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http://jcr.sagepub.com/content/52/1/93The online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/0022002707308597

2008 52: 93Journal of Conflict ResolutionIfat Maoz and Clark McCauley

Asymmetric ConflictThreat, Dehumanization, and Support for Retaliatory Aggressive Policies in

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Threat, Dehumanization, and

Support for RetaliatoryAggressive Policies inAsymmetric Conflict

Ifat MaozDepartment of Communication

Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

Clark McCauleyDepartment of Psychology

Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania

Public opinion can permit or encourage retaliatory aggressive state policies against

vulnerable but threatening out-groups. The authors present a model in which public

support for such policies is determined by perceived threat from and dehumanization

of the target group. This two-factor model predicts Israeli Jews support for two reta-

liatory aggressive policies: the more hypothetical notion of Palestinian population

transfer and concrete, coercive actions toward Palestinians. The authors find (1) that

threat and dehumanization are distinct constructs, each having unique contributions to

explaining support for aggressive retaliatory policies, (2) that threat and dehumaniza-

tion significantly explain support for aggressive retaliatory policies when respondents

hawkishness, socioeconomic status (SES), and education level are taken into account,

and (3) that the association of hawkishness and SES with support for aggressive reta-

liatory policies is largely mediated by threat perception. Results are highly consistent

across two studies, suggesting the two-factor model may be useful for understanding

support for aggressive action in situations of asymmetric conflict.

Keywords: asymmetric conflict; IsraeliPalestinian conflict; public opinion; perceivedthreat; dehumanization

T he beginning of the third millennium is accompanied by an increase in loca-lized conflicts and violence and an intensification of terror attacks. These areoften asymmetrical conflicts, in which one state or group has markedly more power

Journal of Conflict Resolution

Volume 52 Number 1

February 2008 93-116

2008 Sage Publications

10.1177/0022002707308597

http://jcr.sagepub.com

hosted athttp://online.sagepub.com

Authors Note: This research was supported by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security through the

National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (Grant N00140510629).

However, any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations in this document are those of the

authors and do not necessarily reflect views of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Data files

and coding manual will be made available at http://jcr.sagepub.com/supplemental. Results are reproduci-

ble using SPSS 12.0 and Amos 6.0 software, as detailed in methods sections of studies 1 and 2.

93

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than its rival (Friedman 2005). Often the response to asymmetric violence is inc-

reased support, within the stronger party, for retaliatory aggression against the

weaker, vulnerable, and often dependent out-group (Bar-On 1998; Bar-On andKassem 2004).

Thus, public opinion surveys found that, in response to the terrorists attack on

the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, two-thirds of

Americans reported that they were willing to sacrifice some civil liberties to fight

terrorism, and one in four thought that the Bush administration had not gone far

enough in restricting civil liberties in the months immediately following the attacks

(Huddy, Khatib, and Capelos 2002). Similarly, a study conducted during the second

Palestinian intifadah (uprising) against Israel indicated that 27 percent of Israeli

Jews thought it justified to violate human rights of Palestinians in the territoriesbecause Palestinians perform terror acts (Maoz 2006).

Especially in democratic regimes, public support for aggressive policies aimed

at vulnerable but threatening out-groups can permit or even encourage the enact-

ment of such policies. Thus, it is important to better understand the sources of such

support.

As we discuss below, considerable research has focused on threat perception to

explain support for milder forms of aggression such as the restriction of out-group

civil liberties. The goal of our study is to explore factors that underlie public sup-

port for more extreme forms of aggressive retaliatory state policies. We introducea two-factor model in which support for such policies is determined by perceived

out-group threat and by dehumanization of the out-group (as expressed by disgust

and contempt toward this out-group). This model is tested in the context of the

asymmetrical conflict between the state of Israel and the Palestinian population in

the West Bank and Gaza. Two studies use structural equation modeling (SEM) to

analyze Jewish Israeli attitudes regarding retaliatory aggressive policies toward

Palestinians. We begin by reviewing the conceptual basis for our model.

