Proportional Use of Force in Counter-Terrorism

This paper studies a concept of proportional use of force in a counter-terrorism

action. The terrorist organization decides whether to attack or not to attack the state,

while the state decides about his counter-terrorist measure. The state is supposed

not to use a ”non-proportional” force, namely, the counter-terrorist measure taken by

the state should be sufficient to remove a threat imposed by terrorists, but not higher

than that. The level of force required against the terrorist organization is private

information of the organization. The model predicts under which conditions terrorists

will not attack the state and under which conditions with a positive probability the

attack will take place, the state will react with a tough counter-terrorist measures and

the state may be accused of non-proportional use of violence.