Robert A Pape Cutting the Fuse, The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It

Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It, by Robert A. Pape and James K. Feldman (University of Chicago). Their work fundamentally changes how we understand the root causes of the most important terrorist campaigns today. Through a close analysis of suicide campaigns by Al Qaeda and in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Israel, Chechnya, and Sri Lanka, the authors provide powerful new evidence that religion alone motivates only a tiny majority of these attacks. Instead, the root cause is foreign military occupation, which triggers secular and religious people to carry out suicide attacks. Cutting the Fuse calls for new, effective solutions that America and its allies can sustain for decades, relying less on ground troops in Muslim countries and more on off-shore, over-the- horizon military forces along with political and economic strategies to empower local communities to stop terrorists in their midst.