Based on this pioneering understanding of our adversary, we 

lay out a strategy for coercing and conquering the VNSA. The first 

of this paper’s two strategy pillars is an examination of the 

continued utility of coercion, and more specifically, deterrence. We 

contend that deterrence remains a viable strategy for meeting the 

challenge if adapted to an understanding of VNSA as dynamic open 

systems. The prolonged utility of deterrence hinges on insight to 

VNSA characteristics and life cycles as well as a broader 

conception of the psychology inherent to organizational decision 

making. Termed “ecological deterrence,” we introduce deterrent 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

3

strategies that tackle the VNSA threat throughout its life cycle. 

When coercion fails, disruption and defeat are often the goal, 

particularly in the context of a global war against terrorism. To this 

end, the examination of VNSA inner workings reveals the sources 

of strength and critical vulnerabilities important for the second 

strategy pillar. In turn, these vulnerabilities set the stage for a 

counter-VNSA (C-VNSA) strategy that goes beyond coercion to the 

defeat of the enemy. At its core, our C-VNSA strategy defeats a 

VNSA by (1) denying the negative entropy, or stores of energy, 

required for VNSA to survive attack, and (2) disrupting congruence, 

or fit, among subsystems to achieve system failure. Moreover, 

understanding indicators of subsystem change during a life cycle 

may enable a preemptory defeat before the VNSA reaches maturity. 

Rather than concentrating on countering the specific tactics of 

terrorism and guerilla operations, this strategy has universal 

application due to its innovative emphasis on disrupting congruence 

among organizational subsystems. Importantly, our approach also 

allows for measuring success by assessing changes in VNSA 

effectiveness. Thus armed, prospects improve for 

intergovernmental and intragovernmental collaboration, intelligence 

collection and analysis, and successful execution of a multifaceted, 

effects-based strategy. 

ADVERSARY 

Our purpose is complicated by the wide range of VNSA, as 

well by their unique properties, methods, and objectives. One can 

easily identify at least eleven discernable VNSA types (“species,” to 

use the ecological metaphor), although numerous variations are 

certain to exist: militant religious movements, transnational 

criminal organizations (TCOs), ethno-political groups, warlords 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

4

with private militias, tribes or clans, city states (regionalism), ecowarriors, ideological political parties, private security firms, and 

multinational corporations. Importantly, many of the most 

beguiling VNSA are hybrid organizations, embracing multiple, 

reinforcing identities. For example, the Islamic Movement of 

Uzbekistan (IMU) purports to be a militant Islamist movement; 

however, its involvement in the opium trade earns it the additional 

label of TCO. Although non-state actors are not new, globalization 

has contributed to a sea change in the character and reach of 

terrorist organizations. Networked organizations extend across 

borders, and rely on advanced information technology to move 

finances and information. 

To bind the problem set, we define VNSA as a non-state 

organization that uses collective violence. As social entities, VNSA 

have an “enduring membership and specifiable authority 

relationships.”1

 Social movements, one-time demonstrations, and 

even some revolutions do not fit within the context of this non-state 

actor definition. A second criterion is the reliance on collective 

violence, which is coordinated violent action by group members in 

pursuit of common ends.2

 The VNSA approach to collective 

violence challenges Carl Philipp Gotlieb von Clausewitz’s concept 

of Trinitarian war: “organized mass violence” waged by the state 

for political ends.3

 Trinitarian war is based on the Napoleonic 

model and remains the guiding construct for modern warfare. But 

VNSA do not engage in “modern” warfare. They are not strictly 

postmodern or premodern, but rather reflect characteristics that 

precede the birth of the nation state in 1648 while embracing 

elements of 20th century total wars. VNSA are certainly not states, 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

5

nor do they mobilize the populace to serve in organized, 

hierarchical armies.4

In terms of specific methods, VNSA most often engage in 

highly organized violence with limited participation on a small 

scale, also known as conspiracy violence.5

 Tactics trend toward the 

asymmetric, including violent crime, guerrilla operations, terrorism, 

and in some rare cases, cyber warfare. VNSA excel in asymmetric 

collective violence on three levels: weapon, strategy, and actor.6

 

At the first level, the VNSA employs asymmetric weaponry. For 

example, the irregular forces of Somali warlord Mohammad Farrah 

Aideed were able to bring down highly advanced Blackhawk 

helicopters with relics of the Soviet arsenal, the rocket propelled 

grenade. 

VNSA really shine at the second level of asymmetric war—

strategy—which is important to understand given the relational 

nature of deterrence. VNSA rely on what military strategist B.H. 

Liddell Hart calls the indirect approach, attacking vulnerabilities 

while simultaneously avoiding direct engagements.7

 We know, for 

example, that some VNSA such as the Aum Shinrikyo of Japan 

seek weapons of mass destruction (WMD) while others such as 

Hamas in the Palestinian Territories attack with human bombs. The 

third level of asymmetry focuses on war between dissimilar actors 

as in the state and non-state nature of our current war on terrorism. 

The Filipino army’s fight against the Abu Sayyaf, or Spain’s 

persistent contest with the ETA, are sound examples. 

Most importantly, VNSA do not always employ force to 

achieve political ends as conventionally understood. While many 

VNSA do seek change in the political system, others employ 

violence for nontraditional reasons, or what some have called post-
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

6

heroic goals. Collective violence is often a means to destroy a 

feared or hated people (i.e., ethnic cleansing), perpetuate criminal 

activities, or protect turf. In the most extreme cases, violence is an 

end itself. Moreover, the strictest interpretation of Trinitarian war 

does not help us understand or deal with an adversary that is not just 

seeking to shift power in the system, but seeks to overthrow the 

entire system from outside that system. On 15 November 2001, 

Taliban ruler Mullah Mohammed Omar told the BBC “the current 

situation in Afghanistan is related to a bigger cause: the destruction 

of America.”8

 This is what Michael Ignatieff, Director of the Carr 

Center for Human Rights Policy, calls “apocalyptic nihilism.” He 

argues, “the apocalyptic nature of their goals makes it absurd to 

believe they are making political demands at all. They are seeking 

the violent transformation of an irremediably sinful and unjust 

world.”9

VIOLENT SYSTEMS 

Systems theory serves as the diagnostic model for VNSA threat 

analysis and strategy development. This approach, derived from the 

general systems theory of Ludwig von Bertalanffy, conceptualizes a 

system as an “organized cohesive complex of elements standing in 

interaction.”10 Interaction refers to two generalized patterns of 

behavior: 1) the relationships among the “complex elements,” or 

organizational subsystems; and 2) the relationship between the 

VNSA system and its environment, or supersystem. The former 

constitute the transformational processes of the VNSA, while the 

latter draws attention to the reality that organizations are open 

systems, continually exchanging information and energy with the 

environment. 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

7

As systems theory has matured, its benefits have been clarified. 

Thomas G. Cummings summarizes the positive “fallout” from 

systems thinking in his foundational book, Systems Theory for 

Organizational Development. Systems thinking 

1) enables thinking about organizations at a higher level of 

abstraction; it requires thinking in terms of general characteristics 

rather than thinking about a particular organization or similarities 

between particular organizations; 

2) transcends the branches of science; 

3) provides a common language for understanding 

organizational phenomena; 

4) enables thinking in relational terms rather than things, 

leading to a process oriented and contextual views of organizations; 

5) stimulates holistic appreciation of whole properties of an 

organization; 

6) leads to an appreciation for two kinds of meaning 

explanation, the first being traditional deductive analysis derived for 

logic and the second being pattern analysis from the “gestalt 

processes of the human mind;” 

7) gives the potential for world defining by the organization 

itself.11

In organizational theory, diagnosis is the process of employing 

conceptual models and methods to assess the target organization’s 

condition in order to solve problems and increase performance.12 

Our approach applies systems analysis to a different, but related 

purpose: solving threat assessment problems in order to decrease 

and deny VNSA performance. Diagnosis is not just about 

collecting and analyzing intelligence; it requires building actionable 

knowledge in order to anticipate threats, implement a C-VNSA 

strategy, and importantly, assess effects. 

The Environment as a System 

The first level of analysis is the environment. This approach 

has already been applied to an understanding of the system of 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

8

violence from which VNSA are most likely to emerge. In Lords of 

the Silk Route: Violent Non-State Actors in Central Asia, Troy 

Thomas and Stephen Kiser introduce a supersystem model that 

provides insight to the inputs, transformations, and outputs that 

produce non-state groups employing collective violence to achieve 

a broad range of goals.13 As shown in Figure 1, the key elements 

are the roots of violence as inputs, conversions, VNSA as outputs, 

and environmental dynamics. These system elements interact in a 

highly dynamic, causative manner to spawn VNSA and feed their 

growth. The framework captures divergent factors too often 

examined in isolation, drawing attention to the key relationships 

that amplify the cycle of violent collective action. It also clarifies 

the ever changing organizational character of VNSA; they are 

moving targets. 

The roots of violence identified here have explanatory power 

regarding the formation of an at-risk population, ripe for 

mobilization along existing identity cleavages such as family, 

region, religion, or socioeconomic class. From among the varied 

sources of human insecurity, we contend that resource scarcity, 

demographic pressures, socioeconomic deprivation, organized 

crime and corruption, and identity cleavages are most likely to make 

individuals susceptible to mobilization. Each root places significant 

stress on the individual, civil society, and state. There is no 

absolute threshold for collective violence; however, severe stresses 

in any one area may be sufficient to engender a sense of individual 

desperation. Grave stresses across the board are a strong indicator 

that VNSA will enter the gestation phase of their life cycle.14
Thomas an

9 

Figure 1: Violence as a System 

Failures of Governance

Identity Mobilization 

INPUTS TRANSFORMATIONS OUTP

Resource Scarcity Demographic  Pressures Socio-economic  DeprivationOrganized Crime & Corruption Identity Cleavages 

Militant Reli MovemeEthnopoliticGroups Warlords w/ TransnationOrganizatioEco-warrior

Reinforcing Actions Ideological 

Environmental 

Dimensions 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

10

Violent collective action on a widespread scale is rarely the 

spontaneous outgrowth of system inputs. The roots of violence 

create the conditions and shape individuals to be ripe for 

mobilization into a group. For mobilization to actually occur, there 

must be a transformational process. Current research focuses almost 

solely on state failure as the primary catalyst. We agree that a 

weakened state is a key intervening variable.15 Research by the 

Central Intelligence Agency’s State Failure Task Force concluded 

that a combination of three variables could correctly predict state 

failure two thirds of the time: infant mortality, openness to trade, 

and level of democracy.16 States like Somalia that provide no basic 

health services, or Turkmenistan that embrace official corruption, or 

Nigeria that have not completed a democratic transition, are poorly 

positioned to sustain a loyal, docile citizenry. In these cases and 

many others, failures in governance begin when significant 

segments of the population perceive the state as incapable of 

managing these three, intercorrelated variables. If the state has the 

accommodative capacity to address the needs of the disaffected, 

however, then the system of violence will be interrupted while the 

VNSA is still in gestation. 

The state may also do nothing, which is likely because it either 

lacks the capacity, or it chooses not to address the grievances. Both 

fertilize the soil of discontent; however, the latter is more likely to 

accelerate mobilization. For example, the Zapatista National 

Liberation Army (EZLN) of Chiapas, Mexico, emerged out of dire 

socioeconomic conditions as well as a popular perception that 

Zapatistas were politically ignored. According the EZLN leader, 

Subcomandante Marcos, “the modern state cannot be oligarchic in 

the sense of excluding the masses from politics; it is obliged to 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

11

work with them.”17 Referring to social conditions, he argues, 

“Education? The worst in the country. At the elementary school 

level, 72 out of every 100 children don't finish the first grade. More 

than half of the schools only offer up to a third grade education and 

half of the schools only have one teacher for all the courses 

offered.”18 

The state may also respond with a heavy hand, which we 

contend also constitutes a form of failure. Here, the state employs 

the tools of coercion in an attempt to silence, stifle, or even destroy 

that sector of the populace that is expressing its discontent through 

nonviolent means.19 The reasons vary but center on the state 

concluding it can no longer count on the fabric of shared values to 

hold it together; the basis of state authority in such situations then 

shifts to the unstable solution of coercion.20 

A persistent failure to accommodate the population’s 

expectations, or the resort to coercion, is a necessary but not 

sufficient condition for VNSA mobilization. We assert that identity 

mobilization, as part of an organizational life cycle, is an equally 

potent explanatory factor. The loss in regime legitimacy 

undermines attempts to constitute a “citizenry,” allowing existing 

identity cleavages to absorb the wandering loyalties of a disaffected 

people. These identity cleavages, which may be along biological, 

regional, socioeconomic, or religious lines (or a combination of 

these and others), are the embryonic “growth factors” for gestating 

VNSA. For mobilization to progress there must be additional 

ingredients, including an “identity entrepreneur” to create or 

reinforce the identity cleavage, resources to fuel the process, and 

some degree of organizational cohesion. The maturity of the VNSA 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

12

is directly related to the maturity and availability of these 

ingredients over the course of its life cycle. 

The process is dynamic. The actions of VNSA can have 

reinforcing effects, perpetuating the cycle of violence. While it is 

true that some VNSA do act with the intent of improving their 

communities or for some perceived public good, the groups we are 

focused on generally pursue less noble objectives such as increasing 

profit margins or eradicating a rival group. To this end, they benefit 

by the deepening of the roots of violence, which in turn increases 

their recruiting pool. These VNSA also thrive on the margins of 

state authority and civil society’s influence. By reinforcing the 

cycle of violence, they gain greater autonomy of action. State 

coercion may constrain their growth in the short term, but over the 

long run it serves to legitimize the violent response. 

The output of our system is the VNSA, which can be 

distinguished by its unique life cycle and the previously discussed 

objectives and preferred forms of collective violence. The output is 

not a mature armed group capable of rational choice, but rather an 

embryonic group that must move through its life cycle before it is 

prepared to pursue prioritized goals. 

VNSA as a System 

We introduced VNSA as non-state organizations with 

specifiable members and authority relationships, employing 

conspiracy violence to achieve goals. This basic definition implies 

a formal organization, which can be analyzed through the lens of 

modern structural organization theory. As with other organizations, 

such as corporations or bureaucracies, the structural emphasis fails 

to capture the dynamic reality of a VNSA like the Provisional Irish 

Republican Army (PIRA) and others. Our analysis must go beyond 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

13

formal theory to appreciate the organic character of the VNSA. 

Effective C-VNSA strategies require analysis of a VNSA as an 

open, cooperative system that evolves over the course of an 

organizational life cycle. 

Like the modern nation-state, VNSA are generally treated as 

formal institutions with no developmental history. In the language 

of structural organization theory, they are seen to “represent 

rationally ordered instruments for the achievement of stated 

goals.”21 Rationality is achieved through defined rules and highly 

institutionalized relationships, which allow the entire structure to 

become subject to manipulation, i.e., an instrument of rational 

action.22 To achieve this high degree of control and coordination, 

the formal organization is also treated as a closed system. It is seen 

as a self-contained unit, functioning independently of changes in its 

environment. 

This approach fails to deliver an accurate picture of the VNSA 

(and most organizations for that matter) for three key, interrelated 

reasons. First, the formal structure never fully succeeds in 

“conquering the nonrational dimensions of organizational 

behavior.”23 An informal structure exists as well, which deviates 

from the well-defined roles imposed by the rational structure. 

Philip Selznick wrote, in his seminal article, “Foundations of the 

Theory of Organizations,” that individuals have a “propensity to 

resist depersonalization, to spill over the boundaries of their 

segmentary roles, to participate as wholes.”24 The formal structure 

cannot adequately accommodate the deviations from rationality 

introduced by individual action. Thus, it is better to view VNSA as 

cooperative systems, consisting of “individuals interacting as 

wholes in relation to a formal system of coordination.”25 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

14

As cooperative systems, VNSA are also open systems. The 

rationality of the organization cannot be simplified by examining 

them independent of their environment and static in time. The 

closed system approach is appealing, particularly since it allows us 

to apply the laws of physics to organizational behavior and control 

for environmental change. While convenient, the approach denies 

the reality that organizations are also living, social entities, adapting 

to a dynamic environment and simultaneously impacting the 

environment by their actions. As argued by Daniel Katz and Robert 

Kahn in their important text, The Social Psychology of 

Organizations, the open systems approach frees us from the 

shackles of physics and leads us to the more apt science of 

biology.26

The VNSA as open system can be understood in terms of 

several key characteristics, which directly relate to the system of 

violence examined earlier.27 These groups share certain system 

characteristics: 

- importation of energy; 

- throughput (energy conversion); 

- export of product to the environment; 

- cyclic pattern of activities; 

- negative entropy; 

- feedback and coding; and 

- dynamic homeostasis, or the preservation of system 

character.28 

These characteristics can be easily observed. 

The FARC offers a worthwhile illustration of these features. 

The VNSA imports some form of energy from the environment. 

The FARC imports recruits as well as guns, training (PIRA urban 

tactic training since 1998), and drug monies. Second, the FARC 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

15

converts, or transforms the input into a trained guerrilla. Third, the 

reorganized input is exported to the environment; the FARC recruit 

joins a unit and conducts attacks on Colombian armed forces. 

Fourth, this pattern of activity is cyclic; the attacks generate new 

inputs—recruits, resources, governmental responses, etc. In a clear 

rejection of the closed system approach, the VNSA seeks negative 

entropy. That is, it seeks to arrest the entropic process of inevitable 

disorganization and death by importing more energy (recruits, guns, 

funds) than it expends.29 Indeed, it is this adaptive characteristic 

that has enabled the FARC, and most likely, al Qaida, to survive 

periodic increases in counterinsurgency and counterterrorism 

efforts. Sixth, the energy inputs are also informative, providing the 

VNSA with intelligence about its environment. An increase in drug 

monies provides the FARC with intelligence on a changing drug 

market. Defeat in combat provides the negative feedback often 

required to drive a fundamental shift in tactics as seen with al Qaida 

after the pitched battle of Tora Bora. 

At the systems-level, our analysis also explores three often 

over-looked, but critically important organizational properties: 

negative entropy, congruence, and life cycles. Negative entropy is 

essential for survival. Organizations must overcome “the universal 

law of nature in which all forms of organization move toward 

disorganization or death.”30 Social organizations, because they are 

open systems, can import more energy from the environment than is 

immediately required and store it for use during periods of crisis, 

such as a concentrated counter-insurgency campaign. Smart VNSA 

will recognize their impressive ability to continuously arrest the 

entropic process and build their reserves to ensure a “comfortable 

margin of operation.”31 Until the negative entropy pond is drained, 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

16

the VNSA will retain the energy required to survive even if it is just 

a few members clinging to a persuasive ideology. 

