All language subtitles for Through.the.Wormhole.S07E01.What.Makes.a.Terrorist.480p

We're at war,

and the battle lines
have been redrawn.

Terrorism can strike anywhere...

...and everyone is a target.

Science is peering into the dark
heart of terror networks

to find out why terrorists
embrace unspeakable atrocities.

Are they so different from us,

or do we all have the ability

to give our lives for a cause?

Could we learn to
dehumanize our enemies,

or could science show us
a way to stop terrorism...

...and understand
what makes a terrorist?

Space, time, life itself.

The secrets of the cosmos
lie through the wormhole.

Captions by vitac...
www.Vitac.Com

captions paid for by
Discovery communications

When four planes dropped out

of a clear-blue sky
on September 11th, 2001,

it was shocking to realize

we were all potential targets.

Today, al-qaeda and Isis
claim the headlines,

but it was once the ira

and basque separatists
in Europe, or anarchists

and the Ku Klux Klan
in the United States.

Terrorists, like any group,

have ideals they belive in...

a cause to rally around.

But for them, the cause
justifies the deliberate

targeting of innocent civilians.

How can they think that way?

Can we peer inside
the mind of a terrorist?

Anthropologist
Scott Atran has spent years

trying to understand the enemy.

He went to the front lines
of Iraq,

embedding himself
with American allies

to meet terrorists face to face.

This is the foremost
position on the front lines.

I'm 10 kilometers west
of makhmur.

So, we went to Iraq in 2016

to follow up on a battle.

Some 500 kurdish
soldiers had cornered

fewer than 100 Isis fighters.

When all appeared
to be lost to them

and the last 15 were retreated,

7 of them blew themselves up
to cover their retreat.

The kurdish forces, seeing this,

decided it just wasn't
worth trying

to hold on to the territory,

even though
they vastly outnumbered

the islamic state fighters.

Scott wanted to know
how such a small group

were able to hold off
a much more formable force.

He sat down to interview
captured Isis fighters

and put them through
a battery of tests

to assess the strength
of the group.

Yes.

Scott discovered there
was an incredible bond

between these fighters.

They would do anything
for their cause.

Scott has been studying

the dynamics of groups
for years.

Humans are
the preeminent group animal.

That's what allows us
to build things like that.

It's a collective effort.

They have to coordinate,

and they have to take risks
for one another.

In fact, they have to be able
to sacrifice for one another.

One world trade stands
as a testament to America's

resolve after September 11th.

When the towers
came down in 2001,

it was the iron workers
from local 40, amongst others,

who rebuilt the site
a decade later.

Terrorists and iron workers
seem like polar opposites to us.

But to an anthropologist,

both groups share
a crucial trait.

These New York City
iron workers risk their lives

every day for each other
maneuvering these massive beams

while balancing hundreds
of feet in the air.

Just set it down here.

They have an extremely
close group dynamic.

Today, Scott is going to measure
how strong it is,

administering to them
the same test

he has given
to terrorists in Iraq.

We're interested
in how individuals relate

to the groups they live with
and they work with.

The test is simple.

It involves five cards.

Each card shows
a pair of circles.

The small one represents me.

The large circle
represents the group.

In the first pairing,
the "me" circle

and the "group"
circle are totally separate.

But gradually,
they begin to overlap.

In the fifth pairing,
the "me" circle

is entirely contained
within the "group" circle,

the two identities fully fused.

And what I'd like you to do

is pick the one that defines
the way you think you are.

The iron workers
see their identities

closely overlapped
by the group's.

Scott expects this...

it's a natural byproduct
of a tight-knit group

in a highly risky profession.

So, how do the iron workers'
answers to the test

compare to those of terrorists?

The terrorists' answers
were unlike those

of any other group
Scott had studied.

For them, the group
was all consuming.

The individual was nonexistent.

Well, they did this
with guerillas in Libya,

where they actually
rubbed it out

and blackened out
the "me" in the group,

as if there were no difference.

Well, then we say they they're
completely fused with the group.

What makes their
dedication so extreme?

Scott says it has
to do with the values

that hold the group together.

Iron workers are loyal
to their brothers,

but probably wouldn't go to work
if they weren't paid

or their families
were being threatened.

Not so for Isis fighters,

who see their group
as their salvation

and an islamic state
as absolutely non-negotiable.

These values have become
sacred to them.

Sacred values are
often religious values,

because they're transcendent.

