Modelling Terrorism

We discuss the application of computational science to social and political modelling, specifically to the modelling of terrorism. We base our reasoning on a form of Richardson´s Arms Race theory coupled with elements of Peng, Caspar and Showalter´s analysis of canard explosions which we applied originally to military conflicts between countries (in amongst others India and Pakistan, and the Middle East). Heartened by our earlier results (which we argued were capable of more general application), we modified the original arms race theory to cater for terrorism. By this time we had the advantage of a paper from the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science which lists eleven factors thought to be common to all terrorist incidents. Since a major problem in modelling is finding appropriate and feasible parameters and of locating some parameters which can act as proxies for others, the Jill Dando paper has significantly eased our modelling problem. We then touch on the philosophical limitations of modelling human action and reaction. Finally we list the sort of results which we aim to achieve.