Inducing positive entropy at the supersystem and system-level 

can also have a significant short-term impact on the congruence of 

the targeted VNSA. Congruence, sometimes referred to as fit or 

alignment, is an open systems term used to describe “relations 

among internal system components and between organizations and 

their environments.”32 A VNSA has good congruence when its 

internal elements, or subsystems, are functioning in a reinforcing 

manner and optimizing coordination and information exchanges so 

as to reduce inefficiency and uncertainty.33 Good congruence is 

also evidenced by good matches between environmental 

opportunities/constraints and system functions. Al Qaida 

demonstrates good environmental-system congruence by shifting to 

soft-targets in Africa when the hardening of targets in the US and 

Europe make operational success less likely. Misfit, or bad 

congruence, can contribute to organizational failure. ETA shows 

poor congruence when it recruits undisciplined youth to carry out 

highly complex attacks that demand strict adherence to operational 

secrecy. VNSA that cannot adapt their organizations to the external 

environment, or achieve some degree of harmony among internal 

functions, are likely to not only expose themselves, but struggle to 

evolve beyond gestation. 

The importance of viewing the VNSA as a cooperative system 

in an open system of violence leads to the final reason for rejecting 

formal organization theory: organisms have life cycles. They do 

not spontaneously appear on the international scene as mature 

beings with well-ordered structures and patterns of activities. 

Rather, they pass through a distinct series of stages in form and 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

17

function. The organizational life cycle shown in Figure 2 parallels 

that of an organism, transitioning from gestation through growth to 

maturity. Decline normally follows maturity; however, the ability 

of VNSA to acquire negative entropy suggests the need to think in 

terms of transformation rather than an inevitable death, although it 

may very well be that a subset of possible transformations includes 

elimination. Despite the chronological sequencing, each stage is 

highly interrelated. A mature VNSA like the IRA continues to 

experience aspects of gestation, growth, and transformation as it 

interacts with its environment. 

Figure 2: VNSA Life Cycle 

The life cycle begins with gestation, or the initial conception of 

an idea for collective violent action. At gestation, the idea is no 

GESTATION

GROWTH

MATURITY

TRANSFORM
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

18

more than an embryo in the minds of one or several identity 

entrepreneurs who are part of an at-risk identity cleavage. Gestation 

occurs at the intersection of the roots of violence and failures in 

governance in our supersystem model. At this crossroads, the 

identity entrepreneurs are engaged in environmental scanning. 

These future VNSA leaders are evaluating the state’s response to 

the salient roots of violence and drawing conclusions about the need 

and prospects for violent action as a means to achieve unspecified 

goals of survival, political power, profit, or even vengeance. The 

organization has yet to take form or differentiate its functions; there 

are no recruits, training programs, facilities, or sustainable 

resources. Although gestation may involve rational decision 

making by the identity entrepreneurs, there is a distinct lack of 

organizational rationality. 

The Yomud tribe of Turkmenistan, for example, is a strong 

candidate for an embryonic VNSA. Already a non-state group with 

identifiable leaders, the deep roots of discontent and continued state 

failure by the enigmatic regime of Turkmenbashi (dominated by the 

Tekke tribe) are probably sufficient to lead tribal leaders to 

conceive of violent action as an option to continued socioeconomic 

decay and political marginalization. Because of its lack of form, the 

gestating VNSA is the most difficult to identity, but is also the most 

susceptible to a deterrence strategy of environmental shaping. At 

this stage, the VNSA may be articulating a foundational mythology 

justifying its existence, and may be actively creating exemplars that 

“fall out” of these myths and stories. 

The VNSA moves from gestation to growth of subsystems at 

the point when goals are specified, an organization takes initial 

form, and basic functions ensue. Growth occurs at the intersection 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

19

of state failure and identity mobilization with gestation continuing 

as long as the roots of violence persist. The development of 

specific, prioritized goals by VNSA leadership as part of the 

authority subsystem opens the door to traditional deterrence; 

however, the adolescent nature of the organization limits the 

group’s ability to differentiate alternatives, assess outcomes, and 

orchestrate functions that consistently reflect purpose.34 The VNSA 

remains heavily focused on recruitment, developing resources and 

establishing an organizational model (hierarchical, network, cells, 

etc.) to eventually conduct a sustained campaign of violent action. 

While sporadic violent acts can be expected during the growth 

stage, these are more likely to establish legitimacy, enhance 

recruiting, collect intelligence, and test tactics. 

By way of example, the Uighur militants of Xinjiang Province 

in China are a growing VNSA. Enver Can, President of the East 

Turkestan National Congress, leads a political front to a grassroots 

separatist movement, which is based largely in Kazakhstan and 

Kyrgystan. Uighur militants received training and resources from 

the Taliban and Al Qaida in Afghanistan and have conducted 

several small-scale bombings and assassinations against Chinese 

officials and facilities throughout Xinjiang.35 The movement 

remains adolescent due to a diffuse and informal organization, 

limited resources, and pressure from the Chinese government. 

Indeed, US operations in Central and South Asia have also 

contributed to the Uighur’s decline, forcing transformation before 

maturity is even reached. 

It is in maturity that the VNSA achieves its closest 

approximation to the formal organization of structural theory, thus 

providing the greatest opportunity for the application of rationality 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

20

based deterrence strategies. A mature VNSA has completed its 

development, achieving the form and functions that are optimal, or 

nearly so, for it to achieve specified, prioritized objectives. The 

VNSA engages in environmental scanning, reorganizes inputs and 

exports a product back to the environment. Patterns of activity, 

authority relationships, and membership are all discernable, and 

preferred forms of conspiracy violence are actively employed as 

part of a sustained campaign. 

Importantly, functions are differentiated in a process known as 

progressive mechanization; organizations shift toward greater 

elaboration and multiplication of increasingly specialized roles.36 

Progressive mechanization recognizes that the patterns of regulation 

in an embryonic organization involve dynamic interaction.37 As the 

organization reaches maturity, “fixed arrangements and conditions 

of constraint are established which render the system and its parts 

more efficient, but also gradually diminish and eventually abolish 

its equipotentiality.”38 Essentially, the mature organization may be 

more efficient, but it also loses its equifinality, or ability to achieve 

its optimal performance in relation to its environment.39 

Progressive mechanization and the increased rationality it 

engenders are to blame for making the VNSA more vulnerable to 

traditional deterrence or even conventional warfighting upon 

maturity. As an example, the Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade emerged as 

a mature organization on 12 October 2000 during a paramilitary 

parade in Nablus, Palestinian Territories.40 According to David 

Eshel, reporting for Jane’s Intelligence Review in June 2002, the 

brigades were “a loose coalition of irregulars, hurriedly trained in 

basic individual combat and equipped with privately owned small 

arms. Operatives wore plainclothes and limited their activities to 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

21

roadside shootings....”41 This growth phase included efforts to 

create a formal military organization, establish infrastructure, 

acquire arms, develop tactical leadership, and attract recruits to their 

secular version of the Hamas suicide squads. Upon maturity, a cellbased structure emerged under the senior command of Marwan 

Barghouti. Progressive differentiation was evidenced in the 

formation of an intelligence division (environmental scanning), 

military logistics division, special combat teams, suicide bomber 

volunteer forces, and chapters in at least six West Bank towns.42 

Additionally, the Brigades clarified their goals: 1) end Israeli 

occupation, and 2) create a sovereign Palestinian state. Although 

not deterred from its bombing campaign by the Israeli Defence 

Forces (IDF), the mature Brigades were sufficiently developed to 

make instrumentally rational choices and direct organizational 

behavior on this basis. 

Ultimately, progressive differentiation left the Brigades 

vulnerable to direct military action, as evidenced by the temporary 

destruction of their infrastructure and capture of senior leaders 

during Israeli military operations in April 2002. The result is the 

transformation of the Brigades, which serves as just one example of 

how a VNSA may transform over time. The VNSA can survive 

transformation in two key ways. First, it can choose to end hostility 

due to a fundamental change in state capacity or policy. This 

outcome is often the purpose of efforts to build nation states through 

good governance programs while simultaneously negotiating a 

peaceful resolution to the conflict. This approach is currently 

underway in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 

Indonesia, and elsewhere. Second, the VNSA can suffer a 

devastating blow, which would normally result in its ultimate death 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

22

unless it has built sufficient negative entropy. In the case of the 

Brigades, the decentralized organizational structure, rich supplies of 

arms, and ready access to external resources from countries like Iraq 

and Iran suggest it has sufficient negative entropy to weather this 

storm. Indeed, Israeli defense and intelligence officials fully expect 

the Brigades to successfully rebuild their operational capabilities.43 

Like the Brigades, the longevity of al Qaida, the IMU, FARC, and 

others will depend on their ability to navigate the transformation 

stage. In rare cases, the VNSA can even be co-opted by the 

government and become a state agent, as in the attempted cooptation of militant Palestinian groups by the Palestinian National 

Authority. 

VNSA Subsystems 

Our diagnostic plan is rooted in the three levels of systems 

analysis.44 Thus far, we have introduced tools for assessing the 

environment in terms of broad inputs, transformations, and outputs. 

We have also defined whole system properties and championed the 

value of life cycle analysis to more accurately characterize the 

threat. By now diagnosing VNSA subsystems, we complete our 

dissection of the organism, revealing vulnerable relationships and 

enabling an effects-based C-VNSA campaign of coercion, 

disruption, and ultimately defeat. 

Subsystems carry out the conversions, the throughputs or 

energy reorganizations. All organizations are made of similar 

subsystems and functions. VNSA do vary, primarily in terms of the 

character of interfaces with other subsystems and the environment. 

Collectively, the subsystems do not equal the system since the 

system is more than, or at least different than, the sum of its parts. 

Reducing the Abkhazian ethnopolitical separatist movement in 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

23

Georgia to its subsystems builds an incomplete picture. We may be 

able to discern the skeleton, but we cannot comprehend the 

organism’s holistic properties without first and second levels of 

systems analysis. We may learn names of leaders and numbers of 

militants under arms, but we fail to understand the criticality of the 

movement’s relationship with Russian organized crime, or the 

efficacy of its efforts to build negative entropy through weapons 

acquisition and cash accumulation. 

Organizational theory is replete with subsystem types and 

labels. Analysis of violent subnational groups, however, requires 

the employment of subsystems that lend themselves to collection, 

analysis, and effects-based targeting. Fortunately, such subsystems 

exist, and their value to organizational diagnosis has withstood 

scrutiny for nearly forty years. Applying subsystems and their 

associated functions to the problem of VNSA results in four core 

subsystems: support, maintenance, authority, and conversion. As 

shown in Figure 3, these subsystems are embedded in the VNSA 

system, which is exchanging energy in the form of inputs and 

outputs with its environment. 

Support Subsystem. Religious students in Islamic schools, or 

madrassahs, are identified and recruited for jihad, money is 

collected and laundered through a front charity, small arms are 

purchased on the black market, and communiqués are faxed to 

media outlets around the world. These are just a few of the routine 

activities that constitute the system dynamics of the support 

subsystem. In modern organizational theory, support subsystems 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

24 

Figure 3: VNSA Subsystems 

CONVERSION

SUPPORT

MAINTENANCE

AUTHORITY

V

N

S

A

S

Y

S

T

E

M

I

N

P

U

T

S
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

25

“carry out environmental transactions of procuring the input or 

disposing of the output or aiding in these processes.”45 Essentially, 

the support subsystem works at the boundary of the VNSA, 

monitoring and managing relations with the supersystem. Five 

types of environmental transactions are most critical to the VNSA: 

recruiting, resource acquisition, stakeholder associations, 

competitive learning, and operational employment. The last two are 

carried out by the authority and conversion subsystems respectively.

 Recruitment. The recruitment mechanism can take many 

forms, but generally involves linking needs and expectations within 

a ripe population segment, or identity cleavage, with the agenda of a 

gestating VNSA. Identity mobilization is among the first instances 

of congruence where the leader, or identity entrepreneur, is fitting 

organizational goals to the likely at-risk population segment. Well 

after gestation, recruitment continues to attract members from 

among a sympathetic social cleavage. Once congruence is achieved 

between the VNSA and its potential members, the group will 

employ a variety of incentives to close the deal, including, but 

certainly not limited to, the tangible benefits of a salary, training, or 

shelter (transactional) and the more persuasive intangible incentives 

of ideology, sense of belonging, power, greed, and possibly the 

promise of eternal life (transcendental). The specific patterns of 

activities, consisting of recruiting agents, incentives, and procedures 

will vary by VNSA type. Militant religious movements recruit 

through mosques and madrassahs to support a radical theology. 

Warlords with private militias recruit through family and clan 

associations to support predatory wealth accumulation. Maoist 

insurgents recruit students through universities to support an 

ideological vision. And as evidenced on the streets of Baghdad and 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

26

Tikrit during 2003-2004, ethno-political Sunni groups hired oneshot insurgents using hard cash payments of over $2500.46 

An important and often overlooked aspect of recruitment is 

selection. Selection preserves stability by weeding out risky, low 

performing recruits, or those that might prove difficult to socialize. 

From the VNSA perspective, a large recruiting pool improves 

prospects for greater selectivity based on a variety of criteria, which 

again are tailored to the VNSA type. While most VNSA types are 

likely to select based initially on a recruit’s perceived commitment 

to the group’s ideology and agenda, other factors certainly play a 

role. In small, cell-based, highly secretive organizations like ETA 

or November 17, dedication to the nationalist cause is not sufficient. 

Members must also be highly disciplined, capable of sustained 

covert activity, and in many cases, possessing or capable of learning 

required skills to include the preparation of improvised explosive 

devices. As in our ETA example, the specific selection criteria and 

procedures are likely to be fluid, reflecting the VNSA’s adaptation 

to environmental change. Changes in recruitment and selection 

over time offer valuable insight to an organizations vulnerabilities 

and present an opportunity for exploitation if accurately judged. 

 Resource Acquisition. The resource acquisition function 

involves manipulation of the supersystem in order to obtain 

requirements for system performance.48 There are three basic steps 

to analyzing this dynamic. First, the full range of resource 

requirements must be inventoried for the target VNSA.

Requirements are many, but generally include money, weapons, 

training materials, logistical supplies, false documents, 

transportation, information technology, communication systems, 

etc.49 For example, the FARC’s requirements during its gestation 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

27

and early growth phases in the mid-1960s included such basic needs 

as food, clothing, and supplies.50 As the FARC reached maturity in 

the 1980s, expanding its initial force of 350 fighters to the 15,000-

20,000 today, its requirements increased and shifted to include 

training support, advanced weapons systems such as surface-to-air 

missiles, satellite phones, jamming equipment, aircraft, and more.51

Second, the specific mechanisms for acquiring the resources 

must be identified. Mechanisms vary widely for every requirement. 

For example, information technology may be acquired through front 

companies, direct acquisition at trade shows, theft from businesses, 

or illegal bartering with corrupt government agencies. Weapons 

can be readily obtained through black markets, theft, raids on 

police, corruption of security forces, or defeat of an adversary. 

Returning to the FARC, resources were acquired during the 

gestation phase through ambushes on security forces, raids on 

farms, kidnapping of hostages for ransom, blackmailing officials, 

and propaganda appeals to peasants.52 In the 1980s increased 

resource demands necessitated a shift to expanded alliances with 

drug cartels as well as exploitation of primary commodities such as 

cattle, oil, and gold.53

Once all resources and the mechanisms for acquisition are 

identified, the extent to which the VNSA is dependent on specific 

resources for performance is evaluated using resource dependency 

theory. According to resource dependency theory, the environment 

is a powerful constraint on organizations, and therefore, resource 

dependencies must be effectively managed to guarantee the 

organization’s survival and “to secure, if possible, more 

independence and freedom from external constraints.”54 

Dependency is measured in terms of criticality and scarcity. 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

28

Critical resources are vital to system function. In fact, the system 

dies when its critical resources are exhausted. Critical resources for 

the FARC are the coca crops, and more importantly, the agricultural 

migrants associated with the drug industry, which are its social 

base.55 Scarce resources are not widely available in the 

environment, and there is often a great deal of competition over 

them—diamonds and plutonium are scarce, landmines are not.56 

Resources that are critical and scarce demand the greatest 

organizational attention while also offering an appropriate focus for 

a disruptive C-VNSA strategy. Critical resources that are widely 

available, or scarce resources that are critical, reveal a second level 

of vulnerability while noncritical, abundant resources do not 

provide a profitable C-VNSA opportunity. Importantly, critical 

and/or scare resources must be acquired in sufficient quantity and 

with appropriate timing to ensure the VNSA can survive temporary 

interference with its dependent relationship. 

 Stakeholder Associations. The stakeholder association 

dynamic involves obtaining social support and legitimacy through 

societal manipulation and integration.57 Stakeholder dependency is 

closely related to resource dependency since many stakeholders 

control key resources. The evaluation of stakeholder associations 

provides direct insight to the relative importance of key 

relationships that must be sustained to ensure survival. For 

example, it is widely held that the Revolutionary Guard of the 

Iranian armed forces maintains a stakeholder interest in the 

Hezbollah in Lebanon, providing a wide range of support services 

to include money, sanctuary, and training. Strings are attached, 

although their strength remains a matter of dispute. In its 16 

February 1985 foundational letter, Hezbollah asserted 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

29

We, the sons of Hizb Allah’s nation, whose vanguard God 

has given victory in Iran and which has established the 

nucleus of the world’s central Islamic state, abide the 

orders of a single wise and just command currently 

embodied in the supreme Ayatollah Ruhollah al-Musavi alKhomeini, the rightly guided imam who combines all the 

qualities of the total imam....58

With the death of al-Khomeini, the rise of more moderate political 

forces in Iran, and Hezbollah’s growth into a dominant social, 

political, economic, and military organization in Lebanon, it can be 

reasonably argued the Hezbollah no longer takes orders from 

Tehran. Therefore, the character of this important stakeholder 

relationship has changed. 