You wouldn't comprise
or negotiate

to trade off your children.

Many of us wouldn't
negotiate or comprise

to trade off
our country or our religion

for any amount of money,
under any social pressure.

They respond on
all other measures...

willingness to fight, to die,
to sacrifice for one other,

to torture,
to have their families suffer.

And so, if you have a group
of people fused around

a set of ideas they hold sacred,

for which no negotiation
and compromise is possible,

well, then you have
the most formable

fighting force possible.

And Isis is no exception.

Scott's work has shown
how terrorists are single-minded

and absolutely committed
to a cause.

But how do they
take this behavior

so far as to load a car
full of explosives

and blow up a building
full of innocent people?

How do we shut down our
ability to care for others?

According to psychologist
Jay Van bavel,

our brains have
a remarkable ability

to dehumanize others
under the right circumstances.

Jay has designed
a test to demonstrate

how we recognize humanity
in the first place.

People came in,
we took an image of a doll

and morphed it with a human face
that looked very similar.

And when does this face
look human to you?

Jay asked participants
the same question.

And right about now.

Just passed the half-way mark

between the doll face
and the real face,

most of us perceive
that the face is human

and has a mind.

Right... There.

In Jay's field, it's called
"perception of mind."

But he says it's not fixed.

Jay adjusted the experiment,
and told his subjects

what college the person
in the photo went to.

Their own college,
an in-group...

And right about now.

...or a rival college
across town,

an out-group.

This rivalry had
a measurable effect.

What we found
was that these students

were able to mind behind
the in-group face much faster.

And they were slower
to see the humanity

in students
from another college.

Right about now.

These are subtle kinds
of dehumanization.

How do we get into
the mind of a terrorist

who can view a tower
full of civilians

as a justifiable target?

Jay believes it's easier
than you think.

For a second experiment,
Jay divides subjects,

arbitrarily, into two teams...

the "rattlers"
and the "eagles."

We told people that we
were keeping track of points,

and the winning team
would walk away with the money.

Jay's creating
the essence of conflict...

two group competing
for resources.

So, now I'm gonna read both
teams a number of statements.

He reads the group
short stories about people

who supposedly belong
to neither team.

Jane managed to get indoors
before it started to rain.

These stories
are designed to measure empathy.

If you empathize
with the person's story,

you put your thumb up.

If you don't care, thumb down.

Brandon got soaked by
a taxi driver through a puddle.

Eagles and rattlers give
equally empathetic responses.

Then Jay changes the game.

Andrew sat in gum
on a park bench.

Andrew is a member
of the eagles.

Serves him right.

Even in an entirely
artificial setting,

the results are profound.

Once there's competition
added to the mix,

conflict can
escalate very quickly

towards the out-group.

Team members
actually take pleasure

in the other team's pain.

Remember, they've only been
assigned to these teams

for a matter of minutes.

The thing
that's really remarkable

is that there needs to be
no history of conflict

or any stereotypes
towards the groups

for them to start feel
negative towards them.

Right there.

Jay's tests reveal
that dehumanization can happen

with very little prodding.

Whenever groups compete,

the dehumanization process
begins.

When that competition
includes whole cultures,

the results can be deadly.

If science has discovered
anything about terrorists,

it's that we all have
the potential

to think like one.

All of our brains
are programmed to dehumanize.

We all have values
that we can't compromise.

So what stops us from thinking

and acting in extreme ways?

The answer to that lies less
in what you believe

and more in who you know.

After every big
coordinated terrorist attack

in Europe, the U.S., or Asia,

we wonder how it
could have happened again.

How did a terrorist cell

live among us for months
or years

before deciding to strike?

What's the glue
that binds them together,

and how can we dismantle them
before they strike again.

A café in central London

may seem like
a strange place for a lab,

but this is where
social psychologist

nafees Hamid is trying
to uncover

the structure
of terror networks.

My goal is to understand
the "how" of recruitment.

If you start with how,
you understand

the networks that are in play.

Nafees is trying to figure out

how terror networks function

and how they can
be pulled apart.

It's not a simple task.

There's a lot of
theories out there,

but there's very little data,

and this is largely
because it's hard

to get jihadis
to go into a laboratory.

But nafees,

a Pakistani-American
living in London,

tried something a little out
of the ordinary.

He called them.

Salaam alaikum, brother.

How are you?
How's it going?

I decided to just contact them
directly online...

found them on social media,
on Twitter, on various accounts.

