ABSTRACT
This introductory chapter argues that understanding how terrorist groups learn requires a deep and comprehensive look at their learning processes, based on the recognition that they are not fundamentally very different from those of other kinds of actors. A review of the literature reveals that despite a small but growing body of work recognizing the importance of the topic and drawing on the toolsets of organizational learning theory, there is still some conceptual confusion, with a focus on learning about the means of violence rather than other activities and more profound transformations of strategy, and – at least implicitly – a kinetic counter-terrorism bias. This chapter presents a framework that captures the internal and external aspects of the entire learning process, from the acquisition of information to interpreting and converting it to collective knowledge to the actual implementation of changes in a variety of areas. It distinguishes three interrelated dimensions, covering the sources (from what or whom do terrorists learn?), mechanisms (in what ways do they learn?), and outcomes of learning (what do they learn?). The remainder of the chapter presents the individual contributions of the volume, which look in detail at the actual subjects and mechanisms of learning.