As with resource acquisition, the first analytical step is to map 

the network of stakeholder associations. Network analysis provides 

a complex web of relationships in which the VNSA is embedded.59 

It begins by inventorying all possible stakeholders, including, but 

not limited to state sponsors, sanctuary or safe haven providers, 

identity entrepreneurs, NGOs, weapons suppliers, diasporas, corrupt 

officials or agencies, sympathetic identity cleavages, financial 

institutions, and other VNSA. As one example, the Tamil rebels in 

Sri Lanka, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), are 

supported by stakeholders among the Tamil diaspora, including 

migrant communities, charitable NGOs, and front companies.60 

Where feasible, specific stakeholders must be identified as in the 

case of Shun Sunder. Sunder is a medical practitioner in California 

who has provided an estimated $4 million to LTTE during the 

1990s.61 Notably, not all stakeholder associations are defined in 

terms of financial support. In many cases, such as celebrity support 

for an independent Tibet, the association may provide no more than 

publicity or legitimacy. 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

30

With all stakeholders inventoried, the next step is to assess the 

mechanisms for sustaining relationships. While the association is 

often in the form of financial transactions through banks, donor 

bodies or front companies, support can also be managed through 

direct mailings, e-mail, telephone hotlines, community libraries, 

television and radio programs, conferences, and websites.62 The 

LTTE relies heavily on the Internet to build support, leading experts 

to conclude that it has been able to establish a truly global presence, 

permitting the group to “virtually and instantaneously transmit 

propaganda, mobilize active supporters and sway potential 

backers.”63

Relative importance, or the centrality of stakeholder 

associations, is difficult to measure. Centrality is a function of both 

the actual and perceived value of an association to VNSA growth 

and performance. One method to determine centrality is to examine 

the VNSA’s strategy for dealing with stakeholders. Proaction 

involves extensive effort to maintain relations, address stakeholder 

interests, and anticipate future requirements.64 Accommodation is a 

less active strategy that might entail infrequent interface, or only 

partial efforts to satisfy interests. The defense strategy involves 

doing the minimum required to keep the relationship alive, while 

reaction typically entails ignoring or rejecting the relationship.65 

The LTTE must be proactive in dealing with donor organizations in 

the Tamil Diaspora, whereas it takes a defensive, or even reactive, 

approach to dealing with moderates and scholars in Tamil society 

who do not share their agenda.66

Resource acquisition and stakeholder associations are not the 

only two functions of the support subsystem, but they are the most 

critical to developing negative entropy and reducing uncertainty. 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

31

Excess critical and scare resources are needed for the FARC to 

survive sustained counterinsurgency and counter-narcotic 

operations. Reliable access to these resources is essential to growth 

and expansion. In all associations, the ability of the relationship to 

survive crises is a function of how the strategy is applied over time. 

That is, a central stakeholder association that has been approached 

proactively over decades is more likely to survive 

misunderstanding, deceit and disloyalty than a relationship that has 

been handled defensively or reactively. 

Maintenance Subsystem. Jihadists are groomed through 

madrassahs, training camps, and religious media; a Maoist 

insurgent is executed for collaboration with the state; and, an 

assassin is promoted for successfully killing a justice minister. 

These activities are among the primary functions of the maintenance 

subsystem. This subsystem mediates between task demands and 

human needs to keep the structure in operation to maintain stability 

and predictability.67 Its overarching goal is to protect the VNSA 

organism and its organs (i.e., the subsystems) from uncertainty and 

positive entropy, thus ensuring the group’s survival. Maintenance 

activities seek to preserve equilibrium, primarily through the 

socialization of personnel and a system of sanctions and rewards to 

maintain role performance.68 Where the support subsystem focuses 

on accessing critical requirements, maintenance dynamics center on 

the “equipment for getting the work done,” and in the case of 

VNSA, the “work consists of patterned human behavior and the 

‘equipment’ consists of the human beings.”69 The primary 

functions of the maintenance subsystem include socialization as 

well as rewarding and sanctioning.70 The interplay of these 

functions results in a trend to a more mechanistic organization 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

32

structure due to increased formalization and institutionalization. 

Disrupting any of the functions has the effect of increasing positive 

entropy, and if sustained over time, can lead to system failure. 

 Socialization. Recruitment gathers prospective members, 

while socialization weds them to a set of organizational norms and 

values. Norms and values may not be clearly articulated early in the 

VNSA’s life cycle, but they must become explicit during growth 

and before maturity in order to integrate members toward its goals. 

Ultimately, “norms make explicit the forms of behavior appropriate 

for members of the system.”71 To determine if a norm is a 

subsystem or system property, the following criteria must be met: 

first, there is evidence of beliefs by individual members that certain 

behaviors are expected; second, a majority of group members share 

the belief; and third, there is general awareness that the norm is 

supported by most of the group’s members, not just the leadership.72

Collectively, values constitute the group’s ideology and provide 

a more “elaborate and generalized justification both for appropriate 

behavior and for the activities and functions of the system.”73 

Values become norms when they are operationalized by the group 

members in terms of specific behaviors. Despite a broad range of 

VNSA types, two value systems tend to dominate: transcendental 

and pragmatic.74 Militant religious groups, ideological 

organizations, eco-warriors, and others generally embrace a 

transcendental value system, which places emphasis on morality, 

sacred duty, the supernatural, and symbolism. Transcendental 

values are difficult to inculcate, but tend to me more effective in 

sustaining loyalty. TCO and warlords with private militias 

epitomize the pragmatic value system with their emphasis on 

amassing wealth or power. The pragmatic value system can be 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

33

rapidly developed, but it is also more susceptible to disruption and 

defection in the face of a superior threat or more lucrative 

alternatives for members. The most effective VNSA foster a dual 

value system, manipulating symbols and delivering tangible value. 

Dual value systems have the added advantage of offering 

reinforcing sources of negative entropy; faith can be often be 

sustained even when cash runs short. 

VNSA culture emerges from the evolution and propagation of 

norms and values. Diagnosing culture is exceedingly difficult, but 

when successful, cultural insight provide answers to practical 

issues, including: 

- who matters? 

- where are the boundaries? 

- why and how does work get accomplished? 

- what are problems? 

- what is most important to the VNSA?75 

Cultural strength, or the extent to which members share the 

norms and values, is the system’s glue. A VNSA with a strong 

culture, such as the IRA or Hezbollah, is more likely to have 

congruent subsystems, and to enjoy greater member commitment. 

An organization with an inflexible or weak culture will have greater 

difficulty dealing with supersystem turbulence. 

 Rewards and Sanctions. Rewarding and sanctioning 

reinforces culture, generating the negative entropy to survive 

betrayals and defections by members. This maintenance function 

works to maintain role performance through an allocation system, 

generally based on proscribed behaviors. In the world of VNSA, 

members who display cowardice, reveal operational secrets to the 

government, or betray the organization in any way are often killed. 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

34

Conversely, increased pay, promotion, prestige, and even promises 

of a martyr’s paradise are used to offer incentives for a job well 

done. Diagnosis of the allocation parameters, or “who gets what 

and why,” reveals opportunities for undermining role performance. 

The Real IRA militant who expects to gain promotion and prestige 

by bombing a police station is less likely to carry out future attacks 

if the result of his tactical success appears to be underappreciated, 

or if another member is given credit. 

By way of another example, al Qaida relies on local imams of 

mosques and madrassahs to recruit potential militants. Maulana ul 

Haq, the head of the most famous madrassahs in Pakistan, Jaamiah 

Darul Uloom Haqqania, presides over 2,800 students, many of who 

moved on to training camps in Afghanistan during the 1990s.76 

Some militants self select, like Mohammad Rashed al ‘Owhali, who 

participated in the 1998 US Embassy bombing in Nairobi, Kenya. 

Al ‘Owhali attended religious school in Riyadh where he was 

further exposed to jihadist value. This value was most likely 

operationalized, becoming a norm, while he was learning hijacking 

and kidnapping at the Khaladan training camp in Afghanistan.77 

The norm was reinforced on the battlefield, where he was 

distinguished in fighting with the Taliban. Based on his 

performance, he was rewarded with selection to special instruction 

on cell operations, including intelligence, administration, planning, 

and execution—essentially, he was taught how to replicate the 

VNSA system at a smaller scale.78 The reward reinforced his 

commitment to the values of the system, resulting in a decision by 

the authority subsystem to charge him with executing an attack on 

the Embassy. Interestingly, there is some evidence to suggest that 

socialization was not fully achieved in al ‘Owhali’s case. When the 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

35

massive bomb exploded on 7 August 2003, al ‘Owahli had fled the 

scene when his plan to kill the gate guard failed because he had 

forgotten his gun.79

Authority Subsystem. A spy gathers intelligence, key leaders 

meet to plan a series of urban bombings, a cell structure is 

implemented to ensure secrecy, and directions are issued for 

acquiring nuclear materials. These are sample activities of the 

authority subsystem, which integrates the managerial and adaptive 

subsystems.80 This subsystem’s primary functions are learning, 

strategy, and control. Together, they comprise the decision-making 

structure of the VNSA, which is responsible for “controlling, 

coordinating and directing” the other subsystems.”81 The system 

dynamic of decision making may be the most difficult to diagnosis, 

but it is also the most important for a coercive C-VNSA strategy 

that requires the VNSA to retain cognitive capacity. Where defeat 

is the goal, undermining the authority subsystem is certain to induce 

uncertainty, incongruence, and ultimately, system failure. 

 Learning. The VNSA learns through intelligence 

collection, analysis, and dissemination. VNSA are cybernetic 

systems; they have a reflexive feedback capability that enables 

correction and in some cases, self awareness.82 The absence of 

feedback equals certain death. VNSA, like organisms, develop 

regulatory mechanisms early in their development. The most basic 

form of learning, which dominates the gestation and early growth 

period, is known as single loop learning, or simply as cognition. 

Developed by Chris Argyris and Donald Schon, single loop learning 

involves learning from the consequences of previous behavior, 

resulting in changes in “strategies of action or assumptions 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

36

underlying strategies in ways that leave the values of a theory of 

action unchanged.”83 We learn from mistakes and new information. 

The Islamic Army of Aden (IAA) in Yemen provides an 

example of changing behaviors based on experience while still 

clinging to an underlying value of battling Westerners, particularly 

Americans, as part of a global jihad. In 1998, the IAA kidnapped 

sixteen western tourists, including twelve Britons, two Australians, 

and two Americans.84 Led by Abu Hassan, the group’s purposes 

included protesting the 1998 US military operation in Iraq known as 

Desert Fox and seeking the release of three colleagues being held by 

the Yemeni government on bombing charges.85 A rare attempt by 

Yemeni security forces to rescue the hostages initiated a two-hour 

fire fight, leaving four hostages and three kidnappers dead. No 

prisoners were released, and Abu Hassan went to prison with two 

henchmen. Having failed to secure their objectives through 

kidnapping, the IAA changed tactics. In January 2000, an attempt 

to bomb a US warship failed when the explosive-laden raft sunk 

immediately after being launched. This feedback did not cause a 

change in tactics, but a reengineering of explosives on the raft. On 

12 Oct 2000, a second raft blew a massive hole in the USS Cole 

destroyer, killing seventeen and injuring thirty nine.86

Single loop learning is sufficient when changes in strategies and 

tactics can satisfactorily correct errors in performance or improve 

effectiveness. It is not always sufficient, however, when the 

supersystem is highly dynamic, or when the organization must 

change the values and norms that underlie culture. The ability to 

adapt, to not only correct behavior, but also to determine what 

behavior is correct, is essential for surviving crises.87 It is a form of 

negative entropy known as double loop learning. The double loop 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

37

refers to two feedback interfaces that link the intelligence about 

performance or the environment to strategies as well as to the values 

served by those strategies.88 The VNSA learns to learn. Returning 

to the IAA, the value of attacking Westerners was never abandoned 

even though strategy and tactics changed. A redefinition of values 

in terms of shift to nonviolent protest would have been an example 

of double loop learning. It might be argued, however, that the shift 

from kidnapping to suicide bombings was a lesser form of double 

loop learning because a group norm shifted from one of surviving 

an operation to one of dying while executing the attack. Since 

double loop learning provides negative entropy, a C-VNSA strategy 

must seek to drive groups to single loop learning if defeat is the 

goal. If coercion is the goal, however, our strategy should seek to 

enhance double loop learning so that the authority subsystem can 

affect changes in underlying values and norms. 

Diagnosing single and double loop learning to support a CVNSA campaign demands pattern analysis over time. It also 

requires an investigation of the mechanisms for collecting, 

analyzing, and processing intelligence throughout the system. All 

subsystems participate in learning through their interactions with 

the environment, and every individual, whether trained to collect 

intelligence or not, is a sensor. Distributed, informal intelligence 

collection is more likely during gestation and early growth, while it 

is likely to find formalized training and structures in late growth and 

mature VNSA. Many mature groups, including al Qaida, IRA, and 

FARC, provide expert training in intelligence collection as well as 

specific individuals or subunits that conduct reconnaissance and 

surveillance. Once the intelligence is collected, it must be analyzed 

and disseminated. Above the tactical level of operations, analysis is 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

38

normally an aspect of the strategy development function, while 

dissemination is a control function. 

 Strategy. Strategy is an output of the authority subsystem, 

reflecting the efforts of VNSA leadership to influence 

organizational outcomes by managing the group’s relationship with 

the supersystem.89 A successful strategy matches the competencies 

of the organization to the demands of the environment, and in so 

doing, the VNSA gains resources, operational success, legitimacy, 

and negative entropy for survival.90 A good strategy crafts a 

congruent system. Diagnosing strategy is analytically challenging 

because one cannot simply rely on the statements of leadership or 

members—strategy is emergent, not directed. It is nonetheless 

essential to accurately diagnosis strategy since undermining the 

decision-making capacity will deliver a system crippling blow. 

The strategy function is traditionally equated with rational 

decision making by leadership. According to the rational model, as 

articulated by Henry Mintzberg and explained later in the discussion 

of ecological deterrence, strategy is created based on a careful 

examination of 1) threats and opportunities in the environment and 

2) strengths and weaknesses of the organization.91 Strategies and 

associated goals are identified to leverage opportunity and close 

performance gaps, and then implemented by a mechanistic 

organization.92 Rationality is achieved through defined rules and 

highly institutionalized relationships, which allow the entire 

structure to become subject to manipulation, i.e., an instrument of 

rational action.93 To achieve this high degree of control and 

coordination, the formal organization is treated as a closed system. 

It is seen as a self-contained unit, functioning independently of 

changes in its environment. 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

39

The rational model is insufficient due to three primary, interrelated reasons: 1) the formal structure never fully succeeds in 

“conquering the non rational dimensions of organizational 

behavior;” 2) VNSA are also open systems and subject to 

environmental effects; and 3) VNSA have life cycles, resulting in a 

changing cognitive capacity relative to the phase of development.94 

Since VNSA are organic, cooperative systems, it is more 

appropriate to think of strategy as the direction the organization 

takes, regardless of whether it is intentional.95 With this 

perspective, strategy is something that emerges as a function of 

system dynamics. Strategic planning may occur under conditions of 

bounded rationality by the VNSA leaders, but it is also greatly 

influenced during development and implementation by individuals, 

the subsystems and the environment. 

Diagnosing strategy begins by comparing the publicly disclosed 

strategy, as reflected primarily in leadership statements and 

communiqués, with the observed strategy. There are many public 

strategies in circulation, ranging from the Maoist insurgency to the 

contemporary global jihad.96 Observed strategy is assessed based on 

pattern analysis of past activities and operations. The difference 

between “stated” and “observed” can be explained by inventorying, 

assessing, and prioritizing the range of influences at each level of 

systems analysis. Linking these dynamics to the VNSA’s life cycle 

allows us to forecast alternative futures for the group. 

In some cases, such as the many armed groups in Georgia and 

Azerbaijan that emerged in the early 1990s, initial “stated” 

strategies demanded little more than a degree of local autonomy. 

Warlords, such as Akaki Eliava in the Mingrelia area of Georgia, 

sought to retain their localized power after the end of the 1993 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

40

Georgian Abkhaz civil war.97 Through the 1990s, warlords in the 

Svaneti region of Georgia and the north of Azerbaijan shifted their 

strategies to include the accumulation of wealth through illegal 

activities and the adaptation of more radical religious agendas. 

Although the change was never “publicized,” it can be assessed by 

observing the activities of the support, maintenance, and conversion 

subsystems. 

Explaining the strategy begins at the supersystem level. In both 

countries, the roots of violence have deepened and the 

government’s impotence increased during the period. Moreover, 

illegal trade prospered with the demise of the Soviet Union, and 

refugee flows from Chechnya brought weapons and conflict. In 

Azerbaijan, inroads by Islamic groups, including Egyptian Islamic 

Jihad, the Hizb ut Tahrir al Islami, and others radicalized certain 

identity cleavages.98 Looking inward, the support subsystem most 

likely placed demands for new sources of revenue to cover weapons 

acquisition and the maintenance subsystem socialized recruits based 

on new radical influences. The dynamics of these subsystems are 

contributing to the emergence of new strategies, including goals 

aligned with Hizb ut Tahrir al Islami, whose aim is to

resume the Islamic way of life and to convey the Islamic 

da’wah to the world. This objective means bringing the 

Muslims back to living an Islamic way of life in Dar alIslam and in an Islamic society such that all of life’s affairs 

in society are administered according to the Shari’ah rules, 

and the viewpoint in it is the halal and the haram under the 

shade of the Islamic State, which is the Khilafah State. That 

state is the one in which Muslims appoint a Khaleefah and 

give him the bay’ah to listen and obey on condition that he 

rules according to the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of the 

Messenger of Allah and on condition that he conveys Islam 

as a message to the world through da’wah and jihad.99 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

41

Even when Georgian warlords foreswear an endorsement of jihadist

principles, observation of stakeholder associations, religious 

practices of key leaders, or even changes in the treatment of 

prisoners in line with Islamic practices (the laws dealing with 

prisoners are part of a subset of the shari’a know as siyar), can 

provide insight to the growing influence of Islamic groups. As with 

this abbreviated example, the key lesson is to ensure that analysis 

goes beyond rhetoric to examine real actions. 

 Control. Strategy is implemented by the control function, 

which attempts to align individual and subsystem actions with the 

strategy and goals. Many of the mechanisms of control are carried 

out by other subsystems, including socialization and rewarding and 

sanctioning by the maintenance subsystem, learning by the authority 

subsystem, and training by the conversion subsystem. In addition to 

assessing these dynamics to understand how control is achieved, 

and perhaps more importantly, how it can be disrupted, two 

additional aspects of control must be addressed: social structure 

and communications. 

Social structures are formal and informal. The traditional 

organization chart provides a skeleton of the formal hierarchy for 

the distribution of authority as well as roles and responsibilities. 

This is a useful starting point for determining whether the VNSA 

uses a simple, functional, matrixed, network, or hybrid structure to 

coordinate and communicate. A more difficult task is to figure out 

the informal associations, which interlace the formal structure. 