Out-Group Threat and Support for Aggressive Policies

Consistently linked with support for aggressive and belligerent retaliatory poli-

cies against out-groups is perception of collective threat (i.e., perception of realistic

threat to ones own group or state posed by another group or state; Gordon and

Arian 2001). The tendency to become more politically intolerant under conditions

of out-group threat is well documented (Gibson 1992; Marcus et al. 1995). Threat

has also been found to increase support for punitive and aggressive actions against

the threatening out-group (Arian 1989; Hermann, Tetlock, and Visser 1999).

Recent attention to local conflicts and terror attacks has brought a resurgence of

academic interest in the link between threat perception and support for state action

against vulnerable out-groups. For example, studies done in the aftermath of the

September 11, 2001, attacks found that perception of a high threat of future

94 Journal of Conflict Resolution



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terrorism was associated with increased American support for U.S. overseas mili-

tary intervention and support for restricting immigration and intensified surveil-

lance directed at Arabs and Arab Americans (Huddy et al. 2005). Similarly,perceived threat of future terrorist attacks following 2001 predicted American citi-

zens support for government policies such as phone tapping, detaining without

criminal charges, and blocking gun ownership for Arab Americans, Muslims, or

first-generation immigrants (Skitka, Bauman, and Mullen 2004).

In the same vein, studies conducted during the second Palestinian intifadah found

that Israeli Jews perception of Arab threat was significantly linked with support for

state violation of the civil rights of Israeli Arabs (Shamir and Sagiv-Schifter 2006).

These findings are highly consistent with realist theory in international relations,

which poses power and comparative assessments of power as major explanatory fac-tors of individual and collective actions (Jervis 1976; Waltz 1979).

Out-Group Dehumanization and Support for Aggression

Perceived threat, including competition for scarce resources, clearly plays a

major role in the development of negative dispositions toward an out-group (Gordon

and Arian 2001). However, especially in asymmetric conflicts, support of aggressive

retaliatory policies toward an out-group can also result from perceiving the out-

group as essentially and morally inferior to ones own groupas inhuman or subhu-man and thus not within ones realm of moral consideration (Opotow 1990).

Disgust and contempt are clear expressions of seeing the out-group as morally

inferior to ones own group (Fiske et al. 2002) and as subhuman (Haslam 2006).

Disgust and revulsion feature prominently in images of dehumanized others who

are often perceived as contaminating and despised (Haslam 2006; Rozin et al.

1999). Contempt, a kindred emotion, plays a similar role, locating the other below

the self or in-group (Haslam 2006).

Dehumanization often occurs in social contexts of ethnic or national conflict

and is described as related to an increased tendency to aggress against the dehuma-nized others (Kelman 2005). Opotows (1990, 1) theory of moral exclusion describes

a process by which people are placed outside the boundary in which moral values,

rules, and considerations of fairness apply. Causing or allowing harm to those out-

side of ones moral community is justified and rationalized on the premise that they

are expendable, undeserving, exploitable, and irrelevant. Severe instances of moral

exclusion may include systematic violations of human rights, political oppression,

slavery, and genocide (Staub 1989, 1990).

Though out-group dehumanization is described as a major instigator of extreme

interethnic violence, ethnic cleansing, and genocide (Kelman 1976; Chirot and

McCauley 2006; Staub 1989, 2000), there has been, to our knowledge, no direct

empirical examination of the unique effect of dehumanization of an out-group on

public support for aggressive retaliatory policies against it. Thus, the first aim of

Maoz, McCauley / Retaliatory Aggressive Policies 95



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our study is to examine the extent to which perception of threat from Palestinians

and dehumanization of Palestinians (as expressed by disgust and contempt toward

them) are two distinct dispositions of Israeli Jews toward Palestinians. A furtheraim is to determine the extent to which each makes a unique contribution to pre-

dicting support of aggressive retaliatory policies toward Palestinians.

In sum, we suggest that threat and dehumanization are distinguishable but related

negative perceptions of a weaker (but still threatening) out-group in an asymmetric

conflict. Thus, Jewish Israeli views of Palestinians can contain, at the same time, a

perception of collective threat from Palestinians ability to carry future terror attacks

against Israel (Gordon and Arian 2001) and dehumanization manifest in contempt

and disgust toward Palestinians, who are seen by many Israeli Jews as inferior and

even as subhuman (Bar-Tal 2000; Bar-Tal and Tiechman 2005). We hypothesizethat each of these two factorsthreat and dehumanizationwill have an indepen-

dent contribution to explaining Israeli Jewish support for aggressive retaliatory poli-

cies toward Palestinians.

