International Negotiation
Vol. 8 no. 3 2003
This issue:
Negotiating with Terrorists
Guest editor:
I. William Zartman
The Johns Hopkins University
Negotiating with Terrorists
I. WILLIAM ZARTMAN
School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), The Johns Hopkins University, 1740 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington DC 20036 USA (E-mail: izartma1@jhu.edu)
Abstract. Negotiating with terrorists is possible, within limits, as the articles in this issue show and explore. Limits come initially in the distinction between absolute and contingent terrorists, and then between revolutionary and conditional absolutes and between barricaders, kidnappers and hijackers in the contingent category. Revolutionary absolute are nonnegotiable adversaries, but even conditional absolutes are potentially negotiable and contingent terrorists actually seek negotiation. The official negotiator is faced with the task of giving a little in order to get the terrorist to give a lot, a particularly difficult imbalance to obtain given the highly committed and desperate nature of terrorists as they follow rational but highly unconventional tactics. Such are the challenges of negotiating with terrorists that this issue of the journal explores and elucidates.
Key words: negotiation; terrorism; terms of trade; hostages; suicide.
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Negotiating the Non-Negotiable: Dealing with Absolutist Terrorists
RICHARD E. HAYES, STACEY R. KAMINSKI and STEVEN M. BERES
Evidence Based Research, Inc., 1595 Spring Hill Road, Suite 250, Vienna, VA 22182 USA (E-mail: rehayes@ebrinc.com)
Abstract. Terrorism has taken on a new form in which loss of life is par for the course and where terrorist demands are often impossible to meet. To combat these new absolutist terrorists, the US government has developed innovative approaches to defend national security, including negotiating with state sponsors of terrorism with the threat of force for noncompliance, isolating...