These can be investigated by inquiring into the pattern of 

relationships as well as the exchanges between subsystems and 

individual members. 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

42

For both types of social structures, three measures allow us to 

determine the extent to which the organization is mechanistic or 

organic: complexity, centralization, and formalization. Complexity 

is a measure of the horizontal or vertical differentiation.100 

Complexity is advantageous in a dynamic, hostile environment, but 

is suffers from increased communication demands. Centralization 

refers to the diffusion of decision-making authority. Decentralized 

VNSA empower members, pushing at least operational decisionmaking authority to the boundaries of the system, or the periphery 

of the network. Al Qaida, for example, is highly decentralized. 

Formalization refers to the extent to which norms are explicitly laid 

out in directives, fatwas, and other media. Formalization 

discourages innovation, but has the benefit of increasing control.101 

Mechanistic organizations are complex, formal, and centralized, 

while organic organizations are informal, decentralized, and often 

simple, although complexity has increased due to improved forms 

of communications. 

Communication is the essence of the system, offering “the 

exchange of information and the transmission of meaning.”102 As 

the VNSA grows, communication will become increasingly 

complex due to differentiation of work, necessitating restrictions to 

prevent system “noise,” or information that distracts and 

misleads.103 Without going into information theory, it is sufficient 

to say that a robust C-VNSA strategy will generate system “noise,” 

thus increasing uncertainty. Disrupting communications also 

undermines system congruence, making it difficult for subsystems 

to interact. 

Achieving these effects requires an evaluation of the 

communication networks in the system. Even though all VNSA 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

43

continue to rely on couriers and face-to-face interactions to ensure 

security, sophisticated information technologies have improved 

communication in three ways: reduced transmission time, reduced 

costs, and increased scope and complexity of information.104 Many 

VNSA, including al Qaida, are known to rely on satellite phones 

and computer networks. At least one ideological group, Animal 

Liberation Front, communicates between cells in the US and Europe 

using an encryption program known as Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) 

to send coded emails.105 These mechanisms and others are not error 

free, particularly when combined with the misunderstanding 

inherent in human communication. The C-VNSA leverages these 

vulnerabilities. 

Conversion Subsystem. Child soldiers learn to shoot an AK-47, 

health services are delivered to a community, a suicide bomber 

records a martyr’s video, underground bunkers are built, guerilla 

forces ambush a convoy, a politician is kidnapped, or aircraft are 

used as missiles to attack landmarks. These functions and others 

constitute the dynamics of the conversion subsystem. This 

subsystem’s primary function is task accomplishment, converting 

energy within the system and outputting a product to the 

environment.106 In the case of VNSA, the product of most concern 

is conspiracy violence; however, an effective C-VNSA is also 

concerned with other products that reinforce the system of violence, 

such as training and illegal goods.

 Operations. Operations can take many forms and do not 

always involve violence. The first step in the analysis is to identify 

all the operational activities conducted by the VNSA. Nonviolent 

operational activities, such as reconnaissance to gain intelligence or 

public demonstrations to spread a message, demand more attention, 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

44

as they are often important precursors to violence. Second, each 

operational activity must be linked to other supporting operational 

activities and to the subsystems involved. For example, 

surveillance is an operational activity that is also carried out by the 

authority subsystem to enable learning. Finally, the criticality of the 

linkages must be assessed to support the prioritization of C-VNSA 

actions intended to disrupt operations. Criticality can be assessed in 

terms of resource, stakeholder, and knowledge dependency. 

The forms of collective violence and associated tactics are 

equally vital to our threat assessment. VNSA most often engage in 

conspiracy violence, i.e., highly organized violence with limited 

participation on a small scale.107 Conspiracy violence can grow into 

internal wars as participation becomes more widespread and 

objectives expand to include overthrowing the regime, dissolving 

the state, or eradicating opposition.108 In terms of tactics, VNSA 

tend toward the asymmetric, including violent crime, guerrilla 

operations, terrorism, and in some rare cases, cyberwarfare. These 

tactics differ principally in scope and objectives. Violent crime is 

typically directed toward individuals for material gain even though 

it can be highly organized with multiple targets. Specific acts 

include shooting, stabbing, kidnapping, beating, and other shortterm acts that generally do not have second- and third-order 

consequences.

109 While guerrilla and terrorist operations share 

several similarities, guerrilla tactics generally mean a larger group 

of armed individuals “who operate as a military unit, attack enemy 

military forces, and seize and hold territory, while also exercising 

some form of sovereignty or control over a defined geographical 

areas and its population” (even if only temporarily).110 In contrast 

to crime and guerrilla operations, terrorism is designed to have 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

45

second- and third-order consequences, not the least of which is a 

dramatic psychological impact on a mass audience beyond the 

immediate target. For our purposes, terrorism is “the deliberate 

creation and exploitation of fear through the use or threat of 

abnormal lethal force in the pursuit of political change.”111 As 

evidenced by the devastation of 11 September 2001, terrorism can 

reflect the most heinous designs of man. 

 Training and Production. Training converts the recruits of 

the maintenance subsystem into militants, terrorists or criminals, 

while production converts resources into useful materials, such as 

drugs, weapons, or social services, to name a few. Both processes 

are analyzed similarly and provide parallel relationships for 

exploitation by a sophisticated C-VNSA strategy. 

First, inputs must be identified and linked to their appropriate 

source in the supersystem or one of the other subsystems. Second, 

the activities and associated infrastructure for each conversion must 

be dissected. Most VNSA, particularly mature groups like al Qaida, 

LTTE, IRA, and FARC, have well-developed and documented 

training programs. Al Qaida’s training programs in Afghanistan 

prior to the fall of the Taliban in 2001 were even videotaped and 

globally dispersed for recruitment, an example of the conversion 

subsystem serving the maintenance and support subsystems. 

Gestating and growing VNSA are unlikely to have sophisticated 

programs for training and production; however, they are inclined to 

acquire the skills or materials directly from government and 

nongovernmental sources until they are sufficiently differentiated to 

conduct home grown conversions. Many militia organizations in 

the US and elsewhere are known to import skills by gaining recruits 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

46

with prior military experience; these individuals then form the 

backbone of training programs. 

An often overlooked, but exceedingly important, output is 

ideology in all its forms, ranging for communism to fascism to 

extremist religion. At its most basic level, ideology is “a set of core 

philosophical principles” that a group collectively holds about 

politics.112 Ideology is not found lying on the street; it too must be 

converted from a variety of inputs including history, dogma, and 

social convention. These inputs are transformed by members of the 

organization into an ideological program. In recent history, al 

Qaida has proven the most adept at exporting ideology, evidenced 

by the highly influential fatwas issued on behalf of Osama bin 

Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. Among many, one of the earliest 

appeared on February 22, 1996, when bin Laden announced the 

formation of the World Islamic Front for the Jihad against the Jews 

and the Crusaders. In this statement, bin Laden and cohorts set the 

agenda for the extended global jihadist insurgency that continues as 

of the time of this writing. 

...Based upon this and in order to obey the Almighty, we 

hereby give all Muslims the following judgment: The 

judgment to kill and fight Americans and their allies, 

whether civilians or military, is an obligation for every 

Muslim who is able to do so in any country.... In the name 

of Allah, we call upon every Muslim, who believed in 

Allah and ask for forgiveness, to abide by Allah’s order by 

killing Americans and stealing their money anywhere, 

anytime, and whenever possible.113

Conversion activities and associated facilities are often the main 

focus of counterinsurgency, narcotic, and terrorism campaigns: 

destroying cocaine production facilities in the jungles of South 

America, raining cruise missiles on terrorist camps in Afghanistan, 

protecting facilities against guerrilla attacks in Baghdad, or fighting 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

47

Islamic militants in the Pankisi Gorge of Georgia. Our C-VNSA 

also encourages disrupting training and destroying facilities and 

operatives; however, the most effective strategy targets all 

subsystems, recognizing that conversions do not have to occur for 

the VNSA to survive. Conversions do contribute to negative 

entropy by providing a surplus of trained members and products, 

and successful operations can produce internal and external support; 

however, the VNSA can survive an extended period of dormancy by 

this subsystem if the others remain active. For example, Hamas can 

hold off on suicide operations for years and still prosper, as long as 

it continues to recruit, socialize, maintain stakeholder relations, and 

learn. 

Life Cycle Vulnerabilities 

In a mature VNSA, the subsystems and associated functions 

outlined in Figure 4 are each generally well developed, interrelated 

and of relatively equal in importance to system functioning. When 

mapped against life cycle phases of a specific VNSA, however, the 

extent of their development and their relative value will vary 

substantially, presenting a unique VNSA signature. A subsystem’s 

value, or criticality, is assessed in terms of its contribution to 

reducing uncertainty and increasing negative entropy, which 

combine to sustain congruence. Armed with this knowledge, a 

refined C-VNSA strategy will target the critical subsystem and take 

advantage of life cycle transitions.
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

48 

Figure 4: VNSA Subsystems and Functions 

SUPPORT MAINTENANCE AUTHORITY CONVERSIONS Resource Acquisition 

Socialization Learning 

(Intelligence) 

Training 

Stakeholder Associations 

Rewards and Sanctions 

Strategy (Decision making) 

Production 

Recruitment Control Operations 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

49

In ecological deterrence, we introduced four life cycle phases: 

gestation, growth, maturity, and transformation.114 These phases, 

although suggestive of linear development similar to the human life, 

do manifest in a nonlinear fashion. In some cases, two or more 

phases may occur simultaneously, as in a mature VNSA that 

continues to grow. The shift in phases is always a function of the 

system’s relationship to the environment; however, the primary 

causal force may be an emergent strategy change driven by internal 

subsystem dynamics, or it may be induced by a C-VNSA strategy of 

environmental shaping. The transformation phase can take many 

forms, including transition from one phase to the other, duplication 

and propagation of similar systems, dormancy, or in the case of a 

successful C-VNSA campaign, system failure, i.e., death! 

During the 1980s, the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) was a 

mature VNSA. Former university president Abimel Guzman led an 

authority subsystem with a well-developed culture based on the 

extreme elements of values and norms associated with Mao Tse 

Tung and Che Guevara. Even while the conversion subsystem 

waged collective violence in the form of murders, bombings and 

assassinations, the support subsystem was still pursuing the growth 

of the organization through an increasingly unsuccessful recruiting 

campaign that involved killing those who refused to join.115 It can 

be argued that the fear-based mechanisms employed by conversion 

subsystems directly contributed to Shining Path’s decline by 

undermining the success of its support subsystem to gain resources 

and sustain stakeholder associations, particularly with the very 

peasants Guzman was “saving.” With negative entropy depleted, 

the capture of Guzman in 1992 initiated system disintegration, 

forcing a transition to a dormant gestation phase. Of note, the 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

50

failure of the Peruvian government to satisfactorily alleviate the 

roots of violence in the ensuing decade contributed to the Shining 

Path’s survival and early growth in the early 2000s. 

As in the example, there are specific subsystems that tend to 

“lead,” or be the most critical, during each life cycle phase. During 

gestation, for example, the VNSA is a primitive collective response 

to a common problem: the roots of violence.116 At gestation, the 

idea is no more than an embryo in the minds of one or several 

identity entrepreneurs who are part of an at-risk identity cleavage. 

In order for a group to form, the identity entrepreneur and the 

nucleus of founders must be linked to resources, stakeholders, and 

future members. Embedding the primitive VNSA in the 

environment through a network of critical relationships is the 

responsibility of the support subsystem. Until the support 

subsystem does its work, maintenance and conversion subsystems 

will lack the people and tools required for socialization, sanctioning, 

training, production, and operations. Although the support 

subsystem is most critical during gestation, it is guided by a basic 

authority subsystem. Decision making and control are not the result 

of an elaborate participatory process at this point. Rather, the 

identity entrepreneur can easily set the agenda and control functions 

without the need of other subsystems due to a familiarity with all 

other group members.117 

The growth phase is entered when all subsystems initiate 

activity; however, the relevant importance of the subsystems varies 

with VNSA. In early growth, the support subsystem continues to 

lead, but is increasingly interlaced with the development of specific 

maintenance and conversion subsystem functions. Maintenance 

functions are likely to dominate in VNSA that stress a 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

51

transcendental agenda, such as the Islamic Jihad in Palestine or the 

Kahane Chai in Israel. These groups and others place a greater 

premium on loyalty and commitment to the religious or ideological 

goals of the group. Conversion functions will dominate in VNSA 

that pursue a more pragmatic agenda, such as the Chinese Triads or 

the warlords of Afghanistan, where the accumulation of wealth or 

consolidation of power requires the production of drugs or the 

training of guerrillas to hold territory and extract resources. 

The growth phase is characterized by high levels of uncertainty 

related to the idiosyncratic behaviors by group members, doubt 

about reliability of resources and stakeholders, and the evolving 

character of the organization. In an effort to increase stability and 

survivability, the growth phase will increasingly reflect efforts to 

differentiate and enforce roles and responsibilities. Therefore, the 

authority subsystem will assert itself during late growth by 

clarifying goals and structures. Differentiation generates pressure to 

integrate functions; this is carried out by the control function.118 

Additionally, the VNSA leadership will recognize the importance of 

continued environmental scanning through intelligence collection 

activities as a means to reduce uncertainty and match its subsystems 

to the opportunities and constraints of the environment. In the most 

adept VNSA, learning will gain prominence—the earlier in the life 

cycle it does so, the more successful the VNSA is likely to be in a 

turbulent environment. Finally, sporadic violent acts can be 

expected during the growth stage; however, these are more likely 

for the purpose of establishing legitimacy, enhancing recruiting, 

collecting intelligence, and testing tactics than they are for 

achieving over arching VNSA goals. 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

52

In mature VNSA all subsystems perform in concert; 

congruence is achieved, uncertainty is managed, and negative 

entropy is built. Based on this ideal system type, each function is 

fully articulated in terms of sustainable, adaptable patterns of 

activity, the culture is strong, the decision-making process is based 

on double loop learning, control is efficient, training has efficacy, 

and operations achieve goals. Fortunately, this ideal rarely exists, 

but even growing VNSA trapped in single loop learning, or lacking 

sanctuary for training, or failing to attract new recruits, or running 

short of funds, are tough to defeat. With the systems-based, 

diagnostic tools presented here, the strengths and the weakness of 

the VNSA can be exposed for exploitation by the C-VNSA to 

follow. 

COERCE 

This analysis of VNSA focuses on the deterrence pillar of 

coercion and sets the stage for the future examination of 

warfighting. Coercion is the use or threatened use of force to 

induce an adversary to act in a different manner than planned.119 

Under this umbrella, conventional deterrence centers on preventing 

an action that has yet to occur, while the second pillar of coercion, 

compellence, involves efforts to reverse an action that has already 

occurred, or to change a current behavior.120 Coercion takes us to 

the cusp of war, but stops short of warfighting. The adversary 

group may retain the capacity for organized violence, but chooses 

not to develop or use it.121 Our interest is in deterrence strategies 

that dissuade VNSA from embracing collective violence in the first 

place. This is closely related, and some cases barely 

distinguishable, from compellence strategies that would induce 

VNSA to abandon their reliance on collective violence once they 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

53

have embraced its use. For example, we are more concerned in this 

section with deterring the Maasai tribe of Tanzania from taking up 

arms against the government than we are with tactics for defeating 

the Maoist rebels of Nepal in open battle. We are more interested in 

compelling the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) to abandon 

terrorist attacks than we are with an operational plan for destroying 

the infrastructure of the Abu Sayyaf. Ecological deterrence further 

blurs the line separating deterrence and compellence (the latter is 

pursued in the next section) and argues for an expanded concept of 

deterrence that acknowledges the semiformal nature of VNSA early 

in their life cycles. 

A successful deterrence strategy must account for the 

challenges posed by the range of VNSA types and their unique nontrinitarian character. It is our purpose to examine the conventional 

formulation of deterrence in light of these challenges. Essentially, 

we are asserting that traditional deterrence is only relevant under a 

highly ordered set of conditions that only apply to the rare formally 

organized or mature VNSA. 

The life cycle concept also acknowledges the nonrational, or 

affective, factors that compel organizational behavior. Recognizing 

that emotive dynamics are always relevant to the decision making 

of VNSA, particularly during gestation and growth, is essential to 

crafting effective strategy. Traditional, rationality-based deterrence 

may still have a role to play throughout the life cycle; however, it is 

subsumed by a broader environmental shaping, or prevention, 

strategy. The result is ecological deterrence, which expands our 

deterrence toolkit to include a variety of forms of intervention. We 

apply ecological deterrence to create a strategy matrix that crosses 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

54

the life cycle with a three-prong strategy of shaping, denial, and 

punishment. 

The form of organization our adversaries adopt will determine 

whether traditional concepts of deterrence will be effective in 

helping us formulate strategies to deal with them, and will thus 

affect whether we adopt a broader theory of deterrence. Before 

critically reviewing the Traditional Rational Choice (TRC) theory 

of deterrence, it will be useful to give the project context by 

distinguishing between broad and narrow conceptions of deterrence, 

and broad and narrow conceptions of psychology. 

Narrow and Broad 

A narrow conception of deterrence has a psychological 

component, where “psychology” is construed in the slimmest sense 

possible. Narrow deterrence revolves around preventing action by 

influencing another actor’s psychology directly. Broad deterrence, 

on the other hand, revolves around preventing action by either direct 

or indirect influence on psychology, where indirect is given a very 

liberal reading. Narrow conceptions of deterrence will be more 

likely to leverage rational actor assumptions, whereas broader 

conceptions will consider other aspects of the psychology of action, 

as well as environmental factors that are only indirectly—through a 

longer causal chain—related to psychological concerns. 

Narrow and broad conceptions of deterrence go hand in hand 

with narrow and broad conceptions of psychology. Narrow 

psychology focuses only on traditional “folk psychological” 

concerns, i.e., it considers only beliefs, desires, and attitudes to be 

the objects of psychology proper. In its most constrained form, this 

school of thought represents only a small subset of possible 

belief/desire relationships. Narrow psychology contrasts with broad 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

55

psychology, which consists in considering all those states of the 

mind/brain information processing system that influence action, be 

they conscious or not, be they rational or not, be they distributed 

across an organization or not. They must only involve, either 

directly or indirectly, some aspect of information processing.122

Proper consideration of the life cycle of VNSA forces us to 

adopt the broadest possible stance with regard to both these 

“conceptual cuts”; a broad conception of deterrence in conjunction 

with a broad conception of psychology allows us to deal with both 

the rational and nonrational aspects of information processing 

systems, whether in organizations or individuals, and it gives us the 

most possible “causal traction” as we attempt to prevent VNSA 

action. We call this conjunction ecological deterrence. 

