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Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism Paperback – 25 July 2006
by Robert Pape (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars (84)
Includes a new Afterword
Finalist for the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award
One of the world's foremost authorities on the subject of suicide terrorism, the esteemed political scientist Robert Pape has created the first comprehensive database of every suicide terrorist attack in the world from 1980 until today. In Dying to Win, Pape provides a groundbreaking demographic profile of modern suicide terrorist attackers-and his findings offer a powerful counterpoint to what we now accept as conventional wisdom on the topic. He also examines the early practitioners of this guerrilla tactic, including the ancient Jewish Zealots, who in A.D. 66 wished to liberate themselves from Roman occupation; the Ismaili Assassins, a Shi'ite Muslim sect in northern Iran in the eleventh and twelfth centuries; World War II's Japanese kamikaze pilots, three thousand of whom crashed into U.S. naval vessels; and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, a secular, Marxist-Leninist organization responsible for more suicide terrorist attacks than any other group in history.
Dying to Win is a startling work of analysis grounded in fact, not politics, that recommends concrete ways for states to fight and prevent terrorist attacks now. Transcending speculation with systematic scholarship, this is one of the most important studies of the terrorist threat to the United States and its allies since 9/11.
"Invaluable . . . gives Americans an urgently needed basis for devising a strategy to defeat Osama bin Laden and other Islamist militants."
-Michael Scheuer, author of Imperial Hubris
"Provocative . . . Pape wants to change the way you think about suicide bombings and explain why they are on the rise."
-Henry Schuster, CNN.com
"Enlightening . . . sheds interesting light on a phenomenon often mistakenly believed to be restricted to the Middle East."
-The Washington Post Book World
"Brilliant."
-Peter Bergen, author of Holy War, Inc.
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Print length
368 pages
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From other countries
Mira
5.0 out of 5 stars Allahu Akbar!
Reviewed in the United States on 16 September 2005
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
Being an Arab and a Muslim from a conservative Gulf state, I must say, this book truly represents how and why "suicide terrorism," (although it's commonly known here as "martyrdom operations,") is supported, sympathized with and (in rare instances) celebrated in this part of the world.
Robert Pape did a brilliant job in researching this critical topic. I do not think he was particularly sympathetic toward any of the causes (or cases) he had covered in his book. He simply shared a narrative in an unbiased manner to prove his points. In fact, in his conclusion, it seemed Pape's main concern was to come up with a more effective approach to secure US interests that will not trigger retaliatory suicide attacks.
The information provided in this book is considered common sense in this part of the world (countries where "terrorists" supposedly come from), but the statistical facts presented in this book make it an original, praiseworthy work.
Are all those people who engage in or support "suicide terrorism" disturbed or perhaps uneducated? Do they come from underprivileged backgrounds? The research done by Dr Pape may provide unexpected answers (to some). Is it really religion that drives people into committing an act of indiscriminate terror? I always thought that at least half the time, the answer is no. The book proved my assumption to be true.
I recommend this book be part of your book-collection if you are interested in knowing why "suicide terrorism" is popular in this part of the world, and why some Arabs and Muslims - Easterners, to be more accurate - support it.
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Parsa
5.0 out of 5 stars extremely important
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 March 2014
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
Unlike most works on suicide terrorism children book almost completely & utterly (and quite rightly) ignores the philosophical/theological attempts at the explanation of the phenomenon, in its place he utilises statistical analysis on an exhaustive volume of data, comparative study of cases spanning various cultures, religions, ideoligies and nations and interviewing many suicide bombers, obviously failed ones, as well as critically analysing their rhetoric & propaganda. The conclusions are valuable for policy makers but it is for the best if the plebs are kept in the dark about this since it might prove harder to whip them up into an agreeable mood to enable our state to successfully carry out policies in differing circumstances.