The Social Context of Threat and Intolerance:

Hawkishness, Socioeconomic Status (SES), and Level of Education

While considerable research deals with the effect of psychological variables

such as threat perception on political intolerance and policy preferences, the socialcontext of such variables is often neglected. However, threat perception and politi-

cal intolerance and other policy preferences are often influenced by respondents

political positions and by other sociodemographic characteristics.

For example, it has been repeatedly found that Israeli Jews who hold more

hawkish or right-wing ideologies in the IsraeliArab conflict (i.e., favor more mili-

tant and less reconciliatory policies; see Bar-Tal, Raviv, and Freund 1994; Shamir

and Shamir 2000) perceive higher threat from Palestinians, indicate more negative

attitudes toward them, and are less willing to compromise with them (Arian 2003;

Bar-Tal 2001; Maoz and McCauley 2005; Shamir and Shamir 2000). Hawks alsoexpress more political intolerance toward Israeli Arabs (Shamir and Sagiv-Schifter

2006).

Lower levels of education and lower SES of Israeli Jews were also found to be

related to more negative and less compromising attitudes toward Palestinians

(Arian 2001; Yuchtman-Yaar and Herman 1997) and to higher political intolerance

toward Arabs (Shamir and Sagiv-Schifter 2006). In addition, lower level of educa-

tion was associated with decreased support for compromise and peace in Israeli

and Palestinian samples (Nachtway and Tessler 2002).

In spite of the demonstrated importance of ideological and sociodemographicvariables in predicting threat and policy support, rarely do we find an analysis that

includes, at the same time, psychological, ideological, and demographic measures

as predictors of belligerent policy preferences toward an out-group. Thus, another




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aim of our study is to present a comprehensive multilevel model in which respon-

dents degree of Hawkishness, SES, and education level are added to threat and

dehumanization as predictors of support for aggressive retaliatory policies.Two studies test our models predictions on Jewish Israeli public opinion support

for two types of retaliatory aggressive policies: the more hypothetical notion of

Palestinian population transfer (study 1) and concrete, coercive acts toward Palesti-

nians, ranging from administrative detention to torture (study 2). The results provide

important insights into how both threat from vulnerable out-groups and dehumani-

zation (as expressed by disgust and contempt toward these groups) independently

contribute to public support for retaliatory aggressive state policies toward vulner-

able out-groups.

Study 1

Population transfer refers to a policy by which a state, or international authority,

forces the movement of a large group of people out of a region, most frequently on

the basis of ethnicity or religion. The view of international law on population trans-

fer underwent considerable evolution during the 20th century. Underlying the

change was the trend to assign rights to individuals, thereby limiting the rights of

states to make agreements that adversely affect them. There is now little debate that

involuntary population transfer is a violation of international law. The 1997 finalreport of the United Nations Sub-commission on Prevention of Discrimination and

Protection of Minorities invokes a large number of legal conventions and treaties

to support the position that population transfers contravene international law unless

they have the consent of both the moved population and the host population. This

consent has to be given free of direct or indirect negative pressure.

Despite its controversial legal and moral status, the idea of population transfer

has been part of Jewish Israeli political discourse since the early 20th century.

Following the Peel Report, which included a recommendation of transfer, this

notion was openly endorsed by mainstream Zionist leadership in the late 1930s andearly 1940s (Morris 1999; Shapira 1992). However, other Zionist leaders identified

with both labor and more left-wing ideologies were vehemently opposed on moral

grounds to what came to be understood as forceful displacement of the Palestinian

population (Shapira 1992). The discussion of transfer subsided after the establish-

ment of the state of Israel in 1948, but it returned to prominence in the early 1980s

and became even stronger with the eruption of the first Palestinian intifada (1987

1993; Morris 1999; Shamir and Shamir 2000).

Transferring the Palestinian population out of Israel has consistently received

support from significant parts of the Israeli Jewish public during the past two dec-ades. Strong support was found in Jewish Israeli public opinion surveys conducted

during the first Palestinian intifada. For example, a survey conducted in 1991 found




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that 36 percent of Israeli Jews supported such transfer (Shamir and Shamir 2000).

