The psychology of counter-terrorism: critical issues and challenges.

Wars are won when one side breaks the will of the other to fight on. When they capitulate, the defeated almost always still have armies in the field and still have some resources to draw upon. True, these may be greatly diminished compared to what existed at earlier stages of the conflict but it is extraordinarily rare for every soldier to have been slain or imprisoned and every town and city captured before the white flags of surrender are raised. What the vanquished have lost however is the belief that victory is possible or that the cost of the struggle can be borne any further. Victory or defeat then, ultimately boils down to a question of psychology, and terrorist conflicts are no different from other conflicts in this respect.