Getting terrorists on the phone

is not as hard as you think.

I'm very honest,
and that's the key.

There's so many people,
intelligence officers

and so forth,
who are pretending to be people

they're not to contact
these people,

and they can usually
sniff those people out.

How's the weather in sham today?

Nafees uses
these conversations to make

social network analysis models
of terrorist groups.

He's not tracking
"likes" on Facebook.

He's looking at terrorists
real-life social networks...

friends, family,
and acquaintances.

He's talked to members
of Isis, al-qaeda,

groups all over the world.

Nafees' research
leads him to believe

the reasons people join
a terror cell

has little to do with how
religious their family is

or how how poor
their neighborhood is.

There doesn't seem
to be a correlation

between the ecology
of an environment

and who radicalizes
and who doesn't radicalize.

Instead, your best predictor

of whether someone's
going to go join

an islamist group
is whether they have a friend

who's already a member
of that group.

Friendships basically create
an echo chamber

that allows the radicalization
process to take shape.

So, does knowing
how these networks form

tell us how to break them apart?

Paris, 2015.

Brussels, 2016.

After the attacks,
attention focused

on an Isis terror cell

from the poor Brussels
suburb of Molenbeek

and their radical leader
Abdelhamid Abaaoud.

What's amazing about
the Paris, Brussels attack

is that a terror cell
carried out

a major attack on European soil,

then had the weight
of all of the police

and intelligence agencies
of Europe

brought down on it,

and then was able
to successfully carry out

a second attack within months.

How were they able to do this?

Nafees supplies social network
analysis to the Molenbeek cell

to see how the group functioned.

Nafees measures
each man's importance

to the group by the quantity

and type of his connections
within it.

How long had he known
the others, from where?

Had they served
on the battlefield

or done time together in prison?

In order to carry off
an attack of this magnitude,

you need deep friendships
with people.

In the end, you're trusting
these people with your lives,

and so if they're siblings,

if they're childhood
friends, prison mates.

And you really see
this in this network.

Predictably, abdelhamid abaaoud

has the most connections.

But abaaoud was killed
in a police shootout

right after the Paris attacks.

And instead of falling apart,

the terror cell struck
again in Brussels.

Nafees says
that network analysis

doesn't just track
how many connections you have,

it also tracks how you know
those connections.

"Are you the only one
bridging one group to another?"

"Do you only know people
who live close to you?"

Using all of these metrics,
a seemingly minor player

named salah abdeslam
rises to the surface.

Salah was a guy
who never went to Syria,

never recruited anyone himself,

was supposed to
blow himself up in Paris,

but chickened out
at the last minute.

This was guy who was
clearly less radicalized

than abdelhamid abaaoud.

Salah didn't know
as many people as abaaoud,

but he knew
more kinds of people.

He was often the only bridge
between different groups.

Salah abdeslam
was driving all over Europe,

back and forth,
connecting people,

moving money around.

He was connecting players

that wouldn't have been
connected to each other

had he not been filling
that social network up.

Facilitators
like salah are often

less radical, less visible.

They stay off the radar
and help a terror group survive,

even after the leader
is taken out.

Generally, police,
intelligence agencies

don't pay enough attention
to the facilitators.

If you go after those people,

you will do more in reducing
the efficacy of that network

then if you go
after the central figures.

"Focus on the facilitators."

This is a good rule of thumb,
until it's not.

As law enforcement
has grown more successful

tracking terror cells,

more attacks are being
carried out by solo actors.

And these lone wolves
could be anywhere.

The lone wolf...

the killer
who's part of no cell,

who arouses no suspicion
until he acts.

In September 2014,
Isis issued a global call

for its followers
to attack the west.

And since then,

the pace of lone wolf attacks

has been accelerating.

The Orlando nightclub shooting,
the deadliest attack

by a lone gunman
in American history,

was part of that
horrifying trend.

Can science trace
the origin of lone wolves

and help us stop them?

Social psychologist

Sophia Moskalenko
researches radicalism

at a university
of Maryland think tank.

She grew up immersed
in the subject,

but not by choice.

I was born
in the Republic of Ukraine,

and when I was growing up,

I was part of
the Soviet union's effort

to radicalize all
of its citizens.

I often questioned that
and got into a lot of trouble

at school for questioning it.

Radicalism is still
the focus of her life.

Now she studies the path
people take to terrorism.

More frequently,
people become radicalized

through groups or through people
that they already know

who belong to terrorists
or radical groups.