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トルーパー
5.0 out of 5 stars An invaluable study that analyzed suicide bomber strategy,
Reviewed in Japan on 10 May 2008
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This book is a valuable study that analyzes the strategic aspects of suicide bombers. The underlying data is enormous and extremely convincing. The text is easy to understand because there is data. It is a valuable study to understand the modern “war”.
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craig williams
5.0 out of 5 stars Dying to know the truth
Reviewed in the United States on 4 November 2006
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Pape gives us an eye opening study of the history of suicide terroists.
While our mainsrtream media has portrayed these people as religious
extremist, Pape's investigtion into the lives of over 400 reviel their
political as opposed to religious agenda. In a world where one country
maintains military superiority over all other countries , our military
experts concede that the only option for a weaker military force are resistence
movements employing terrorist tactics.Military experts may also concede that
terrorism comes with the territory of being the global superpower and an occupier
of another nation.
Reverting to suicide attacks starting in 1988 in Lebonon according to the author
changed the world.He also offers some realistic options for negoitiating our way out
of the Iraqi fiasco.
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Symphonia
5.0 out of 5 stars Very honest book! Robert showed in his definitive account ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 October 2016
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
Very honest book !
Robert showed in his definitive account of the motivations of such attacks , based on surveys of every sucicide bombing since 1980, RELIGIOUS BELIEF OF ANY KIND IS NEITHER NECCESSARY NOR SUFFICIENT TO CREATE SUICIDE BOMBERS! Pape concluded that the FUNDAMENTAL MOTIVATION IS POLITICAL !!
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Emily
4.0 out of 5 stars A Well Written Thesis (warning contains spoilers)
Reviewed in the United States on 26 November 2013
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
This was a really interesting and I thought it provided a relatively well thought out thesis. Spoiler alert (see below):
He mixes both empirical statistics (quantitative) and qualitative data (case studies) to form his thesis. Pape examines 500 and something examples of suicide terrorism up until 2010 or so. He basically assumes the position that suicide terrorism is caused by foreign occupation and people feeling repressed either socially, academically, culturally, economically, spiritually, or a combination of the aforementioned.
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ahmad Al
5.0 out of 5 stars Very well researched
Reviewed in the United States on 16 June 2017
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This is a book that is well researched, and sheds light on the topic of suicide terrorism in a new way.
It was a paradigm shifter for me.
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Aram
5.0 out of 5 stars This is brilliant...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 February 2015
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
This is a very nice book. I hope that most people have time to read it. It gives you a clear vision regarding the main factors behind committing Suicide bombers...
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Ross Raffin
5.0 out of 5 stars Read This Book or Stop Watching the News
Reviewed in the United States on 22 July 2007
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Everything we "know" about suicide terrorism is dead wrong. That is the most succint way to put it.
We are completely wrong and we need to rethink RIGHT NOW how America is going to fight terrorism if it does not understand it.
Pape finally puts forward a thesis which has explanatory power not only over Muslim suicide terrorism but suicide terrorism throughout the entire world. This is a must-read for anyone, their parents, and their communities.
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Elias Davidsson
3.0 out of 5 stars Best book in its genre but with two major flaws
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 April 2014
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Many of the authors dealing with the issue of terrorism can be dismissed as purveyors of junk science. One of those who does not deserve that label is Robert A. Pape. His seminal study on suicide terrorism remains till today the best in its kind. Yet, even he sins in a number of ways against the rules of serious scholarship. His work, based on examining 315 cases of suicide terrorism relies almost entirely on what third parties (governments, law-enforcement agencies, mass media, organizations claiming the act) have designated as a “suicide operation.” The author saved himself the effort to assess the forensics of the cases, i.e. to determine, independently, that the particular events under consideration were actually suicide operations. Admittedly, such work would have required efforts beyond his capacity. On the other side, taking into account the propagandistic nature of terrorism, a scholar cannot take at face value claims by interested parties regarding the nature of the operation. Another failure was to disregard entirely the phenomenon of synthetic terrorism (sometimes called ‘false-flag terrorism’), namely operations covertly staged by governments to appear as authentic terrorism. Was the author unaware of Operation Northwoods (USA, 1962) and of the synthetic terrorist acts committed in Italy and Belgium in the Cold War, commonly known as Operation Gladio?
