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Global physics: from percolation to terrorism, guerilla warfare and clandestine activities

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  • Galam, Serge

Abstract

The September 11 attack on the US has revealed an unprecedented terrorism with worldwide range of destruction. It is argued to result from the first worldwide percolation of passive supporters. They are people sympathetic to the terrorism cause but without being involved with it. They just do not oppose it in case they could. This scheme puts suppression of the percolation as the major strategic issue in the fight against terrorism. Acting on the population is shown to be useless. Instead a new strategic scheme is suggested to increase the terrorism percolation threshold and in turn suppress the percolation. The relevant associated space is identified as a multi-dimensional social space including both the ground earth surface and all various independent flags displayed by the terrorist group. Some hints are given on how to shrink the geographical spreading of terrorism threat. The model apply to a large spectrum of clandestine activities including guerilla warfare as well as tax evasion, corruption, illegal gambling, illegal prostitution and black markets.

Suggested Citation

  • Galam, Serge, 2003. "Global physics: from percolation to terrorism, guerilla warfare and clandestine activities," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 330(1), pages 139-149.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:330:y:2003:i:1:p:139-149
    DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2003.08.035
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Alvarez-Ramirez Jose & Rodriguez Eduardo & Tyrtania Leonardo & Urrea-Garcìa Galo R, 2010. "Regime-Transitions in the 2003-2010 Iraq War: An Approach Based on Correlations of Daily Fatalities," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 16(1), pages 1-41, December.
    2. James, Nick & Menzies, Max & Chok, James & Milner, Aaron & Milner, Cas, 2023. "Geometric persistence and distributional trends in worldwide terrorism," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    3. Serge Galam & Marco Alberto Javarone, 2016. "Modeling Radicalization Phenomena in Heterogeneous Populations," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(5), pages 1-15, May.
    4. Li, Ben-xian & Zhu, Jun-fang & Wang, Shun-guo, 2015. "Networks model of the East Turkistan terrorism," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 419(C), pages 479-486.
    5. Ellero, Andrea & Fasano, Giovanni & Sorato, Annamaria, 2009. "A modified Galam’s model for word-of-mouth information exchange," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 388(18), pages 3901-3910.

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