On rare occasions, however,

people radicalize on their own.

Typically, these lone wolves,

like Ted Kaczynski,
the Unabomber,

or Omar Mateen
the Orlando mass shooter,

are disturbed misfits.

And people like that can turn
to terrorism

to escape their demons.

But in 2004,
UK Investigators uncovered

a plot that challenged
everyone's notion

of what makes a terrorist.

They were tailing a terror cell.

All the members were known
to law enforcement,

except one man
who only was discovered

when another member picked him
up from the airport.

They saw someone
they didn't yet know

who, in fact, turned out
to be Momin Khawaja.

24 year old Momin Khawaja

lived in Ottawa, Canada.

He was a computer programer
with no criminal record.

He had become radicalized
in total isolation,

just like a lone wolf.

Police arrested Khawaja
and the others

before hey had time to act.

The cell was plotting
to make and detonate

a number of fertilizer bombs
in and around London,

and Khawaja's role in
the plot was to design

and make the detonators.

Captured terrorists
rarely take you back

to the turning points
of their youth,

but Khawaja was different.

In blogs and e-mails,
he chronicled his journey...

growing up in the suburbs
of Ottawa, Canada,

in a house much like this.

Khawaja was unique in that

he liked to write down
his thoughts,

his feelings, his intentions.

For Sophia,
finding these written records

was like stumbling upon
a terrorist's private journal.

I once was a normal kid, too.

I played basketball,
went swimming, bike riding,

and did all the naughty,
little things kids do.

For us, as researchers,

this was a very rare opportunity
to look into the mind

of a terrorist as radicalization
was unfolding in real time.

How did he turn to terror?

He and his family
had no contact with terrorists.

He lived a typical teenage life
of friends and schoolwork.

In his writing,
he expressed one motive

for his radicalization...
empathy.

He identified deeply

with the suffering
of fellow muslims.

Khawaja
was emotionally affected.

He watched fundamentalist
islamic videos

that depicted injustices

perpetuated by the west
on muslims

or revenge that muslims
take on westerners.

Then, right after
I got out of college,

the invasion of
Afghanistan happened.

I felt that something
was wrong... terribly wrong.

He was driven by ideology

and felt compelled
to pick a side.

He picked the side of terror.

He was
a very sensitive individual

who couldn't just stand idly

while someone else
was suffering.

Finally, fully radicalized,

Khawaja boarded a plane

to a terror training
camp in Pakistan.

That's where he first met
the other members of his cell.

Khawaja combined many qualities

that can be prized
in any society.

He was a self-starter,
he was very smart,

and under different
circumstances,

if he became a doctor,
which, you know,

he contemplated at one point,
he would have utilized

all of those talents
and propensities

in a very different way.

But he was instead
put on this path

that lead him to terrorism.

The goals of men
like Momin Khawaja

are a despicable
perversion of empathy.

Psychologists
say most young terrorists

share the same traits
as young people everywhere.

They desperately want
to belong to something.

But how can they decide

to kill themselves
for their cause?

It may be easier than you think.

Suicide attacks,

the most insidious
aspect of terrorism -

killers who walk calmly
among their victims

before they strike.

The phenomenon has haunted us
for over a century.

The first we know of was
a Russian revolutionary

who assassinated a czar.

Since the 1980s,

the number of suicide attacks
has risen dramatically,

taking the lives
of almost 50,000 people.

How can this happen so often?

What can make someone
want to end their life

in an act of mass murder?

It's a question
psychologist arie kruglanski

has long grappled with.

The early assumption on the part

of social scientists
was that it reflects

a kind of psychopathology...
that is people are basically

mentally disturbed and abnormal.

That was in the '70s
and early '80s.

But research has never shown

that terrorists have
any more mental problems

than the general population.

So how do they decide
to kill themselves

in order to murder many?

Surely, most people
would not make this choice.

Or could they?

Let's go, big red!

Could these
cheerleaders become martyrs?

Let's go!

It's an absurd question,

but arie believes anyone can,
given the right push.

In the particular experiment,

we try to emulate the process
of group identification...

what are you ready to commit
on behalf of the group?

Arie divides
his subjects into two groups,

then he asks each group
to read a story

and to circle
the pronouns as they go.

But arie has given each groups

slightly different versions
of the story.

One group has a story

which only has
singular pronouns...

"I," "me," and "my."

"I go to the city often."

My anticipation fills me

"as I see the skyscrapers
come into view."

