Naval Postgraduate School

Alternatives to Retaliation in Response to State Sponsored Terrorist Attacks Naval Postgraduate School

We consider a game played between a state sponsor of international terrorism, a terrorist organization and the victim of a terrorist attack. The state sponsor wishes to inflict as much damage to the victim as possible without risking retaliation. The victim state wishes to end these attacks as soon as possible, through non-retaliatory means if possible in order to avoid the penalty associated with retaliation. In this thesis we compare and contrast the victim strategies of buyout, political attrition, and espionage tactics in an effort to maximize the profit of the victim and end the game without retaliation.