Understanding why ecological deterrence is a desirable background 

for formulating deterrence strategy requires that we examine the 

assumptions of the classic picture. 

Rational Choice 

TRC theory makes several assumptions regarding an agent’s 

psychology. Some of these assumptions include that the agent: 

- has a well ordered and transitive utility function; 

- possesses full or perfect information, or some subset 

thereof that can be modeled using the assumptions of bounded 

rationality; 

- is a “perfect reasoner” who has a reliable method of 

identifying the relevant premises in argument driven choices and 

uses rational rules of inference when working from these premises 

so as to reach a conclusion regarding what to do; 

- has unlimited time to ratiocinate.123 

While these assumptions have received minor modification 

over the years, their core has remained more or less constant since 

being explicitly formulated by game theorists early in the Cold 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

56

War.*

 However, these assumptions are realistic only under certain 

conditions: they cohere best with the information processing 

characteristics of a large formal organization or of human beings in 

tightly constrained circumstances, such as those that characterize a 

classic post-Westphalian nation-state. They do not cohere well with 

the characteristics of fledgling non-state actors, nor with the 

vagaries of human psychology in the broadest terms. Simply put, 

they fail to capture a large portion of human information processing 

that is relevant to deterrence strategy.125 Given that VNSA are 

often loosely coupled dynamic systems that do not fall in line with 

the characteristics of large, tightly structured, and rule-governed 

formal organizations, human “molar level” psychological processes 

will be even more important than in the classic picture, as these 

processes will be more likely to influence the action of the VNSA. 

For example, “filtering out” the irrationality of a single person in a 

large formal organization is difficult enough, but such filtering is 

next to impossible in a typical terrorist cell of three people. 

Exceptions 

As other theorists have pointed out, molar level psychological 

processes do not always conform to the normative predictions of the 

TRC model. Pertinent, although not exhaustive, examples of 

exceptions include heuristics and biases, ecological rationality, fast 

and frugal heuristics, metaphor and analogy, the storytelling mind, 

“hot” emotional cognition, and the dynamic nature of cognitive 

states. We will discuss these briefly in turn. 

 

*

 For instance, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky’s “prospect 

theory” is based on TRC assumptions but just changes the utility 

function based on whether the item being threatened is a gain or loss. 

See Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, “Prospect Theory: An 

Analysis of Decisions under Risk,” Econometrica (1979, 47), 313-327. 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

57

The heuristics and biases research program originated by 

Kahneman and Tversky, argues that humans often take cognitive 

short cuts that do not conform to TRC theory.126 These include 

such phenomena as anchoring, where the first external suggestion 

for a potential answer to a question influences the range of answers 

given by a subject (“Is the Mississippi River longer or shorter than 

500 miles?,” or, more pertinently, “Would you have the United 

States station more or less than 10,000 troops in your country?”). 

Another example is the availability heuristic, where our judgments 

about relative frequency can be skewed by the availability of events 

to our memory (“Which is more common: the letter ‘k’ beginning a 

word, or the letter ‘k’ occurring as the third letter in a word?,” or, 

“Which is more common: terrorist incidents that involve crashing 

airplanes into buildings, or terrorist incidents that involve the use of 

bridges?”). The representativeness heuristic says that we judge the 

probability of events based on the extent that they represent the 

features of their parent populations, even when this leads to 

irrational conclusions (“Linda is 31, single, outspoken, and very 

bright. She majored in philosophy in college. As a student, she was 

deeply concerned with discrimination and other social issues, and 

participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations. Which statement is 

more likely? a. Linda is a bank teller, or b. Linda is a bank teller and 

active in the feminist movement.” Most people say ‘b,’ even 

though the conjunction of two statements can’t be more likely than 

the probability of either of them taken singly).127

The ecological rationality program, explored by Gerd 

Gigerenzer, states that in certain cases the mind’s ability to leverage 

structure present in the environment so as to achieve reasonable 

conclusions can be affected by the format in which the information 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

58

is delivered.128 An example here is the fact that whether 

probabilistic events are expressed in natural frequencies (“Ten out 

of every 1,000 women have breast cancer,” “Ten out of every 1,000 

Palestinians is a terrorist”) or in terms of base rates (“The 

probability that one of these women has breast cancer is 1%,” “The 

probability that one of these Palestinians is a terrorist is 1%”) makes 

a huge difference in whether or not we can reason successfully from 

these premises. This gives us reason to doubt that human cognition 

works in the strictly formal manner assumed by TRC. 

The “fast and frugal heuristics” agenda, also developed by 

Gigerenzer, notes that cognitively successful outcomes can be 

achieved even by mental processes that are not classically rational. 

As he states, “the major thrust of the theory is that it replaces the 

canon of classical rationality with simple, plausible psychological 

mechanisms of inference—mechanisms that a mind can actually 

carry out under limited time and knowledge....”129 Being able to 

manipulate the inferences that actually occur is critical for 

deterrence theory. Examples of fast and frugal heuristics include 

“take the best,” where, when given a forced choice between two 

alternatives, you assume that the answer you recognize is probably 

the answer to the question. 

Reasoning by metaphor and analogy, a research program 

explored by Mark Johnson, George Lakoff, Giles Fauconnier, and 

Mark Turner, argues that our most complex mental tasks are usually 

carried out not by the “classical mechanics” of the TRC, but rather 

by a set of analogy making and metaphor mapping abilities that 

form the core of human cognition.130 Reasoning by analogy and 

metaphor can often lead to the same conclusions as a TRC-style 

deduction, but does so more quickly and cleanly; on the other hand, 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

59

they can also lead to critical mistakes, perhaps dangerous ones. For 

example, viewing the human mind “as a machine” can both 

enlighten and mislead us about the nature of human understanding. 

The storytelling mind is a research program that combines 

metaphor and analogy into an exploration of the powerful grip 

narrative has on human cognition. Narratives can restructure our 

mental spaces in ways that profoundly impact our reasoning ability, 

and yet that cannot necessarily be captured by TRC assumptions. 

Consider, for instance, the grip that the “Jihad versus McWorld”131

narrative has on Al Qaida and how this affects the way they think 

about the future.132 As Mark Turner notes, “Story is a basic 

principle of mind. Most of our experience, our knowledge, and our 

thinking is organized as stories.”133

The “hot mind” and affective/limbic considerations are on an 

agenda championed by neurobiologists such as Ralph Adolphs, 

Joseph Ledoux, and Antonio Damasio. They point out that 

reasoning itself is shot through with emotional and affective 

considerations, some of which operate subconsciously but 

nonetheless do more to affect the course of our reasoning than 

explicit arguments and premises do. Humans are emotional as well 

as rational creatures, and action occurs only when beliefs are 

conjoined with desires. The type of actions we want to deter lie at 

the crossroads of reason and emotion, which means emotional 

subsystems like fear- and pleasure-inducing limbic structures must 

be considered. “Somatic markers”—those mental structures that tie 

together emotional reactions and gut feelings with judgment and 

decision making—are crucial for fully understanding the 

complexities of decision making, both by individuals and by those 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

60

who find themselves in the larger superstructure of an 

organization.134

The diachronic nature of human cognition has been the focus of 

recent work in dynamical systems approaches to human reasoning. 

Dynamic systems theory first pointed to the time-laden complexities 

of human thought.135 TRC assumes that ratiocination takes place in 

a synchronic “timeless realm,” unaffected by the dynamic 

complexities of the cognitive system. The inference drawn today 

from a set of premises should be like the inference drawn tomorrow 

from the same set of premises. Such is not the case, however. Time 

matters as a component of our model of human cognition, and we 

should expand the assumptions of our deterrence theory to deal with 

the diachronic nature of decision making, as well as to comport with 

the diachronic nature of the organic growth and development of 

organizations.136

Ecological deterrence pushes for a broad conception of 

deterrence insofar as any intervention that will eventually influence 

some aspect of VNSA information processing so as to prevent 

action should be labeled as a deterrent action. We also argue for a 

broad conception of psychology, as a rational actor focus preludes 

consideration of the psychology of the VNSA over all phases of its 

life cycle and mistakenly focuses only on a mature organization that 

is large, has a formal structure, and is in an environment of action 

that is highly constrained and specified. 

Other traditional “conceptual cuts” that can be made when 

talking about deterrence are pertinent as well and can be 

accommodated using ecological deterrence. General deterrence 

versus immediate deterrence still matters. We have to adjust our 

strategy appropriately if we are looking to deter all species of 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

61

VNSA from acting rather than deterring a particular VNSA from 

performing a particular action. Denial is still a pertinent method, 

although our position is that denial of goal achievement is a TRC 

move appropriate mostly in the mature phase of development; we 

need to think of denial along the lines of “species specific” goals. 

That is, any move we can make that can disrupt the eventual goals 

of the mature form of the VNSA in question should be thought of as 

disruptive deterrence. Punishment tactics should be viewed in a 

similar vein. 

All these conceptual cuts have a place in our theory of 

deterrence. However, they need to be augmented by general 

environmental considerations because the structure of the 

environment can have a dramatic impact on information processing. 

A broad conception of deterrence thus demands another conceptual 

cut: that of environmental shaping, which we define as actions 

taken to shape the environment so as to preclude the continued 

emergence of the organizational structures necessary to act on goals 

and intentions. This arises naturally as a result of taking ecological 

deterrence seriously. 

Deterrence Strategy 

The application of ecological deterrence concepts to deterrent 

strategy can vastly expand the number of tools we have in our 

deterrence toolkit. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks 

like a nail. If everything is in fact a nail, this is not a problem; but if 

it isn’t, having more tools in the deterrent toolkit can provide the 

necessary flexibility to actually build a house that is safe to live in. 

It is instructive that TRC theorists have felt the need to festoon 

rational choice theory with qualifications and assumptions. This is 

praiseworthy, but the limiting conditions required to make the 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

62

normative model predictive are an indication that we might need to 

cast our conceptual net more widely. Moreover, the types of 

“creatures” we are trying to catch with our nets have changed, 

which means we need to modify both the form and matter of these 

nets. 

In general, then, our deterrent strategy should meet the 

following criteria: 

- it should be able to “capture” the successes of TRC theory 

as a subset of its domain; 

- it should be driven by the biological metaphors discussed in 

the “life cycle” section of this paper (gestation, growth, maturity, 

transformation); 

- it should be structured according to the useful conceptual 

divisions to be made between aspects of deterrence (general vs. 

immediate, denial vs. punishment, affective vs. rational 

considerations); 

- it should be supplemented with a recognition that the 

VNSA organism emerges from and interacts with an environment in 

a loosely coupled open system, and that such an environment can be 

shaped so as to prevent the VNSA from maturing or so as to 

perform a kind of transformational “genetic engineering” whereby 

we shift the VNSA’s nature so that it becomes a peaceful 

movement; 

- our deterrent strategy should be tested against empirically 

valid success measures; this means we have to be able to model the 

VNSA/environment interface so as to support counterfactual 

prediction (i.e., “if we hadn’t intervened in this way, then the NSA 

would have become violent”). 

Driven by the recognition that instrumental rationality may be a 

characteristic of some mature VNSA but may not characterize the 

VNSA at all points in its life cycle (nor at any point for certain 

VNSA), our strategy should be a function of at least three things: 

whether we are focusing on shaping, denial, or punishment; what 

stage of the life cycle a given species of VNSA is in; and whether 

we are aiming at general or immediate deterrence. Figure 5 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

63

displays these relations. We will know which tool to use from our 

toolkit depending on where we are in the matrix. 

The chart reflects the general fact that early in a VNSA’s 

ontogeny, deterrent strategies that appeal to the affective component 

of cognition will most likely be more effective, whereas 

interventions at a mature stage for many VNSA can usefully 

leverage rational actor assumptions. The chart is not intended to be 

binary; at every step in the determination of deterrent strategy there 

will be both affective and rational components. We are merely 

emphasizing that at certain stages one approach may be more 

effective in a wider range of circumstances than the other. 

Traditional rational strategies involve appealing to the utility 

functions of the organization and actors involved so as to affect 

their decision-making calculus. These strategies include policy 

changes, the threat of incarceration, countermobilization, 

counterinsurgency operations, and the like. 

Affective interventions, on the other hand, will not be driven by 

rational actor considerations but will instead appeal to the heuristics 

and biases embedded in human cognition; to the power of myth, 

narrative, metaphor, and storytelling to affect human world views; 

and may very well involve using “sub cortical” emotional systems 

to impact action via arational or irrational means. Since affective 

interventions are more unusual than rational interventions, they 

require more discussion; examples include traditional psychological 

operations, myth creation, alternative exemplar cultivation, 

metaphor shifts, and manipulation of national/tribal/group identities. 

Traditional psychological operations, including the use of 

multiple media such as radio, television, print, and computers, often 

have as their goal the manipulation of subcortical systems, either by 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

64 

Figure 5: Deterrence Strategy Matrix 

SHAPING

DENIAL 

PUNISH 

GESTATION GROWTH MATURITY TRANSFORM 

I

AFFECTIVE RATIONAL 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

65

creating an irrational fear of certain actions or by drawing on 

somatic markers already laid down by previous experience to 

encourage defection and withdrawal from plans of action. 

Interestingly, research indicates that people are more vulnerable to 

certain kinds of cognitive illusions if their lives are laced with 

“positive affect;”137 it may very well be that a coordinated strategy 

will thus also include the creation of feelings of well being so that 

other affective strategies that appeal to heuristics and biases can be 

effective. In addition, positive psychological operations may have 

the effect of disrupting a critical aspect of the VNSA life cycle—

recruitment—as disaffection and dissatisfaction are key elements in 

creating an at-risk population. Psychological operations often 

produce change by indirectly manipulating other affective 

strategies, such as myth creation. 

Myth creation involves the weaving together of the narrative 

elements of a story with facts about past and present situations so as 

to create an emotionally compelling background that very often 

directly influences the susceptibility of a population to manipulation 

by “myth mongers.” The fanatical devotion shown by al Qaida 

operatives stems in large part not from any rational deliberative 

process but rather from the success Osama bin Laden and others 

have had in fashioning a coherent and appealing foundational myth. 

The events of September 11 can be thought of as the punch line of a 

chapter in an epic that sets “the warriors of God” against an “infidel 

West.” This myth did not propagate itself via rational actor 

channels, but instead was indoctrinated via a multi-pronged effort 

on the part of fundamentalist strains of Islam such as Saudi Arabia’s 

Wahabis. Successful myth creation may very well leverage the 

heuristics and biases listed earlier. It certainly takes advantage of 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

66

the availability heuristic, as this heuristic probably undergirds 

human propensity to form stereotypes. 

Myth creation usually involves the effective use of narrative. 

As we formulate an “affective strategy,” we should keep the 

elements of a narrative in mind, for it is only by disrupting the story 

that one can interfere with myth creation. Good stories need 

protagonists, antagonists, tests for the protagonist, a promise of 

redemption, and a supporting cast of characters, at the very least. 

Disrupting al Qaida’s foundational myth may involve undermining 

the belief that Americans are the antagonists in the narrative bin 

Laden is constructing. We can either undermine the foundational 

myth being used to drive VNSA development, or we can construct 

an alternative myth that is a “better story” than the one being 

offered by the myth mongers. Examples of myth creation in action 

include the stories told by the rulers of Plato’s ideal city that were 

designed to motivate members of the different classes,138 or the 

foundational myths that supported the violent actions of both the 

Hutus and the Tutsis during the Rwandan massacres of 1994.139

Closely related to myth making is the strategy of creating 

alternative exemplars. Members of an at-risk population often 

become at-risk because of a failure to identify with a member of a 

nonviolent non-state actor or a member of the government. VNSA 

“identity entrepreneurs” can exploit existing ethnic, racial, 

economic, or social political differences by elevating someone who 

shares the same characteristics as the exploited class to a position of 

prestige or power. Members of the at-risk group then come to 

identify with that exemplar and may feel compelled to adopt the 

violent strategies advocated by the exemplar’s VNSA. Creating 

alternative exemplars who do not advocate violence or who can 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

67

show the way towards a nonviolent solution to the issues that are 

fueling VNSA emergence can go a long way towards interrupting 

the VNSA life cycle. Alternative exemplar creation may involve 

symbolic acts on the part of the government that tap those elements 

of hot cognition and heuristics and biases mentioned earlier. An 

example of the alternative exemplar creation strategy in action is the 

praise and warm endorsement heaped upon John Garang, the leader 

of the Sudanese guerrilla faction of the Sudanese People’s 

Liberation Army (SPLA), during his visit to Washington just before 

Christmas of 1995. Such endorsement was critical for the 

recruitment and logistics boost the SPLA received that enabled 

Garang’s forces to recapture crucial cities in southern Sudan soon 

thereafter.140 In this case, we encouraged the growth of a VNSA by 

cultivating an exemplar saliently different from the leaders of the 

Sudanese regime. 

An alternate affective strategy includes creating a metaphor 

shift that affects the way in which at-risk populations or members of 

a VNSA frame their actions. Given the power of metaphor to shape 

human thought, it should come as no surprise that shifting 

metaphors people use to frame worldviews and guide decisions can 

cause a change in their reasoning about the situation. For example, 

to convince someone that “cluster of cells” is a more appropriate 

metaphor for an unborn embryo than “young human” may very well 

change their stand on the issue of abortion.141 Shifting metaphors 

requires making connections between the way people presently 

view a situation or issue and the way you would like them to frame 

the situation or issue.142 The common refrain, “one man’s terrorist 

is another man’s freedom fighter,” is a simple example of metaphor 

shift. Even the patriotic revolutionaries participating in the Boston 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

68

Tea Party were viewed as criminals and dangerous insurrectionists 

by many of their fellow colonists. 

Manipulation of existing identities, such as national, tribal, or 

ethnic identifications, is another affective strategy.143 This does not 

necessarily require creating new foundational myths or alternate 

exemplars; instead, skillful use of existing cleavages can decrease a 

VNSA’s stock of negative entropy. This is the “flip side” of the 

identity entrepreneur’s efforts that are often part of the genesis and 

growth of VNSA. For example, the Masaai warriors in Tanzania 

have skillfully manipulated existing identity cleavages so as to 

elevate the warrior aspect of Masaai culture over other aspects, e.g., 

pastoral herder or Tanzanian citizen. This involved the creation of 

camps for young Masaai; following their circumcision ritual, 

Masaai males attend the camp and learn compelling stories about 

ancient Masaai warriors while cultivating their hunting and combat 

skills. The Tanzanian government, if it wished, could exploit other 

aspects of Masaai history, including the fact that their lineage 

includes an important pastoral element, so as to deemphasize the 

violent aspects of Masaai culture to ensure they remain a peaceful 

non-state actor.144

Critically, the strategy chart we have formulated points out that 

interventions that are effective at one point in VNSA development 

may be ineffective at another. The diachronic nature of VNSA 

development, and of the information processing that takes place at 

each stage, is reflected in the changing efficacy of particular 

strategies and in the varying ratio of affective to rational strategy 

elements as you move to the right on the chart. Taking 

organizational theory and extended psychology seriously means 

coming to grips with the fact that the same intervention at different 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

69

points in time can have dramatically different effects. TRC requires 

that our assumptions about the state of beliefs, desires, and attitudes 

be held fixed, as this is the only way rational inference can occur. 

