High Value Target HVT / Political Assassination

**davidbfpo** · 06-06-2016

Hat tip to WoTR for this article and here is a key sentence:

The best way to defeat ISIL in the long term is to leave Abu Bakr in place – as the caliph who lost his kingdom.

Link:http://warontherocks.com/2016/06/don...-decapitation/

One reference looks interesting, 'Attacking the Leader, Missing the Mark: Why Terrorist Groups Survive Decapitation Strikes' and I think was missed here:http://belfercenter.hks.harvard.edu/publication/24270/attacking_the_leader_missing_the_mark.html?

It is 32pg PDF and is free.

**davidbfpo** · 12-21-2018

Thread reopened.

A forthcoming book 'Targeting Top Terrorists:Understanding Leadership Removal in Counterterrorism Strategy'; the author's bio suggests it could be valuable:

Bryan C. Price is the founding executive director of the Buccino Leadership Institute at Seton Hall University. During a twenty-year career as an Army officer, he served in various command and staff positions, including combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. From 2012 to 2018, he directed the Combating Terrorism Center and served as an Academy Professor in the Department of Social Sciences at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

From the publisher's summary:

This practice, known as leadership decapitation, is based on the logic that removing key figures will disrupt the organization and contribute to its ultimate failure. Yet many scholars have argued that targeted killings are ineffective or counterproductive, questioning whether taking out a terror network’s leaders causes more problems than it solves.

In Targeting Top Terrorists, Bryan C. Price offers a rich, data-driven examination of leadership decapitation tactics, providing theoretical and empirical explanations of the conditions under which they can be successful. Analyzing hundreds of cases of leadership turnover from over two hundred terrorist groups, Price demonstrates that although the tactic may result in short-term negative side effects, the loss of top leaders significantly reduces terror groups’ life spans.

Link:https://cup.columbia.edu/book/target.../9780231188234

**davidbfpo** · 01-13-2019

An article that is historical and ends with a very brief mention of machines being used for killing, yes drones. The actual title is: 'Finer points of murder.
Link:https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/p...ation-history/

**davidbfpo** · 02-09-2019

An article from MWI @ West Point that deserves reading IMHO. Here are few key passages from near the start as a "taster":

We have mastered the art of hunting men. Refined over nearly two decades of nonstop counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations, and enhanced by a suite of increasingly powerful technological tools, the United States military has developed an extraordinary ability to find, fix, and finish targets worldwide.

Fast-forward to the present day: our targeting capabilities are as much science as art, with the military’s Joint Special Operations Command as the standard bearer of lethality. We can connect the dots faster than ever before, combing through data sets of staggering size and diversity, feeding a ruthlessly efficient operational process that we are executing on a global scale.

Why isn’t it working?

Considering our resources, talent, and reach, shouldn’t we have more to show for our efforts? We have proven ourselves highly effective at killing our enemies, but we have done so to limited overall effect. Why are we unable to showcase a single operational theater in which our exceptional lethal targeting prowess at the tactical level is delivering a commensurate strategic result?

(Later) Two examples will help illustrate the disconnect between the successful prosecution of targeting-based, manhunt-style campaigns and the achievement of strategic results. (The examples are Iraq & Mexico).

Link:https://mwi.usma.edu/moving-beyond-p...tegic-success/

The author bio is here, what appears to be a "boutique" London-based advisory company:http://www.frontlineadvisory.com/#leadership