These two sins by the author seriously mar the value of his study.
An impatient and informed reader might already close the book after reading the very first paragraph of the first chapter, in which the author claims, self-confidently, that the attacks of September 11, 2001 were perpetrated by Muslim terrorists. By 2005, the year of the book’s publication, the author should have been aware that the US authorities had not produced any evidence for their claim that 9/11 was the work of Muslim terrorists (the names of the alleged terrorists do not figure on any authenticated passenger list, no one has seen them board any of the four flights, their bodily remains were not identified, and even the FBI regards their identities as questionable [see appropriate FBI website]) He should have been aware of a large and growing skepticism among US scholars toward the official account. He should have been aware of a documented relationship between Western intelligence agencies and Al Qaeda. He should have taken note of the fact that none of the perpetrators or planners of 9/11 had been brought to court. Taking into account these facts would have led him to qualify his conclusions and examine whether some of the other cases of terrorism he listed might also have been synthetically manufactured by state agencies. To the extent that these scholarly sins can be attributable to a blind spot in the author’s perspective, they may be remedied by him. Having said so, readers might still find the book useful, keeping in mind that the conclusions of an author who relies on corrupt data, must be considered with great circumspection.
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Lauren Ogi
5.0 out of 5 stars Great piece with legit theories and extensive supporting evidence!
Reviewed in the United States on 4 November 2013
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This is a great piece for anyone to read. Robert Pape does an excellent job at silencing the generic outlook on terrorism and suicide terrorism in particular.
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Happy Poet
5.0 out of 5 stars Blows away the myths we in the west prefer to believe about suicide bomber
Reviewed in the United States on 13 September 2014
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
One of the great books that blows away the myths we in the west prefer to believe about suicide bombers. A great book.
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thequickbrownfox
2.0 out of 5 stars If updated for 4 years of events since Pape wrote it...
Reviewed in the United States on 11 July 2009
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
[...]
For those not inclined to read the article above, entitled "Obama's Inheritance: Al-Qaeda in Retreat", it details the al-Qaida leaders eliminated in the course of the Bush administrations much maligned and misnamed "war on terror" and the fall in popular support for al-Qaeda and Muslim extremism in Islamic countries and populations. The results? Not only have many of al-Qaeda's leaders met their virgins, many of those who remained in the jihadist movement and much support has turned against the organization. Popular opinion in most of the Middle East has dramatically turned against jihadism, extremist Wassabism, and life under fundamentalist Sharia law.
Pape's thesis is that the presence of foreign troops fuels nationalism, manifested as suicidal terrorist jihadism in Muslim nations. He specifically cites Israel's occupation of Lebanon and the US presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also included in his analysis is the Tamil Tiger movement in Sri Lanka, which appears oddly anomalous and gratuitous, as the only non-Muslim organization practicing suicide terrorism in modern times. Its inclusion against the multitude of Islamic extremist groups employing suicide terrorism seems only intended to show that suicide terrorism is not a uniquely Muslim pathology. Ironically, the Tamil Tigers lonely anomalous example seems to prove the opposite.
The evidence of the last 4 years drastically undercuts that thesis. US troops are still in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet the level of resentment that, according to Pape, should result from occupation (the presence of infidels in the Umma al-Islam), has subsided. Iraq under Nouri al-Maliki has stabilized. And even the Tamil Tigers are now defeated and Sri Lanka is peaceful.
Hindsight is 20/20, and Pape's thesis would have appeared far more plausible from the vantage point of 2005 than it does at present. That's why I give the book 2 stars.
Pape's inclusion of the ancient Israeli Sicarii of the 1st centuries BC and AD, along with Japanese Kamikaze from WW2 and the Shiite Ismaili (Assasins) of the 11th century as examples of pre-cursor suicide terrorist movements seems gratuitous. What do an ancient movements with no modern antecedents have to do with the thesis, except that this group was Israeli? It seems only to serve as a device to morally stain modern Israel and Jews as equally susceptible to the same tactics used so ubiquitously by their Muslim extremist enemies.