While such a task is beyond the scope of the current study, 

ideally, we would “flesh out” strategy charts for each of the eleven 

types of VNSA we identify. Particular strategies embedded in these 

charts would be tested against the empirical data for reliability and 

could then serve as cues for decision makers as they formulate the 

general shape of a deterrent strategy. 

CONQUER 

Armed with the increased insight into the structure and function 

of VNSA afforded by an open systems analysis of VNSA ontogeny, 

we can formulate a more comprehensive effects-based C-VNSA 

strategy. Should coercion fail, outright destruction of VNSA may 

be the only viable option.145 Achieving this objective requires a CVNSA strategy that takes into account the supersystem, system, and 

subsystem aspects of such actors, all married to the life cycle 

account of their ontogeny. In this section, we offer an analysis of 

general principles for C-VNSA strategy, a compendium of desired 

effects, and a set of strategic options that arise from the fusion of 

these principles and effects. The two pillars of this strategy are (1) 

denying the negative entropy, or stores of energy, required by the 

VNSA to survive crisis and/or attack, and (2) disrupting 

congruence, or fit, among subsystems to induce system failure, 

either immediately or over time. 

The desired effects depend on whether our goal is coercion or 

defeat. For coercion, the measure of merit would be the actual 

change in behavior. For defeat, the measure of merit is the total 

failure of the VNSA system. In reality, behavioral changes will not 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

70

be clear and defeat a distant and sometimes elusive goal. 

Nonetheless, we can measure progress in our C-VNSA campaign as 

a function of VNSA system characteristics and performance. At the 

system level, we should be pursuing effects of positive entropy, 

increased uncertainty and incongruence, all of which are essential to 

crippling a system. In terms of performance, systems theory helps 

as well by directing attention to an input metric of resource 

utilization, an output metric of goal attainment, and a conversion 

metric of process efficiency. Thus, we can think about input effects 

broadly as inefficient resource utilization, which can be further 

broken down into effects such as dysfunctional stakeholder 

associations, reduced recruitment and resource disruption. 

Conversion effects relate to subsystem performance, such as poor 

decision making, misperception, disrupted communications, or 

importantly to incongruence, a breakdown in role behaviors. 

Output effects, where assessment traditionally focuses, include 

failed operations, reduced quality products, and a general failure to 

achieve desired changes in policy or defeat of an enemy. 

Principles 

Military theorists often guide strategy formulation using 

principles of war. These are general principles that have withstood 

the test of time, and which can often serve as a useful guide for 

brainstorming about strategy. There are nine principles underlying 

the American way of war, ranging from mass to economy of force 

to surprise.147 Some of these traditional principles will have 

analogues in our systems tutored view of VNSA, while others will 

not; the list of principles on offer is not necessarily intended to 

transcend the traditional principles of war, but rather works in 

concert with them to produce maximum target system disruption. 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

71

As a prelude to a more comprehensive discussion, we offer the 

following strategic principles to keep in mind when formulating a 

strategy to cope with VNSA. 

1. Leverage diachronic effects. Much of the time, military 

theorists want systemic effects to manifest themselves immediately 

upon intervention into the system. If I bomb Germany’s ball 

bearing plants, I expect Panzer production to drop almost 

immediately. In this sense, much of military strategy focuses, 

understandably, on synchronic effects: effects that manifest 

themselves simultaneously, or nearly simultaneously, when action is 

taken. However, open systems and the VNSA that develop within 

them present opportunities for diachronically driven interventions; 

these are interventions whose impact is often not felt until far later 

in the developmental cycle. The beauty of diachronic effects is that, 

owing to the feedback loops present in the system, they can offer a 

huge ratio between the cost of the intervention and its impact upon 

the system. Much has been made in the literature on chaos theory 

of the “butterfly effect,” wherein sensitive dependence upon initial 

conditions entails that a butterfly flapping its wings in China can 

cause a tornado in Oklahoma a year later.148 In chaotic systems, 

this means that certain diachronic interventions have generally 

unpredictable consequences; in an open system, however, 

regularities in causal relations between subsystems means that we 

can often predict what impact a diachronic intervention may have 

on the end state of the system. For example, injecting a small 

amount of thalidomide into a baby’s bloodstream can have horrific 

large-scale developmental impact in the long run. The impact 

manifests itself reliably; “thalidomide babies,” as the US found in 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

72

the 1960’s when experimentation with this sedative for pregnant 

women reached its peak, usually grow only misshapen limbs. 

In a VNSA, disabling or destroying identity entrepreneur 

influence may delay or even prevent VNSA ontogeny. For 

example, preliminary computer modeling of the situation in Peru in 

1975 indicates that had Alberto Guzman not been on the scene 

serving as the lightening rod for efforts to organize a Maoist 

resistance to the Peruvian government, the Sendero Luminoso may 

not have developed at all, although the environmental preconditions 

that cause population disaffection would still have been present.149 

At this stage in Sendero’s development, a single well-timed 

intervention could have dramatically altered the course of Sendero 

Luminoso development. 

2. Seek “synergy minus one” interventions. Complex systems 

usually manifest synergy; they produce effects that one would not 

have otherwise expected from a mere additive summation of the 

parts of the complex system. For instance, gathering a critical mass 

of plutonium together does not merely produce yet more 

radioactivity, but instead leads to a high energy explosion. In much 

the same way, well-constructed VNSA are often able to leverage 

synergy to have impacts disproportionate to their size. For 

example, when many intelligent disaffected Japanese youth gather 

together and are placed in the same room with a charismatic leader 

and certain pieces of chemical weapons technology, you do not 

merely get a group of intelligent disaffected Japanese youth with a 

charismatic leader and chemical weapons technology; rather, you 

get Aum Shinrikyo and the subsequent nerve gas attack upon 

Tokyo’s central subway system.150 Synergetic systems are 

troublesome. However, this synergetic strength is also their 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

73

Achilles’ heel; generally, the removal of even one component of the 

synergetic complex disables the complex entirely. The mere 

conjunction of Shoko Ashara—the leader of Aum Shinrikyo—and 

intelligent disaffected Japanese youth does not produce a nerve gas 

attack; all three components of the system must be in place. 

Disabling synergetic subsystems by removing or neutralizing just 

one of the causal factors is called a “synergy minus one strategy.”151 

Those wishing to combat complex systems would do well to seek 

out the subsystems that leverage synergetic effects and focus on 

disabling just one of the causal factors contributing to the 

production of the synergy. 

Note that not all subsystems are synergetic; many will not be, 

but will instead impact the system in only a linear fashion. 

Ascertaining which subsystems contribute synergistically to system 

output is a challenge for intelligence analysts, model builders, and 

VNSA experts. Once those subsystems have been identified, their 

parts should be disabled. 

3. Disrupt well-connected nodes. Certain subsystems will 

be critical for system effectiveness, whereas others will not. 

Generally, critical subsystems will lie at the nexus of multiple 

inputs and outputs. Our brains, for instance, are well-connected 

nodes in the human system; they receive multiple inputs from the 

remainder of the body and in turn have multiple outputs to it. 

Attacking these well-connected nodes can have a dramatic effect on 

system efficacy. You will be much more likely to paralyze an 

individual by attacking the brain than by attacking the hand. 

Indeed, even a semi-successful assault upon the frontal lobe will 

impact functioning much more than an entirely successful assault on 

both arms. 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

74

In a VNSA, well-connected nodes include critical leadership 

posts, financial centers, staging areas for difficult to acquire 

technologies and skills, and certain intelligence functions. For 

example, the skills brought to the table by the financier for Al 

Qaida’s operations in Europe, Muhammad Galeb Kalaje Zouaydi, 

were critical during the growth stages. Disrupting the influence he 

had on the system might have had a cascading effect on the growth 

of al Qaida’s cell structure in the continent. 

4. Leverage Feedback Loops. Some subsystems will be 

recurrently connected to other subsystems; others will not. For a 

subsystem to be recurrently connected, its components must provide 

causal input into another subsystem, and that subsystem must, in 

turn, provide causal input back into the previous subsystem. For 

instance, the governor on an old-fashioned steam engine was 

recurrently connected to the remainder of the steam engine. The 

governor was a valve driven by a set of weighted armatures and its 

function was to prevent a steam engine from over speeding, which 

could damage or destroy the engine. As the speed of the steam 

engine increased, centripetal force caused the weights to rise, 

leading the valve size to close, which in turn restricted the flow of 

steam into the engine and slowed it down. The speed at which the 

governor maintained the engine could be adjusted by sliding the 

weights up or down the armature. The governor received steam and 

inertia as input from the engine; in turn, it provided input to the 

engine in terms of valve size. It was recurrently connected to the 

engine. This example is illustrative, as it also highlights how a 

single intervention upon the steam engine could radically change its 

state: change the status of the governor, and in turn change the 

status of the entire steam engine. 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

75

In general, recurrently connected systems that use an 

exponential multiplier to control the connection, are critical 

feedback loops for the system. Interventions that affect the status of 

these subsystems will have cascading effects on the system as a 

whole, as an example from aviation may demonstrate. Beginning 

flyers are subject to correction/overcorrection cycles in which an 

initial mistake in flight path results in an overcorrection in the 

opposite direction, which in turn results in an overcorrection back, 

and so on. In the worst cases, these oscillations increase until the 

pilot loses control of the aircraft, possibly overstressing the airframe 

or even crashing altogether. 

In a VNSA, effective manipulation of their intelligence 

apparatus—say, by placing an agent inside their organization—can 

cascade. For instance, suppose that Hezbollah mistakenly believes 

that Israeli commandos are training with blank ammunition and will 

be vulnerable to a midnight strike. When the commandos 

effectively overcome the attacking Hezbollah force, Hezbollah may 

contemplate a retaliatory action. This retaliatory action will, in turn, 

be vulnerable to the same manipulation that the presence of the 

mole on the Hezbollah planning staff made possible in the first 

place. Absent intervention by someone who suspects an 

intelligence agent on the staff, Hezbollah could enter a death spiral 

relatively quickly. Overstressing the defensive cognitive subsystem 

of a VNSA can have a similar effect. Put a terrorist organization in 

a difficult position by feeding noise into its intelligence and 

counterintelligence functions. Being in this difficult position makes 

good intelligence all the more important which, in turn, magnifies 

the impact that the noise will have on the system. Arguably, 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

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something akin to this happened with factions of the IRA in the late 

1970s.152

5. Decrease negative entropy/increase entropy. One way in 

which organizations attempt to isolate themselves from rapid 

environmental change and environmental disorder is by 

accumulating negative entropy. As entropy equates to disorder, 

negative entropy provides a stock of order that can be used to “ride 

out hard times” when the sustaining inputs the organization would 

normally import from its environment are reduced. For example, a 

terrorist organization needs a steady stream of recruits in order to 

execute its agenda. If recruits dry up, the group can decrease the 

impact this lack of resources has on it by drawing upon a reserve 

stock of recruits. In much the same way that some amount of body 

fat is useful to survive a famine period, a stock of negative entropy, 

such as a reserve pool of money, or a group of recruits in the 

training pipeline, enables a VNSA to weather poor environments. 

Philosopher David Weissman makes this point at the abstract 

level: “Systems are complex, because each embodies a network of 

relations that are spatial, temporal, and causal. The new complex is 

sustained—i.e., stabilized—because the energetic bonds within it 

have established a particular equilibrium, one that will sustain this 

thing’s integrity until some greater energy is used to destroy it, or 

until energy within the system dissipates.”153

Critically, a knockout blow can only be delivered to an 

organization if its key stocks of negative entropy are already 

disrupted. Attacking stocks may not directly impact the short-term 

ability of the VNSA to export its product, such as terrorist bombers 

or active cells, but it will set up the necessary conditions for a 

VNSA to die when it is attacked directly. For instance, owing to 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

77

our inability to interdict al Qaida’s stock of negative entropy in the 

form of autonomous cells operating in continental Europe, any 

knockout blow we deal to the operational arm will be short lived. 

So long as al Qaida has fat to draw upon, starvation will not succeed 

on its own. 

6. Disrupt environment/organism interfaces. Organizations 

need inputs to survive. Disrupting critical inputs, especially at 

developmentally important phases of the organization’s life cycle, 

can stunt the organization’s growth or possibly even shift it to an 

entirely different developmental pathway. In much the same way 

that vitamin D deficiencies cause rickets in young children that in 

turn affect the overall development of their muscular skeletal 

system, so can critical deficiencies create brittleness in a VNSA. A 

good model of VNSA ontogeny would provide policymakers with 

insight into critical variables. 

At least in the gestation and growth phase, a large population of 

disaffected youth seems to be a requirement for a healthy terrorist 

organization. Lack of disaffection may cause the organization to be 

especially brittle and thus amenable to breakage around critical cut 

points. For instance, the November 17 radical leftist Greek terrorist 

organization, while a relatively healthy VNSA, nonetheless has a 

tiny membership of probably no more than 25 members. The recent 

decline in November 17 activity is directly attributable to Greek 

government action designed to boost popular support for the 

antiterrorist campaign, including appealing to Greek patriotism in 

advance of the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.154 By attacking the 

boundary layer between November 17 and the environment in 

which they thrive, Greece has successfully reduced this VNSA’s 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

78

ability to export its product, as bombings and related violent activity 

have been on the decline. 

 Weissman drives home the point about the importance of 

environmental input for sustaining a system. 

Every system has an inside and an outside. Each is a 

relationship of parts with an internal equilibrium and 

relations to those things outside from which the system 

draws material, energy, or information. The inside is 

constituted of the parts in their reciprocal relatedness. 

Energy or information is cycled through these bonds, so 

that every dynamic relation to things outside a system is 

mediated by its material properties and architecture, or by 

that interpretation of the outside created by this agent’s 

synthesis of the available information. ...this is its 

distinguishing privacy and integrity, but also its 

vulnerability. For each stability is generated and sustained 

in the nourishing sea from which it derives energy and 

substance.155

While VNSA are made more robust by certain environments, they 

are also made weaker by certain environments. Environmental 

shaping will be a critical part of any deterrent, compelling, coercion, 

or disruption strategy. 

7. Pay attention to life history analysis.

156 The fact that VNSA 

have an ontogeny is important, as it opens the door for VNSA to 

adopt different “life history strategies” either rationally or through a 

combination of luck and appropriate environmental exigencies. In 

population ecology, life history traits are those traits that affect 

basic reproductive and survival schedules of organisms, such as size 

at birth, number of offspring, longevity, or stage-specific growth 

rate. There are tradeoffs among these components of life history 

(otherwise, for example, organisms would be produced large at birth 

and keep producing many large offspring in perpetuity). Of course, 

given that production of large offspring requires more energy and a 

longer gestation period, producing large offspring most often means 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

79

that fewer offspring can be produced. Different VNSA can leverage 

different trade-offs between these structural features. Combating 

VNSA effectively can be aided by diagnosing whether or not they 

will pursue two strategies in particular that organisms in nature have 

adopted. 

Figure 6: r versus K Selection 

Attribute r selection K selection 

Mortality Variable 

Unpredictable 

Constant 

Predictable 

Population Size Variable 

Below carrying 

capacity 

Constant 

Close to carrying 

capacity 

Competition Variable 

Often weak 

Usually strong 

Selection Favors Rapid development 

Early reproduction 

Small body size 

Semelparity 

Slow development 

Delayed 

reproduction 

Large body size 

Iteroparity 

Length of Life Usually shorter Usually longer 

Leads to High productivity High efficiency 

Ecologists have identified two general strategies organisms can 

use from the life history perspective: r versus K selection. Figure 6 

demonstrates the attributes of organisms that pursue an “r-selected” 

strategy versus those that pursue a “K-selected” strategy, where the 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

80

r and K refer to the values of the variables that will be maximized in 

the standard logistic equation:*

 

Reading right from the “selection favors” label, which suggests 

there will be environmental selection pressures that encourage these 

traits, we can see that violent non-state actors, whether by accident 

or design, which pursue an r-selected strategy will be more likely to 

have parts, such as cells, that: 

- develop rapidly, 

- fission early, 

- are small, and 

- will probably only produce offspring cells once.†

 

Certain aspects of al Qaida appear to have adopted an r-selected 

strategy. On the other hand, reading right from “selection favors,” 

we can see that K-selected organisms, such as the Irish Republican 

Army, will: 

- have a slower development cycle, but will have more 

“sticking power” once they develop, 

- delay reproduction until an offspring organization can be 

ensured of survival, 

- have a large organizational structure, and 

- have the capacity to reproduce more often (“iteroparity,” as 

contrasted with semelparity). 

Determining whether a VNSA will pursue an r- or K-selected 

strategy suggests important clues as to how it may progress 

throughout its life cycle. For instance, a cell-like structure that 

proliferates quickly is more like an r-selected life history. We could 

also expect that it will have high productivity (e.g., it will 

 

*

See Vendermeer and Goldberg (2003). The mathematical details are 

not needed to grasp the concept at hand. 

†

 “Semelparity” is the biological term for organisms that reproduce 

only once, but that produce large amounts of offspring when they do. 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

81

eventually engage in violent action) but will not be especially 

efficient at generating new cells itself because it is not efficient at 

resource conversion. The mortality for a cell is unpredictable; 

because it is so small, when it is detected, it can be destroyed with 

relative ease as compared to a large and complex organization. 

These similarities are merely suggestive, of course, but it may very 

well be that similar functional structures drive similar life history 

traits for both organisms and VNSA organizations. 