The other group
has the same story,

but with plural pronouns...
"we," "us," and "ours."

"We go to the city often."

Our anticipation fills us

"as we see the skyscrapers
come into view."

Arie's priming his subjects,

activating their subconscious
to focus on belonging

or not belonging to a group.

It has been demonstrated
that once you prime these

plural pronouns,

a person gets into a mind set
of group identification.

After this priming,

it's time to test exactly
how much the "we"

and the "I"
groups would sacrifice

for members of their own group.

He asks the cheerleaders
to participate

in a classic
psychological scenario

called the trolley problem.

It portrays individuals
who are in danger

of being run over by a trolley,

and the dilemma is for a person

who could safe them
by sacrificing their life

in throwing themselves
in front of the trolley.

First, arie tests
the subjects who were primed

to think of themselves
as individuals.

Let's go, big red!

Only 30% say they would give

their lives for their friends.

Then arie tests the "we" group.

Let's go, big red!

The difference is profound.

Over 90% of people primed
with the "we," "ours,"

"us" pronouns were willing
to self-sacrifice for the group.

Arie's experiment
shows that group dynamics

have incredible influence
on individual behavior.

Even a subtle feeling
of belonging

can dramatically change
what you're willing to do.

And that doesn't mean that
everybody's equally susceptible

to the influence
of violent ideologies.

So there are
individual differences,

but by and large,

it's not a psychopathological
phenomena.

These people are not crazy,

so it's a question of group
pressure, group influence.

Arie says that group pressure

and the human desire to belong
is the lever

that allows terrorists
to give their lives for a cause.

Under certain circumstances,
even the most normal person

can become a violent extremist.

If subtle cues can push someone

towards violent self-sacrifice,

the right push in the other
direction might stop it.

What kind of push?

The first step to changing
an extremist's mind

might be to agree with him.

We've looked inside
the mind of a terrorist.

What we really want to know
is whether there is a way

to get into that mind
and change it.

You've heard the expression

"winning the hearts
and minds of the enemy."

With terrorists,
that seems like a tall order.

But there might be a way,

and it starts by making
a slight adjustment

to another old phrase...

"if you can't beat them,
agree with them."

Psychology professor
eran halperin studies

the science of changing minds.

It's an uphill battle
in his country, Israel,

home to the intractable struggle

between Israelis
and palestinians.

One of the reasons most
traditional peace interventions

do not work is that we have
two groups of people

with opposing views trying
to reason with each other.

Israelis and palestinians
argue like humans everywhere...

one side express an opinion,
the other counters it.

When someone tells you something
that you disagree with,

the most automatic reaction

is to try to confront him
with a counter message.

But we've all been in arguments

where reason gets you nowhere,
for deeply held beliefs,

say, for gun control
or abortion.

Science has shown
that counter messages

can actually be
counter productive.

Because, basically,
their beliefs,

their attitudes are part
of their identity,

and then anything
that contradicts

what they believe
in sounds to them,

or looks to them, like a threat.

In psychology, we call
the the state of mind "frozen."

This kind of freezing
can happen around

any tightly held belief,

and it happens with terrorists.

Their believes
are sacred to them,

and they become frozen,

resisting any argument,
no matter how rational.

As a young man,
eran looked around his homeland.

He saw a conflict
seemingly without end

and a sea of frozen minds.

I was very seriously
injured in the Israeli army,

and I decided
that this is my mission.

We cannot just accept
it as the reality.

This cannot be
the only situation

in which we can live in.

But how do you change minds

without having an argument?

Eran and his students
at Tel Aviv university

had an idea.

We are going to tell
people with extreme views,

"you know, what?
You're right."

Eran calls it
"paradoxical thinking."

It's like mental jujitsu...

you use people's own
opinions against them.

Let's go go back to a rivalry
we already know.

Say you have a friend

who is a rabid fan
of the rattlers.

You could tell him
how awesome the eagles are,

but this will just
freeze his love

of the rattlers in place.

However, if you use the
paradoxical thinking technique,

you tell him how awesome
the rattlers are,

you tell him
it's the best team ever,

better than family,
better than love,

better than anything.

Overwhelmed,
your friend might reconsider

his love of his team.

Eran wanted to test
his theory on Israel's

most pressing issue...

the Israeli-palestinian
conflict.

So, he made some ads about it.

It's meant to shock.

The text reads...

We took the core ideas
that Israel belive in,

and we practically
took them to the extreme.