However, it is important to note that this support is for a hypothetical notion that

has not been, nor is likely to be, implemented. Thus, both Shamir and Shamir(2000) and Arian (1996) note that while transferring Palestinian population out of

Israel is supported by a considerable percentage of the Jewish Israel population, it

is seen as likely to occur by a much lower percentage.

Jewish Israeli support for transfer decreased to some extent in the mid to late

1990s with the end of the first intifada and the onset of the Oslo peace process

(Arian 1998): of the Jewish Israeli population, 15 percent supported annexation of

the territories and transferring Palestinians in 1995, 9 percent in 1996, 7 percent in

1997, and 10 percent in 1998. However, with the eruption of the second intifada in

October 2000, support for Palestinian population transfer among Israeli Jews wasrenewed in 2002 (46 percent) and in 2003 (46 percent) (Arian 2003).

In the long term, this support contributes to the intractability of the Israeli

Palestinian conflict (Maoz and Eidelson 2007). The ability of leaders to resolve pro-

tracted ethno-national conflictsespecially in democratic regimesconsiderably

depends on the weight of public opinion. Such support enables policy makers to

negotiate and then implement mutually acceptable compromise solutions to the

conflict. When there exist subgroups of hardliners or spoilers who oppose compro-

mise and endorse belligerent, coercive policies toward the out-group, it becomes

much more difficult and sometimes impossible for leaders to reach agreements andmake concessions to the other side (Maoz and Eidelson 2007).

The goal of our first study is to explain the factors underlying the support,

among some Israeli Jews, for the notion of transferring Palestinians from the West

Bank and Gaza to neighboring Arab countries.

Hypotheses

Hypothesis 1: Perception of out-group threat from Palestinians and dehumanization

of Palestinians (as expressed in disgust and contempt toward them) will befound as two distinct factors representing different aspects of Israeli Jews nega-

tive attitudes toward Palestinians.

Hypothesis 2: Threat perception and dehumanization will each make an indepen-

dent, significant contribution to predicting Jewish Israeli support for Palestinian

population transfer.

Hypothesis 3: Threat perception and dehumanization will still significantly pre-

dict support for transfer, even when degree of hawkishness, SES, and education

level are added to the model as predictors of support for Palestinian population

transfer.

Hypothesis 4: Threat perception and dehumanization will significantly mediate the

associations of hawkishness, SES, and education level with support for transfer.




8/25

Method

Survey design and participants. Results are based on a nationally representative

random-digit dialing telephone interview survey of 504 Jewish Israeli adults (aged

18 and older) conducted by the Machshov Research Institute, a professional polling

agency in Israel, during June 2003. Respondents were randomly sampled from a

CD used by Israeli polling agencies that contains all of the listed phone numbers of

Israeli households. The response rate in surveys of the Jewish Israeli population,

including this one, is estimated at between 20 percent and 30 percent. The survey

was conducted in Hebrew, but items are reproduced here in English translation.

The demographics of this sample were comparable to those of the general Israeli

Jewish population.

Measures. Here, we briefly describe the measures used in our analyses (see

table 1 for means and standard deviations of the measures and the intercorrelations

among them).

Threat perception was measured by asking respondents to rate their agreement

with the following three items on a 6-point scale that ranged from strongly disagree

to strongly agree: I am concerned that the State of Israel will suffer from waves of

Palestinian terror attacks, In my opinion, the majority of Palestinians would have

destroyed the State of Israel if they could, and It is possible to trust Palestinians

(reversed). Although the average of these items is reported in descriptive analyses

(see table 1), each item was used as a manifest indicator of the latent construct of per-

ceived realistic threat in SEM. Cronbachs alpha coefficient for these items was .60.

Table 1

Study 1: Correlations, Means, and Standard Deviations

for Criterion Measure and Predictor Variables

2 3 4 5 6 M SD

1. Support for transfer .48 ** .37** .49** .12** .08 3.51 2.09

2. Threat .37 ** .51** .16** .14 ** 4.31 0.95

3. Dehumanization .39 ** .16** .14 ** 2.87 1.47

4. Hawkishness .18** .13** 4.55 1.74

5. Socioeconomic status (SES) .12 ** 2.63 0.88

6. Education 14.17 3.28

Note: N=504. Threat, dehumanization, and SES are based on the computed average of the indicators

used to measure each of these variables (see text). Support for transfer, threat, and dehumanization are

measured on a 1 to 6 scale, hawkishness on a 1 to 7 scale, and SES on a 1 to 5 scale. Education is mea-

sured in number of years of formal education.

