Terrorists' equilibrium choices when no attack method is riskless

Abstract

This paper builds on Phillips (Defence and Peace Economics, 16(6), 403–414, 2009) and enhances the NM expected utility analysis of terroristic behaviour by drawing on the fact that expected utility maximising behaviour in a setting where a terroristic group makes optimal decisions from a choice set containing combinations of attack methods can be analysed in terms of two moments (mean and variance) of the random payoffs associated with each attack method combination. This paper presents an equilibrium relationship between the expected payoffs of attack method combinations and the risk associated with those payoffs. This is an equilibrium model of choice under uncertainty when the behaviour of interest is the selection by a terroristic group of an optimal decision from a choice set containing attack method combinations.