8. Increase uncertainty. If organizations are to cope with and 

adapt to their environment, especially in the mature phase of their 

life cycle, they must have some cognitive capacity. Environmental 

scanning is a hallmark of a mature organization. In environments of 

uncertainty, the organization has to spend valuable time looking for 

resources in its environment. If such resources are unpredictable, 

the organization has to spend more time building up a stock of 

negative entropy, so it will forage more and spend less time actually 

producing a product. This also leads to increasing uncertainty. This 

is a strategy advocated by those sensitive to “netwar-centric” 

conceptions of the war on terrorism, such as John Arquila. At the 

extreme, an uncertainty-based strategy could create an analogue to 

“allostatic overload” in a human, where stress and fear disrupt the 

normal endocrine maintenance processes, thus accelerating wear 

and tear on tissues and boosting the chances of physio-pathology 

such as angst and social dysfunction.157

9. Implement across the system. Even if the appropriate inputs 

do make their way into the organization, such inputs still must be 

reorganized by the system so as to be useful. Inputs must be 

processed into outputs. To confront outputs directly is to engage in 

a force-on-force confrontation with VNSA; this is effective in some 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

82

circumstances but not in others, and can play into the hands of an 

enemy that is planning on leveraging force asymmetries in its favor. 

A more effective way to disrupt the cycle would be to interdict the 

inputs via environmental shaping, but even the process itself is 

amenable to disruption. 

Beginning with the input side of the input/processing/output 

equation, here is a brief list of strategies for attacking inputs: 

Environmental shaping. Ascertain critical environmental 

variables influencing VNSA ontogeny. Shape the environment by 

removing those variables or making them harder to find. For 

example, if a VNSA is recruiting personnel from a disaffected 

population, take action to address the sources of disaffection. When 

fighting VNSA, states should take care to notice the relationships 

between the actions they take to counter such organizations and the 

environmental variables that serve as input to conversion processes. 

A lack of awareness in this area can cause a policy to backfire. For 

example, consider the case of the Basque separatist movement ETA. 

The group was established in 1959 as a nationalist movement to 

resist the political oppression of the Basque people that came into 

fashion after the Spanish Civil War ended in 1939. One tactic the 

Spanish government has used to address ETA is to disperse 

captured militia members to separate prison facilities when they are 

captured. Understandably, the Spanish government did not want 

ETA members to be able to collaborate secretly when they were 

imprisoned; indeed, the policy was enacted in 1998 by the Minister 

of the Interior Enrique Mugica, an ethnic Basque and a member of 

the Socialist Party. While the policy may indeed have prevented 

some collaboration, it had the adverse effect of breeding sympathy 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

83

for convicted terrorists among the general population, as families 

had to travel many miles to visit imprisoned friends and relatives. 

“The families, therefore, develop a sense of resentment against the 

central authorities. That resentment had bred sympathy for the 

basic demands of the terrorist group.”158 This counterterrorist 

policy actually provided more raw input, in the form of disaffected 

Basque youth, for ETA conversion processes to act upon. 

Financial interdiction. Interdict financial input into the 

organization. Busting money laundering networks and cracking 

down on the international flow of dirty money has been an effective 

input oriented strategy for multiple countries dealing with terrorism, 

including the United States in its struggle against al Qaida, and the 

United Kingdom in its struggle against the Irish Republican Army. 

The fungibility of cash makes it the preferred medium of exchange 

for most VNSA, so focusing on it can be an effective long-term 

strategy. However, VNSA have shown some considerable skill at 

finding creative alternative sources of funds, such as cigarette 

smuggling and coupon schemes, as well as an ability to use various 

forms of barter, such as illegal commodity trading in diamonds and 

drugs, to get their resources. As such, financial interdiction will be 

effective in dampening VNSA activity and decreasing VNSA 

efficiency, but should not be considered as a stand-alone silver 

bullet C-VNSA strategy. 

Diaspora disruption. Diasporas who have fled a nation 

state because of an actual or perceived wrong sometimes support 

VNSA that attack the nation-state or its interests. As Cohen noted 

in 1997, “diasporas as a social form have predated the nation-state, 

lived uneasily within it, and now may, in significant respects, 

transcend and succeed it.”159 The roots of violence identified earlier 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

84

feed the ability of a diaspora to influence the environment in which 

VNSA operate: 

...diasporas draw strength and increased viability from 

[changes in global structures and processes.] In particular 

the role of the media and modern means of communication 

in mobilizing and facilitating diaspora politics cannot be 

underestimated. ...Second, the economic dimension of 

globalization is part and parcel of diasporas’ economic 

relations with their homeland and with other parts of the 

diaspora.160

If a well entrenched diaspora is providing significant input, 

be it moral, material, or manpower related, it may be necessary to 

disrupt the connections between the diaspora and the VNSA; this 

can be done using a counter narrative strategy or traditional law 

enforcement mechanisms. It may also involve addressing any bona 

fide grievances the diaspora may have.161

Counternarrative strategies. VNSA often sustain their 

input of recruits by telling a compelling story that helps the 

potential recruit frame the world in the terms the VNSA would like, 

such as a battle of the infidel West against the righteous Muslim 

world. Counternarrative strategies seek to disrupt the flow of 

recruits by reframing the story in a way that defuses the motivation 

to join the VNSA. For example, rather than being a battle of 

infidels against the righteous, perhaps the story is better framed in 

terms of those who would keep a nation downtrodden economically 

versus those who want to develop a better standard of living. In 

order to win the “story war,” the US should consider how to 

- strengthen our research on public opinion; 

- develop a rapid media response capability; 

- prioritize public diplomacy in the foreign policy 

process; 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

85

- empower ambassadors and others to be story 

tellers; 

- create US presence posts outside of foreign 

capitals; 

- better utilize the media in the Arab world; 

- bolster VOA and create new outlets and media; 

- support outside partners; 

- cultivate foreign leaders; 

- sustain foreign exchange programs; 

- engage Arab-Americans, or any other ethnic or 

religious group involved in VNSA prosperity, to communicate 

the US message.162 

As philosopher and systems theorist David Weissman notes, 

every system has a developmental history. Each is 

generated as antecedent stabilities interact or evolve: they 

are transformed, eventuating in this new complex, or they 

give up matter and energy, thereby supplying material 

sufficient to establish it....some stabilities are conscious of 

their histories, telling stories about them, reenacting parts 

of them. These are developmental histories defended as 

traditions.163 

To disrupt the ability of the authority subsystem to maintain 

cohesion on the part of its followers already in the organization, and 

to prevent it from reaching into a disaffected population so as to 

import manpower, is to interfere in an organization’s developmental 

history. 

Identity Gerrymandering. Some VNSA thrive on cleavages 

created by race, class, ethnicity, or religious background. Identity 

entrepreneurs exploit existing cleavages to increase recruitment. A 

gerrymandering strategy would seek to alleviate the sources of such 

cleavages, either by taking material steps to reduce the disparity 

between the groups or by otherwise alleviating the tension driving 

recruitment. For example, if Catholics really do earn less than other 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

86

Christians when wages are controlled, perhaps the British 

government could alleviate recruitment into the IRA by addressing 

the income disparity through a public benefits program. 

Disrupting the process portion of the equation would involve 

intervening into any of the subsystems we have identified, including 

the support, maintenance, authority and conversion subsystems. 

Even if interventions into a particular subsystem are not successful, 

disruption can be achieved by boosting incongruity between 

successfully functioning subsystems. If the support subsystem 

cannot successfully feed into the conversion subsystem, this is 

functionally equivalent to entirely disabling the support subsystem 

itself. Support-related disruptions include convincing stakeholders 

not to materially or morally support the VNSA, interdicting 

recruitment efforts, and otherwise stifling resource acquisition. 

Authority-related disruptions include targeting key VNSA 

leadership or decreasing the span of control such leaders have 

within the organization, targeting intelligence units to drop an 

organization back to single loop learning, and interdicting flows of 

information. Conversion-related disruptions include intervening to 

prevent VNSA from actually carrying out violent actions. 

Maintenance-related disruptions would involve sabotaging the 

ability of a VNSA to socialize its members, or interfering with the 

rewards and sanctions system, perhaps by beating the VNSA at its 

own game and cultivating an alternate attractive identity replete 

with even greater rewards. 

Output strategies, on the other hand, include as a subset 

traditional force-on-force interventions and confrontations. Owing 

to the asymmetrical nature of VNSA warfare, this will sometimes 

be a successful, other times not. Force-on-force interventions will 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

87

be more successful early in VNSA ontogeny, before the group has 

an effective training mechanism in place and before group identity 

has congealed to produce a cohesive fighting force. Conversely, 

this could have undesirable consequences, as the world audience 

may not see such an early act of aggression as necessary. Indeed, 

hitting a VNSA in such an early state of its ontogeny may be to act 

before anyone else perceives a threat, thus marking the attacker as 

more dangerous than the young VNSA. Perversely, force-on-force 

confrontations are perhaps the most studied of the interventions 

we’ve discussed, so we will not belabor the literature. For a concise 

historical review of successful force-on-force interventions, see 

Yonah Alexander’s excellent edited volume Combating Terrorism: 

Strategies of Ten Countries. 

However, there are other output related strategies besides 

confronting the guerillas and terrorists that emerge from the 

“business end” of VNSA, as VNSA produce other products besides 

men with guns. They also manufacture all the products necessary to 

sustain the inputs they need to accomplish stakeholder goals. This 

may include drugs, sex slaves, smuggled weapons, and the like. An 

output-based strategy can seek to displace important VNSA output 

by providing substitutes. For example, if a VNSA is boosting 

popular support by providing social services, the government could 

one-up the organization by providing the same service more cheaply 

and efficiently. If the VNSA is outputting drugs in order to provide 

a steady stream of capital so as to fund a weapons of mass 

destruction research program, a government could undercut the 

black market by legalizing certain drugs. VNSA have more outputs 

than suicide bombers, and a more comprehensive examination of 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

88

those outputs and the role they play in sustaining VNSA 

metabolism might reveal new confrontational policy options. 

Ideally, for every VNSA we seek to coerce or destroy, a matrix 

will be built that lists inputs, processes and outputs for all the major 

subsystems of support, maintenance, cognitive and conversion. We 

could then “personalize” strategy around a group’s particular 

signature across this matrix. After matching instruments of state 

power to life cycle vulnerabilities, with the requisite sensitivity to 

the principles discussed here and with careful attention to the 

dynamics of the system we are about to intervene upon, we might 

discover a whole new suite of tools that can be used to coerce or 

destroy VNSA. “War” as such might not even be a necessity. 

CONCLUSIONS 

Systems analysis allows us to approach geographically, and 

even temporally, disparate groups like the Kumpulan Mujahidin 

Malaysia (KMM) or Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN) 

within a common framework. Each operates within a similarly 

structured supersystem, exhibits common system properties like 

negative entropy, and progresses through comparable life cycle 

stages, although not always in the same linear order. In the case of 

the KMM and ELN, both prosper in regions where the roots of 

violence are strong, failures in government prevalent, and identity 

mobilization rampant. Moreover, both are mature VNSA engaging 

in environmental scanning, converting inputs in the form of recruits, 

money and weapons, and exporting violence back into the 

supersystem. 

Levels of analysis provide the scaffolding upon which we build 

the distinctive signature of each group. A VNSA’s signature is a 

function of its unique interactions, or patterns of behavior, within 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

89

and across the levels of the analysis. By way of example, the 

KMM’s interactions with the supersystem in the form of identity 

mobilization and resource acquisition are constrained by a more 

capable Malaysian government, which has successfully detained 48 

alleged members of the KMM under the Internal Security Act and 

limited overall group membership to 70-80 assessed members.165 

The ELN, on the other hand, prospers in the northeast of Columbia 

with a membership of 3000-5000 fighters due in part to Bogota’s 

inability to control the Antioquia region.166 The systems dynamic 

of “governance” in relation to critical VNSA subsystem functions is 

only one of several dimensions of the group’s signature. Signatures 

enable our C-VNSA strategy to retain its global consistency using a 

menu of transportable instruments and effects while still being 

tailored to the challenges of a particular region or group. 

Ecological deterrence promotes a fundamental shift in our 

thinking on deterrence, which should be founded in an 

interdisciplinary approach to assessing the dynamic nature of the 

VNSA threat. Ultimately, it should involve rethinking the 

intelligence architecture we use to support deterrence indications 

and warning (I&W). Ideally, we will modify our intelligence 

apparatus, keying it to identify the conditions that engender VNSA 

growth with a reliable set of I&W markers cued to critical life cycle 

transitions. Such a system, informed by the open-systems theory 

and life cycle considerations surfaced in this paper, will enable us to 

better predict what kinds of VNSA would emerge and when. This 

capacity will be critical in formulating an effective deterrent 

strategy. 

Our paper has made several important conceptual contributions 

to deterrence theory and practice. We have focused on VNSA, 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

90

doing so within a systems theoretic framework; introduced the life 

cycle concept and its associated metaphors into VNSA thinking; 

discussed the importance of environmental shaping strategies for 

deterrence theory; and called for an expanded conception of both 

deterrence and rationality that includes the multiple aspects of 

information processing that takes place in VNSA, as well as 

affective considerations. Nonetheless, there is much that remains to 

be done, including more closely exploring the links between the 

system in which VNSA develop and how this affects critical life 

cycle transitions; discussing the tools we use to assess life cycle 

status; and, researching specific environmental shaping strategies as 

well as new affective and rational strategy elements. Much remains 

to be done before we can successfully accommodate VNSA within 

our deterrence, coercion, and disruption theories, and before we can 

formulate an effective strategy for them. 

When disruption or defeat are the mission, this analysis should 

add multiple dimensions to a strategy that sometimes focuses too 

much on the product of the system and not enough on the system 

itself. To disrupt the importation of energy, shape the environment 

and attack the environment/organization boundary. To destroy 

throughput, have a process-oriented attack plan. To attack export, 

meet the product head on before it has been fully deployed. To 

interfere with the cyclic pattern of activities, interfere with internal 

activities that are critical, well-connected, or consist of exponential 

feedback loops. Attack negative entropy by disrupting or 

destroying critical stores. Disrupt the feedback and coding process 

by engaging in counterintelligence and influence operations 

designed to increase uncertainty and disrupt communication. 

Destroy homeostasis by attacking critical nodes and disrupting 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

91

system congruity. While doing these things, keep in mind our 

newly formulated principles of war for countering VNSA, as they 

should inform all actions whether directed at input, conversions, or 

output. 

Our interdisciplinary application of open systems theory 

provides a powerful framework for diagnosing adversaries, shaping 

their development and structuring an effects-based strategy for 

coercion and conquering. It is a global approach to a global 

challenge. 

NOTES 

 

1

 Thomas Szayna, ed. Identifying Potential Ethnic Conflict: 

Application of a Process Model (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2000), 

132. 

2

 Charles Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution (New York: Random 

House, 1978), 55. See also Ted Robert Gurr, Why Men Rebel

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970). 

3

 The instrument of the state is the army: organized, uniformed, and 

subordinate to the political leadership. The third element is the 

populace, which must be mobilized to participate and support the war. 

See Peter Paret, “Clausewitz” in Peter Paret, ed. Makers of Modern 

Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton, NJ: 

Princeton University Press, 1986), 198-207. 

4

 For a comprehensive explanation of non-trinitarian war see Martin 

van Crevald, The Transformation of War (New York: The Free Press, 

1991), 49-57. 

5

 Adapted from Gurr, 11. 

6

 The three-level approach to understanding asymmetric warfare was 

developed by former Air Force Captain Deron Jackson, Assistant 

Professor of Political Science, Department of Political Science, USAF 

Academy, in his paper “Asymmetric Warfare: Three Levels of 

Analysis,” August 1999. 

7

 The indirect approach is explained in B.H. Liddell Hart’s classic 

study, Strategy (New York: Signet, 1967). 

8

 Interview with Mullah Omar–transcript, 15 November 2001, 10:31 

GMT. Available at 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

92

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1657000/16

57368.stm. 

9

 Michael Ignatieff, “It’s War But It Doesn’t Have to Be Dirty,” The 

Guardian (1 Oct 2001). Available at: 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4267406,00.html. 

10 Cited in Thomas G. Cummings, Systems Theory for Organization 

Development (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1980), 6. Also see 

Von Bertalanffy’s seminal work, “General Systems Theory,” in Main 

Currents in Modern Thought (11:4, 1955). 

11 Cummings, 8-9. 

12 A useful primer for diagnostic practices is Michael I. Harrison, 

Diagnosing Organizations: Methods, Models, and Processes

(Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc., 1994). 

13 Troy S. Thomas and Stephen D. Kiser, Lords of the Silk Route: 

Violent Non-State Actors in Central Asia (USAF Academy, CO: 

Institute of National Security Studies, Occasional Paper #43, May 

2002). 

14 For a complete examination of the roots of violence, see Chapter 2 of 

Thomas and Kiser. 

15 A sovereign state controls all matters of governance and 

administrative control, and holds ultimate and monopolistic command 

and control of the means of coercion, both of its citizens within its 

borders and entities outside its borders. From Thomas S. Szayna, ed. 

Identifying Potential Ethnic Conflict: Application of a Process Model

(Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2000), 33. 

16 “Working Papers: State Failure Task Force Report,” prepared by 

Daniel C. Esty, Yale University, Jack A. Goldstone, University of 

California-Davis, Ted Robert Gurr, University of Maryland, Pamela T. 

Surko, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), and 

Alan N. Unger, SAIC, 30 November 1995. 

17 Lucio Fernando Oliver Costilla, “Reconstruction of Power and 

Democracy in the Age of Globalization,” Latin American Perspectives

(27 Jan 2000): 93. 

18 Subcomandante Marcos, “A Southeast in Two Winds,” 27 January 

1994. Available at: http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/Zapatistas/0.TXT. 

19 For a broader discussion of coercion as a form of state failure, read 

the analysis by Steve Kiser in Thomas and Kiser, 28-30. 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

93

 

20 Donald Snow, Uncivil Wars: International Security and the New 

Internal Conflicts (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., 

1996), 35. 

21 Philip Selznick, “Foundations of the Theory of Organization,” 

American Sociological Review 13 (1948): 25-35. Reprinted in Jay M. 

Shafritz and J. Steven Ott, eds. Classics of Organization Theory (Fort 

Worth, TX: Harcourt College Publishers, 5th Edition, 2001), 125. 

22 Selznik, 125. 

23 Selznik, 125. 

24 Selznik, 126. 

25 Selznik, 128. 

26 Daniel Katz and Robert L. Kahn, “Organizations and the System 

Concept,” The Social Psychology of Organizations (John Wiley and 

Sons, 1966). Reprinted in Shafritz and Ott, 257. 

27 Katz and Kahn, 260-265. 

28 Katz and Kahn, 260-263. 

29 Katz and Kahn, 262. 

30 Katz and Kahn, 262. 

31 Katz and Kahn, 262. 

32 Michael I. Harrison and Arie Shirom, Organizational Diagnosis and 

Assessment: Bridging Theory and Practice (Thousand Oaks, CA: 

Sage Publications, 1999), 52. 