**p< .01.




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Dehumanization was assessed by asking respondents to rate the degree that they

felt disgust and contempt toward Palestinians on 6-point scales that ranged from

strongly disagree to strongly agree. The average of these items was reported in thedescriptive analyses (see table 1), but each item was used separately as a manifest

variable, indicating the latent construct of dehumanization in SEM. Cronbachs

alpha coefficient for these items was .89.

Support for Palestinian population transfer was measured by asking respondents

to rate their agreement with a single item, Transfer: The territories will be

annexed to Israel and most of the Palestinian population living there will be trans-

ferred to neighboring Arab countries, on a 6-point scale that ranged from strongly

disagree to strongly agree. This item was used as a manifest variable indicating

support for Palestinian population transfer in the SEM.Regarding hawkishness, respondents were also asked to place themselves on a

7-point bipolar hawkdove scale as follows: In the scale presented to you, 1

represents full identification with right-wing (hawkish) attitudes, 7 represents full

identification with left-wing (dovish) attitudes, and 4 represents middle/center

attitudes in Arab-Israeli relations. Where would you place yourself on this scale?

In our data analysis, we recoded this variable so that higher scores represented

more hawkish attitudes. This item was used as a manifest variable indicating level

of hawkishness in the SEM.

Level of education was measured by asking respondents to indicate their numberof years of formal schooling. This item was used as a manifest variable in the SEM.

SES was measured by two variables. First, for level of expenditure, respondents

rated their household average monthly expenditure relative to the average house-

hold monthly expenditure in Israel on a 4-point scale ranging from a lot below the

average to a lot above the average. Second, for societal status, respondents rated

their SES in Israeli society on a 4-point scale ranging from in the upper quarter of

the population to in the fourth (lowest) quarter of the population. In our data analy-

sis, we recoded this variable so that higher scores represented higher societal status.

The averages of the level of expenditure and societal status items were reported inthe descriptive analyses, but each of these items was used separately as a manifest

variable, indicating the latent construct of SES in SEM. Cronbachs alpha coeffi-

cient for these items was .61.

Results

Descriptive analyses. Table 1 presents means and standards deviation for our

measures and the zero-order correlations among them. These data indicate that

Israeli Jews expressed high perception of collective threat from Palestinians(M= 4:3, SD= 0.95), with 68 percent of our respondents indicating that they are

threatened by Palestinians (ratings of 4, 5, or 6 on the 1 to 6 scale). Some 27 percent




10/25

of the Israeli Jewish respondents indicated dehumanization of Palestinians

(M= 2:9, SD= 1.47), and 47 percent expressed support for Palestinian population

transfer (M=

3:

5, SD=

2.0). Support for transfer here closely mirrors findings ofother public opinion studies conducted in 2002 and in 2003 that indicate that about

46 percent of Israeli Jews support Palestinian population transfer (see Arian 2003).

The analyses below were conducted to uncover the sources for this support.

Hypotheses testing using SEM. To test our hypotheses, we conducted SEM ana-

lysis using the AMOS 6.0 statistical program (Arbuckle 2005). SEM uses conven-

tional regression equations that calibrate the most influential statistical associations

(which may be causal connections). However, SEM also represents the impact of

several variables on one or more outcomes (the structural relations) with a graphi-cal model. This method has several advantages over path analysis and multiple

regression. First, it takes into account the interrelationships among the independent

variables, and, second, it provides adequate tests of the effects after adjustments for

the unreliability of the measures (Kline 2005).

An analysis using SEM has two elements, a measurement model and a structural

model. The measurement model was used here to confirm the existence of two

separate dimensions of negative orientations toward the out-group: (1) perception

of out-group collective threat and (2) dehumanization of the out-group. The struc-

tural model was employed here to examine (1) the association of threat and dehu-manization with support for Palestinian population transfer, (2) the relation of

hawkishness, SES, and education to threat, dehumanization, and support for trans-

fer, and (3) the extent to which threat and dehumanization mediate the effect of

hawkishness, SES, and education on support for Palestinian population transfer.

