Brutal counterterrorism can backfire by recruiting and legitimizing the enemy

Evidence

Extreme retaliatory attacks that cause widespread death and destruction may advance the terrorists’ political cause by arousing a backlash of sympathy for innocent victims and moral condemnation of brutal attacks. Fighting terrorism with morally undisciplined force can also generate a ready supply of recruits prepared to die for their cause, even by suicidal actions. In addition, brutal means also provide new justifications for violence that escalate terrorism rather than diminish it. Indeed, some terrorist activities are strategically designed to win worldwide support and to provoke governments by breeding public disaffection with the system. In these various ways, extreme countermeasures can play into the hands of terrorists. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2276

Categorization

• SEED: Angle for an essay: counterinsurgency as self-defeating escalation — how the moral framing of force feeds the very conflict it aims to end.
• STORYSTEM: A commander convinced restraint is cowardice while his brutal excesses literally manufacture the suicide bombers who kill him.
• XREF: connects to: Defeated officials often redirect vengeance onto what their enemies love — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 2889; Treating enemies as vermin to be exterminated actually amplifies the terror it targets — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1454; Unmet basic needs like belonging and purpose drive extremist recruitment — Ryan Andrew Brown, Todd C. Helmus, Rajeev Ramchand, Alina I. Palimaru, Sarah Weilant, Ashley L. Rhoades, and Liisa Hiatt (RAND Corporation), Violent Extremism in America:…, 57