Terrorism Ignites Wars, But Why? Exploring Two Counterintuitive State Motivations

The 9/11 attacks launched a cascade of costly military conflicts under the banner of anti-terrorism. Yet research shows terrorism's material costs pale in comparison to war's devastating damage.

This study tackles this puzzle by proposing two distinct pathways linking terror to war:

• Preventive War: Terrorist groups often achieve tactical goals and may transition into insurgencies, consolidating territory—a threat states cannot ignore even if the risk seems marginal. States respond preemptively to halt this consolidation in strategically vital areas.
• Opportunistic Exploitation: Rival powers sometimes exploit terrorist violence by portraying a target state as 'weak.' This provides cover for seizing portions of its territory.

To test these hypotheses—dynamic commitment problems and the misperception/mispercolation problem—we analyze conflict patterns in post-Cold War African dyads between 1990 and 2006.