Organizational learning in terrorist groups and its implications for combating terrorism.

Continuing conflicts between violent groups and states generate an ever–present demand for higher quality and more timely information to support operations to combat terrorism.

In particular, better ways are needed to understand how terrorist and insurgent groups adapt over time into more–effective organizations and increasingly dangerous threats. To adapt, terrorist organizations must learn. A group’s ability to learn determines its chance of success, since learning is the link between what the group wants to do and its ability to gather the needed information and resources to actually do it.

Despite the importance of terrorist group learning, comparatively little focused research effort has been directed at understanding this process and identifying the factors that influence group learning ability. While relevant data and insights can be found in the literature on terrorism and terrorist organizations, this information has not been collected and systematically analyzed to assess its importance from the perspective of efforts to combat terrorism. This study addresses that need in an effort to both analyze current understanding and stimulate further study and research in this area.

The National Institute of Justice provided funding to the RAND Corporation to conduct an analysis of organizational learning in terrorist groups and assess its implications for efforts to combat terrorism. The work was performed between November 2003 and November 2004, a period during which the threat of international terrorism was high and concern about the capabilities of terrorist organizations and how they might change over time was a central focus of policy debate and U.S. homeland security planning.

The study is described in this report and in a companion volume, Aptitude for Destruction, Volume 2: Case Studies of Organizational Learning in Five Terrorist Groups–332–NIJ, which examines the innovation and learning activities of five groups selected to represent the spectrum of organizations that have used terrorist tactics.

This report should be of interest to a wide range of audiences, including professionals with interests in terrorism, counterterrorism, emergency response planning, and homeland security.