For that reason, I believe, as some allege in these reviews, that Pape's analysis is deliberately skewed and conclusion is reached to prove a preconceived notion about occupation, especially with regard to American and Israeli policies in the Middle East. It tinges the analysis with the whiff of anti-semitism, since the historical background in the preface seems of little purpose in the service of proving his thesis. However, it is not provable that Pape has that preconception.
Even if Pape is guilty of designing his analysis to fit preconceptions, "Dying to Win" can be viewed as a plausible historical analysis and thesis. Nonetheless, in light of subsequent events, the book should be close to discredited today.
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Angry Old Marine
4.0 out of 5 stars Good read. Fairly clinical
Reviewed in the United States on 19 September 2015
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Very interesting book. A little long winded on some topics, and written more like a thesis paper where the author explains a topic up front in each chapter, and then exhaustively proves the topic in the chapter. Great subject, could have been written better, published just as the Iraq was was starting, so it needs an update.
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David S. Knecht, Sr.
4.0 out of 5 stars Sound
Reviewed in the United States on 12 February 2017
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Pape makes a sound, well-documented case.
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Blu Tan
1.0 out of 5 stars Flawed, because Pape has no clue about religion. ...
Reviewed in the United States on 17 November 2017
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
Flawed, because Pape has no clue about religion.
The Tamil Tigers are Buddhists. Marxism is just the elite view among the leaders.
Without Buddhist comfort and "Nirvana", no suicide terror...
How rational is that?
Pascal's wager - in practise.
Alvin Plantinga's "properly basic beliefs" - used as an explanation of why religion leads to terror, it works.
But Plato saw that already in Euthyphro.
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Robert K Beckenbaugh
5.0 out of 5 stars Open your eyes to root causes of terrorism
Reviewed in the United States on 11 February 2016
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Dispels myth of Quran being the single most driving force behind terrorism... in fact, existence of foreign troops outside one's door is a stronger motivator according to research.
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Willow
5.0 out of 5 stars Suicide Terror
Reviewed in the United States on 23 December 2010
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Pape has a unfathomably deep understanding of his genre, and is clearly a master of the topic. He does not allow himself to be constrained by opinions currently viewed to be politically correct, challenging stereotypical assumptions with evidence and facts. A fantastic study.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars If you think you know why people blow themselves up ...
Reviewed in the United States on 29 February 2016
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
If you think you know why people blow themselves up, you don't
Read this book for the empirical data, not someone's opinion.
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John J. Kelly
5.0 out of 5 stars Obama could learn from this
Reviewed in the United States on 1 March 2014
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
If only he'd listen to a former colleague at the University of Chicago. The book is a bit repetitive, but the core facts are important..
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Ignorance is not bliss, it's oblivion
Reviewed in the United States on 17 August 2005
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
This startling study about suicide bombers reveals just how ignorant those running America's war against terrorism really are. The only hope lies in the sudden interest the Pentagon and Congress have in this book and professor Pape. This book is a must for anyone who votes or who lead men into battle.
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robert wisowaty
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on 17 April 2017
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a must read for any counter-terrorism agent or first responder
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tennischamp
5.0 out of 5 stars excellent book
Reviewed in the United States on 21 December 2012
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only suitable for those interested in the topic and enrolled in an academic program specializing in the topic and getting a degree
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firefighter
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on 30 May 2015
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A must for counter-terrorism studies
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Sara Cardenas
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on 4 January 2015
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Love my product. Fast shipping!
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Bob Gibson
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on 11 June 2015
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thanks
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Leo Hamel
5.0 out of 5 stars So you think you know about Terrorism?
Reviewed in the United States on 10 August 2005
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
You don't! This book will open your eyes to a whole new world! Short and easy to read but full of new and valid ideas!
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