Where is Super Terrorism? : A quantitative study of CBRN use by non-state actors

Abstract: Terrorism is academically understood as the quest of non-state actors to cause fear beyond the immediate victims of their action to reach political goals. Means that have an immense psychological impact are therefore expected to be sought after to a high extent by these actors. This paper seeks therefore to explain the surprisingly low frequency of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) attacks by non-state actors and why the attempts which have been made rarely accomplish to cause mass casualties, also called super terrorism. Through multiple logistic regression analysis of data from the Profiles of Incidents Involving CBRN and Non-state Actors (POICN) database, this study found that lack of actor experience from prior CBRN attempts is correlated to failed CBRN events. The paper also found that events before the year 2001 did fail to a higher extent than after 2001. However, the paper did not find support for hypotheses provided by the literature regarding how sophisticated the plot was or that the perpetrator motive affected the outcome of CBRN events. The study did neither find support for alternative explanations regarding that regime type or state wealth correlated with the outcome of CBRN events. Further research should therefore involve grounded theoretical work in both conventional as CBRN terrorism studies as theoretical frameworks lack in the field which has negative complications for this type of positivistic hypothesis-testing studies. Without studies that test theoretical claims, CBRN terrorism studies are at risk of being contaminated with cognitive biases regarding the severity and frequency of the threat.