Putting aside the inevitable geek-ish questions about RAND’s methodology, how they defined a terrorist groups, CT campaigns that combined elements and so on, this pie chart is thought provoking.

If so few terrorist groups end as a result of military force (al-Qa’ida in Iraq, Tamil Tigers), why do governments continue to default to that approach? More terrorist groups actually achieve their goals than are defeated by military force, and the vast majority are driven out of business by policing and politicisation. But policing and politicisation are costly and take time, whereas we have all these soldiers standing around doing nothing…

‘Hmmm…’ is a series of short observations, too long for Twitter, too short for a proper posting.