33 Harrison and Shirom, 54. 

34 For a complete explanation of the rational choice model and critiques 

by Graham Allison and others, see Jeffrey Pfeffer, “Understanding the 

Role of Power in Decision Making,” Power in Organizations

(Marshfield, MA: Pitman Publishing, 1981). Reprinted in Shafritz and 

Ott, 304-318. 

35 John Hill. “China’s Turbulent Backyard.” Jane’s Intelligence 

Review. (14:6, June 2002), 48-49. 

36 Katz and Kahn, 264. 

37 Katz and Kahn, 264. 

38 Ludwig von Bertalanffy, “General Systems Theory,” in Ludwig von 

Bertalanffy and Anatol Rapoport, eds. Yearbook of the Society for the 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

94

 

Advancement of General Systems Theory (1956), 1-10, as cited in Katz 

and Kahn, 265. 

39 Katz and Kahn refer to equifinality as the ability of a system 

(organization) to reach the same final state (mature VNSA) from 

different initial conditions (system of violence) and by different paths 

of development. See Katz and Khan, 267. 

40 David Eshel, “The Rise and Fall of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades,” 

Jane’s Intelligence Review (14:6, June 2002): 20. 

41 Eshel, 21. 

42 Chapters included Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarm, Ramallah, Bethlehem, 

and Hebron. Eshel, 23. 

43 Eshel, 22. 

44 Our diagnostic plan encompasses Harrison’s nine areas of focusing 

for the gathering of organizational information: environment, inputs, 

outputs, goals and strategies, technology, structure, behavior and 

processes, culture, and systems dynamics. Harrison and Shirom, 34-35. 

45 Daniel Katz and Robert L. Kahn, The Social Psychology of 

Organizations (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1978), 52. 

46 According to NPR reporter Emily Harris, “Some 90 U.S. troops have 

been killed by hostile fire since May 1 (2003), when President Bush 

announced an end to major combat. Many of the attacks on American 

forces appear to be coming from Iraqis loyal to Saddam Hussein's 

regime.” From “US Troop Toll Mounts in Iraq,” NPR Morning 

Edition, 2 October 2003. 

48 Katz and Kahn (1978), 84. 

49 A comprehensive examination of typical forms of support for 

insurgents, which also applies to other VNSA, is offered in: Daniel 

Byman, et al. Trends in Outside Support for Insurgent Movements

(Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2001), 83-99. 

50 Angel Rabasa and Peter Chalk, Colombian Labyrinth: The Synergy 

of Drugs and Insurgency and its Implications for Regional Stability

(Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2001), 26. 

51 Suzanne Lassen, “Drug Trafficking and Terrorism in Colombia,” The 

Politics of Counter Terrorism: The Ordeal of Democratic States

(Washington, DC: The John Hopkins Foreign Policy Institute, 1990), 

112. 

52 Rabasa and Chalk, 24. 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

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53 According to Rabasa and Chalk, the FARC “took advantage of a 

cease fire with the government of President Belisario Betancur from 

1984 to 1987 to expand and consolidate its operations in resource rich 

areas,” including cattle in the eastern plains, agriculture in Uraba and 

Santander, oil in the Magdalena valley and gold in Antioquia. Rabasa 

and Chalk, 25. 

54 I.M. Jawahar and Gary L. McLaughlin, “Toward a Descriptive 

Stakeholder Theory: An Organizational Life Cycle Approach,” The 

Academy of Management Review (26:3, July 2001). 

55 Rabasa and Chalk, 26. 

56 Mary Jo Hatch, Organization Theory: Modern, Symbolic, and 

Postmodern Perspectives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 79-

80. 

57 Katz and Kahn (1978), 84. 

58 Cited in Augustus Richard Norton, Amal and the Shi’a: Struggle for 

the Soul of Lebanon (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1987), 

168-169. 

59 Hatch, 65. 

60 The full extent of diaspora support to the LTTE is superbly detailed 

in Byman, et al, 42-55. 

61 Byman, et al, 51. 

62 Byman, et al, 45. 

63 Byman, et al, 46. 

64 Approaches for dealing with stakeholders are adopted from research 

by several organizational theorists into understanding stakeholder 

salience to a given company throughout its development. Stakeholder 

dependency theory is admirably discussed in Jawahar and McLaughlin. 

65 Again, see Jawahar and McLaughlin. 

66 During the 1990s, the LTTE assassinated leading moderates and 

scholars in Sri Lanka. Byman, et al, 47. 

67 Katz and Kahn (1978), 84-85 

68 Katz and Kahn (1978), 53. 

69 Katz and Kahn (1978), 53. 

70 Katz and Kahn (1978), 53. 

71 Katz and Kahn (1978), 385. 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

96

 

72 Katz and Kahn (1978), 386. 

73 Katz and Kahn (1978), 385. 

74 Katz and Kahn (1978), 388. 

75 Thomas G. Cummings and Christopher G. Worley, Organization 

Development and Change (Cincinnati, OH: South Western College 

Publishing, 1997), 480. 

76 Peter L. Bergen, Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama 

bin Laden (New York: The Free Press, 2001), 149. 

77 Bergen, 107. 

78 Bergen, 107. 

79 Bergen, 108. 

80 Katz and Kahn (1978), 84. 

81 Katz and Kahn (1978), 55. 

82 Hatch, 371. 

83 Chris Argyris and Donald Schon, Organizational Learning II: 

Theory, Method and Practice (Reading, MA: Addison Wesley 

Publishing Company, 1996), 20. 

84 Bergen, 176. 

85 Bergen, 181. 

86 Bergen, 167. 

87 Hatch, 372. 

88 Argyris and Schon, 20. 

89 Hatch, 101. 

90 “When the competencies of the organization fit the demands of the 

environment, then the organization is selected and retained (the 

population ecology view), provided with resources (the resource 

dependency view), and legitimized (the institutional view).” Hatch, 

103. 

91 Explained by Hatch, 105-110, drawing on Henry Mintzberg, “The 

Design School: Reconsidering the Basic Premises of Strategic 

Management,” Strategic Management Journal (11:3, March-April 

1990), 171-195. 

92 Hatch, 108. 

93 Selznick, 125. 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

97

 

94 Selznick, 125. 

95 Hatch, 113. 

96 Typical insurgent strategies are expertly discussed in Bard E. 

O’Neill, Insurgency in the Modern World (Boulder, CO: Westview 

Press, 1980), 1-41. 

97 The status of non-state armed groups in the Caucasus region is well 

covered in Anna Matveeva and Duncan Hiscock, eds. The Causcus: 

Armed and Divided (London, UK: Saferworld, 2003), 62. 

98 Matveeva and Hiscock, 62. 

99 Extracted from the official website of Hizb ut-Tahrir accessed on 27 

Dec 2003 at http://www.hizb-ut-tahrir.org. 

100 Matveeva and Hiscock, 168. 

101 Matveeva and Hiscock, 170. 

102 Katz and Kahn (1978), 428. 

103 Katz and Kahn (1978), 430. 

104 John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, Networks and Netwars (Santa 

Monica, CA: RAND, 2001), 35-36. 

105 Arquilla and Ronfeldt, 37. 

106 Katz and Kahn refer to this as the “production” subsystem; however, 

this label is too limited for the tasks. Katz and Kahn (1978), 84. 

107 Gurr, 11. 

108 Not included in our forms of violence typology is turmoil, which is 

“relatively spontaneous, unorganized political violence with substantial 

popular participation, including violent political strikes, riots, political 

clashes and localized rebellions.” Gurr, 11. 

109 These distinctions are fleshed out in greater detail in Bruce 

Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 

1998), 41-44. 

110 Hoffman, 41. 

111 This definition was offered by Troy S. Thomas in public lecture 

given at Florida State University Panama City on 12 February 2002. It 

integrates definitions from Donald J. Hanle, Terrorism: The Newest 

Face of Warfare (Washington, DC: Pergamon Brassey’s, 1989), 105-

119; and, Hoffman, 43. 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

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112 Charles W. Kegley and Eugene R. Wittkopf, World Politics: Trend 

and Transformation (New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 2001), 12. 

113 Cited in Bergen, 95-96. 

114 There are numerous alternatives to these labels; however, there is 

some general agreement on changes in differentiation and integration 

during the course of a VNSA’s life. For alternatives life cycle 

constructs, we recommend reviewing the following: Richard L. Daft, 

Organizational Theory and Design (St Paul, MN: West Publishing, 

1992); Robert E. Quinn and Kim Cameron, “Organizational Life 

Cycles and Some Shifting Criteria of Effectiveness,” Management 

Science 29 (1983): 31-51.; John R. Kimberly, Robert H. Miles, and 

Associates, The Organizational Life Cycle (San Francisco: Jossey Bass 

Inc., 1980); and Larry E. Greinner, “Evolution and Revolution as 

Organizations Grow,” Harvard Business Review (July-August 1972): 

37-46. 

115 Clifford E. Simonsen and Jeremy R. Spindlove, Terrorism Today: 

The Past, the Players, the Future (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice 

Hall, 2000), 60-61. 

116 Katz and Kahn (1978), 71. 

117 Based on Larry Greiner’s model of organizational life cycles. 

Evaluated in Hatch, 174. 

118 Katz and Kahn stress the importance of coordinating the inputs, 

production and outputs so that “correct levels of raw materials are 

brought into the organization” and outputs (sales in the case of 

businesses, but violence in the case of VNSA) are in balance with 

planned production. Discussed in Hatch, 178. 

119 This definition is adopted from Daniel L. Byman, Matthew C. 

Waxman, and Eric Larson, eds. Airpower as a Coercive Instrument

(Santa Monica, CA: RAND Project Air Force, 1999), 10; who in turn 

drew upon the seminal works in this field: Thomas Schelling, Arms 

and Influence (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966), and 

Alexander George and William E. Simons, eds. The Limits of Coercive 

Diplomacy (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1971). 

120 Byman, Waxman, and Larson, 10. 

121 Robert A. Pape, Bombing to Win (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University 

Press, 1996), 13. 

122 For an introduction to the different senses in which one can use the 

term “psychological state,” see: George Botterill and Peter Carruthers, 

The Philosophy of Psychology (New York: Cambridge University 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

99

 

Press, 1999), 12-48. The conception of cognition that views it as 

“computation across representations,” i.e., as information processing, is 

a standard one in the cognitive sciences. 

123 The list of assumptions varies from author to author; this list is a 

compilation of several standard recitations. For an example, see Ariel 

Rubinstein, Modeling Bounded Rationality (Cambridge, MA: The MIT 

Press, 1998), 7-10, which lists these foundational assumptions: 

knowledge of the problem, clear preferences, ability to optimize, 

indifference to logically equivalent descriptions of alternatives and 

choices. Compare also Martin J. Osborne and Ariel Rubinstein, A 

Course in Game Theory (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1994), 4. 

125 While we are, to our knowledge, the first to surface some of the 

considerations mentioned in this paper, criticisms of deterrence theory 

that rely on criticisms of the shortcoming of rational choice theory are 

not new. See Frank C. Zagare’s summary (and rebuttal) in “Rationality 

and Deterrence,” World Politics (42:2, January 1990): 238-260. See 

also Robert Jervis, et al. Psychology and Deterrence (Baltimore: The 

Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), which is in need of updating 

given the rapid progress in the field of judgment and decision making. 

126 See their classic collection Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic, and 

Amos Tversky, eds. Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and 

Biases (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982). For a general 

reference, see Terry Connolly, et al, eds. Judgment and Decision 

Making: An Interdisciplinary Reader (New York: Cambridge 

University Press, 2000). 

127 See Kahneman, Slovic and Tversky, as well as: Daniel Kahneman 

and Amos Tversky. “Choices, Values and Frames.” American 

Psychologist 39 (1984), 341-350, and also their recent book of the same 

title (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000). For critical 

review of that book, see: Phillip E. Tetlock and Barbara A. Mellers. 

“The Great Rationality Debate.” Psychological Science (13:1, January 

2002), 94-99. 

128 Gerd Gigerenzer, Adaptive Thinking: Rationality in the Real World

(New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). 

129 Gigerenzer, 170. 

130 Classic works here include George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, 

Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 

1980); Dedre Gentner, Keith Holyoak, and Boicho Kokinov, The 

Analogical Mind: Perspectives from Cognitive Science (Cambridge, 

MA: The MIT Press, 2001); and Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner, 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

100

 

The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden 

Complexities (New York: Basic Books, 2002). 

131 This is the structuring metaphor of Benjamin Barber’s “clash of the 

world views” book Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism 

Are Reshaping the World (New York: Ballantine Books, 1996). 

132 See Fauconnier and Turner, or Mark Turner, The Literary Mind

(New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). 

133 See Turner. See also groundbreaking work here by Anthony Patton, 

unpublished manuscript, The World as Story (2002). 

134 Antonio Damasio, Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the 

Human Brain (New York: G. P. Putnam and Sons, 1994). 

135 A classic work here is Robert Port and Timothy Van Gelder, eds. 

Mind As Motion: Explorations in the Dynamics of Cognition

(Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1995). See also Alicia Juarrero, 

Dynamics in Action: Intentional Behavior as a Complex System

(Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1999). 

136 On the biological side of the house, it is well known that the exact 

same interventions at different points in an organism’s growth and 

development can have dramatically different impacts on outcomes (this 

is called “heterochrony”). See, for example John Gerhart and Marc 

Kirschner, Cells, Embryos, and Evolution (Malden, MA: Blackwell 

Science, 1997). 

137 Joseph Forgas, “Affect, Cognition, and Interpersonal Behavior: The 

Mediating Role of Processing Strategies,” as printed in Joseph Forgas, 

ed. Handbook of Affect and Social Cognition (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence 

Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 2001). 

138 See Plato, Republic, Robin Waterfield, Trans. (New York: Oxford 

University Press, 1993), Book Four. 

139 For more about these myths, see Ryszard Kapuscinski, The Shadow 

of the Sun (New York: Vintage Books, 2001). Owing to the (mostly 

fabricated) “early history” of the region, the Tutsis were viewed as 

being pastoral patrons (read: rulers) who preside over their clients 

(read: slaves), the Hutu agriculturalists. Under colonial rule by both the 

Germans and the Belgians, this foundational myth was reinforced, with 

separate identity cards being issued for both peoples. The Belgians 

even went so far as to argue that the Tutsi were, racially speaking, more 

closely related to white people, and were hence a superior race, putting 

in place a quite different but nonetheless related foundational myth. 

Needless to say, these myths played a large part in the violence that 
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erupted in 1994. For more, see the report from “Africa Action” on the 

world wide web: http://www.africaaction.org/bp/ethcen.htm. 

140 Bill Berkeley, The Graves are Not Yet Full: Race, Tribe and Power 

in the Heart of Africa (New York: Basic Books, 2001), 224-225. 

141 See: Paul Churchland, “Toward a Cognitive Neurobiology of the 

Moral Virtues,” Reprinted in Joao Branquinho, ed. The Foundations of 

Cognitive Science (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). 

142 See Fauconnier and Turner for more advice here regarding how to 

enable these “frame shifts.” 

143 For an excellent discussion of this process see Daniel Byman, 

Keeping the Peace: Lasting Solutions to Ethnic Conflicts (Baltimore, 

MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 100-124. 

144 Various interviews, Masaai nationals in Tanzania, June 2002. For 

more background on Tanzania’s history, as well as detail on the 

Rwandan situation, see also Taisier Ali and Robert Matthews, eds. Civil 

Wars in Africa: Roots and Resolution (Montreal: McGill Queen’s 

University Press, 1999). 

145 From the US perspective, as one example of a state goal, the US 

national security objective is “...stop[ping] terrorist attacks against the 

United States, its citizens, its interests, and our friends and allies around 

the world and ultimately, to create an international environment 

inhospitable to terrorists and all those who support them.” See The 

White House, National Strategy for Combating Terrorism (February 

2003), 11. 

147 The nine principles of war are mass, objective, offensive, surprise, 

economy of force, maneuver, unity of command, security, and 

simplicity. See US Army Combined Arms Center, Army Field Manual 

(FM) 3 Operations (Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 2001), 

Paragraphs 4.33-4.49. 

148 For an accessible account of the butterfly effect, and chaos theory in 

general, see James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science (New York: 

Viking, 1987). 

149 See Bartolomei and Casebeer (forthcoming, 2003). This is only a 

tentative result, as the model constructed by Bartolomei and Casebeer 

has not been subjected to rigorous validation and verification (although 

it has successfully retrodicted the growth curve for Peru’s Sendero 

Luminoso). 

150 See Ian O. Lesser, et al. Countering the New Terrorism (Santa 

Monica, CA: RAND Project Air Force, 1999). The sarin attack killed 
Thomas and Casebeer—Violent Systems 

102

 

a dozen people and wounded 3,976 others. Aum Shinrikyo had plans 

to launch a similar attack upon the United States. 

151 This language is taken from Peter Corning, Nature’s Magic: 

Synergy in Evolution and the Fate of Humankind (New York: 

Cambridge University Press, 2003). 

152 See David J. Whittaker, The Terrorism Reader (New York: 

Routledge, 2001). 

153 David Weissman, A Social Ontology (New Haven: Yale University, 

2000), 312. 

154 See the Council on Foreign Relations terrorism information website 

at http://www.terrorismanswers.org/groups/rps.html. 

155 Weissman, 313. 

156 Most of the information in this section, including the table, is 

adapted from John H. Vendermeer and Deborah E. Golberg, 

Population Ecology: First Principles (Princeton: Princeton University 

Press, 2003), 39. 

157 See Jay Schulkin, Rethinking Homeostasis: Allostatic Regulation in 

Physiology and Pathophysiology (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003). 

158 Antonio Remiro Brotons and Carlos Esposito, “Spain” in Yonah 

Alexander, ed. Combating Terrorism: Strategies of Ten Countries

(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002), 173. 

159 Robin Cohen, Global Diasporas: An Introduction (London: UCL 

Press, 1997), 520. 

160 Daphne Josselin and William Wallace, eds. Non-State Actors in 

World Politics (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 222. 

161 See the essays in Alexander T. J. Lennon, ed. The Battle for Hearts 

and Mind: Using Soft Power to Undermine Terrorist Networks

(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003). 

162 See “Winning the War of Ideas” by Antony J. Blinken, for much 

more detail (as printed in Lennon). 

163 Weissman, 313. 

165 See the US Department of State report Patterns of Global Terrorism 

2002. Available at: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2002/html. 

166 Rabasa and Chalk, 30-31.