Model fit was assessed by four indices: the normed fit index (NFI), The Tucker-

Lewis index (TLI), the comparative fit index (CFI), and the root mean square error

of approximation (RMSEA). Models with NFI, TLI, or CFI greater than .90 have

good fit, and models with fit greater than .95 have excellent fit to the data (Kline

2005). A good fit is also indicated by RMSEA values of less than or equal to .06.

Analyses of measurement models. Our first hypothesis was that threat perception

and dehumanization are two distinct factors, each describing a different negative

perception of the out-group. To test this hypothesis, we compared the hypothesized

measurement model (model 1, figure 1), in which threat perception and dehumani-

zation are specified as two separate latent factors, to an alternative measurement

model (model 2), in which threat and dehumanization are merged into one con-

struct factor. Figure 1 indicates that the correlation between threat and dehumaniza-

tion is substantial (r= :50). Therefore, it is crucial to show that these two measures

actually assess constructs that are distinguishable from one another. As hypothe-

sized, model 1 proved to have a better fit to the data. Model 1 indices all indicated

good fit (NFI= .98, TLI= .98, CFI= .99, RMSEA= .047, 90 percent confidence




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interval RMSEA= .009 .080). In contrast, the alternative model (model 2) revealed

low and unsatisfactory model fit (NFI= .79, TLI= .52, CFI= .79, RMSEA= .20, 90

percent confidence interval RMSEA= .179 .229). Thus, our results show that threat

and dehumanization should be separately modeled, as hypothesized.

Analyses of the structural models. A series of structural equation models tested

hypotheses 2 to 4.

Hypothesis 2 was that threat perception and dehumanization of the out-group

will each independently and significantly predict support for transfer. To test this

hypothesis, we produced a structural model in which threat and dehumanization

were entered as two separate predictors of support for transfer (model 3, figure 2).

The resulting regression coefficients indicate that, as hypothesized, threat does

strongly predict support for transfer (b= :56). Also as expected, dehumanization

has a significant (albeit small) separate effect on support for transfer (b= :11).

Hypothesis 3 was that threat and dehumanization will continue to predict sup-

port for transfer, even when hawkishness, SES, and education are entered into thestructural model as predictors of support for transfer. Hypothesis 4 predicted that

threat perception and dehumanization would significantly mediate the effects of

Figure 1

Study 1: Measurement Model as Hypothesized (Model 1)

Threat

Dehumanization

.50

.61 (Model 2 = .43)

.39

Support for

Transfer

Note: The figure shows the standardized values of the coefficients (all p values


12/25

hawkishness, SES, and education on support for transfer. To test these hypotheses,

we produced a structural model (model 4, see figure 3) in which hawkishness, SES,

and education were entered as exogenous variables, with both direct and indirect

(through threat and dehumanization) paths to support for transfer and in which

threat perception and dehumanization were entered as endogenous variables, each

with a direct path to support for transfer. In line with hypothesis 4, model 4 (see

figure 3) indicates that indeed threat (b= :49) and dehumanization (b= :10) remain

significant predictors of support for transfer after adding hawkishness, SES, andeducation to the structural equation. This model also showed very good fit to the

data (NFI= .96, TLI= .95, CFI= .98, RMSEA= .050, 90 percent confidence inter-

val RMSEA= .032 .068)

Mediation analysis. Finally, we tested the extent to which threat and dehumani-

zation mediate the link between hawkishness, SES, and education and support for

transfer. To establish mediation, three conditions must be fulfilled (Baron and

Kenny 1986). First, the predictors (hawkishness, SES, and education) must be cor-

related with the dependent variable (support for transfer). As table 1 indicates,

hawkishness and SES significantly correlate with support for transfer (r=:49 and

r=:12, respectively, p values


13/25

Figure

3

Study1:CombinedMed

iationModel(Model5)

Threat

R2=.48

R2=.19

Dehuman

Supportfor

Transfer

R2=.39

SES

Education

Hawk

.1

3

.

13

.37

.65

.09

.08

.04

.10

.01

.48

.13

Note:Thefi

gureshowsthestandardizedvaluesofthecoefficients(pvalues

threat, dehumanization and support for retaliatory-aggressive policies in asymmetric conflict

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