Israelis, by and large,

believe their side
of the conflict is just.

But the ads concluded

that not only was
the conflict just,

but Israelis needed
the conflict.

For the sake of these ideas,

to preserve these ideas,

we have to preserve
the conflict.

And this is absurd
in the eyes of most Israelis.

Eran started
the experiment small,

with a focus group
of conservative Israelis.

While they were watching
these videos for the first time,

Israelis got really,
really angry.

But as the time went by,

and as they saw
these video clips again

and again and again,

they started what we call
"a process of unfreezing."

When bombarded by views

even more extreme
than their own,

the test subjects started to
question their own positions,

even those who had said

they would never compromise
with palestinians

sudden signal
a willingness to talk.

It seemed to work
with eran's small sample.

How would it work
in a real Israeli town?

It is called giv'at shmuel,

a city mainly dominated
by Israeli

rightist and centrist people.

And we tried to implement
this intervention

on this entire city
of giv'at shmuel.

Eran and the other researchers

handed out fliers
on the streets,

put up billboards,

and targeted the video clips
to people

in the neighborhood
who were online.

What they discovered was

a change beyond
their expectations.

Again, in some cases
in the beginning,

people got very angry,

but then they discussed
these issues,

when they talked about them,

when they really exposed
themselves to these ideas,

suddenly they started
reconsidering their positions.

In fact,
the intervention worked best

with people who had
the most hard-line views.

One year later, eran found
the shift in opinions

in the test group
had held steady.

We hope that by
exposing more and more people

to this paradoxical
thinking intervention,

we can help them consider
more seriously positive

or peaceful solutions
to the conflict.

But one scientist has another

far more radical proposition
to reduce terrorism...

complete disengagement.

Our struggle against
terrorism feels like

a wall with no foreseeable end.

We take out osama bin laden,

and we find ourselves
fighting Isis.

And a military victory
over Isis in Iraq or Syria

won't end their attacks
on civilians around the world.

For every terrorist
we eliminate,

many more seem
to take their place.

What can we do?

Is there any way to stop
terrorism once and for all?

Evolutionary
anthropologist Peter turchin

has combed through the library
of our collective history

to study the rise
and fall of nations.

He rose to prominence

by making one
stunning prediction.

My book "war and peace and war"

which I published in 2005,

two years
after the occupation of Iraq

by the U.S. and allies, I wrote
the following prediction...

"the western intrusion"

will eventually generate
a counter response,

"possibly in the form
of a new theocratic caliphate."

The U.S. went to Iraq in part

to promote nation building.

According to Peter,

that effort was
a stunning success.

The name of that success
is "Isis,"

an islamic caliphate declared
in 2013,

eight years after
Peter's prediction.

What had Peter seen
that others had missed?

Peter is not your
typical anthropologist.

He takes a dim view
of most so-called

"lessons" of history.

One German historian counted

how many explanations
people have proposed

for the fall
of the Roman empire,

and he counted over 220.

Peter wanted to find a way

to put historical hypotheses
to a scientific test.

He developed a new
mathematical approach

to history called cliodynamics.

I see it as a slayer
of theories.

By the time you're done,
I want to have whole cemeteries

of dead theories out there.

In the early 2000s,

he started to build
mathematical models

to do just that.

One theory he wanted to explore

was what causes the rise
of strong nation-states.

He had hypothesized
that strong nations form

when two dramatically
different cultures go to war.

He thought of these wars
as a global version

of Darwin's survival
of the fittest.

It's a little like
a backgammon tournament

where players stand in
for nation-states.

The conditions
of intense warfare create

a constant struggle for survival
amongst armed groups.

The group that wins is the one
which is the most cohesive,

the most functional,

and oftentimes,
the nastiest one.

Peter set a team
to work collecting data points,

over 100,000 in all...

birth and death rates,

whether they had iron weapons,
agriculture,

anything that might measure
a nation's strength or weakness.

He observed that the more
the groups fought,

the stronger the winning
group became.

Eventually, he developed
a mathematical formula

that predicted the rise
and fall of the Roman empire,

the rise of the ottoman empire,

and the historical growth

of islamic caliphates
in the middle east.

It seemed to work in the past.

How would it work in the future?

That's when Peter
turned his attention

to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

So, after the U.S.
overthrew Saddam Hussein,

this created a large
swath of territory,

which was essentially
stateless with multiple

armed groups battling
against each other.

Eventually, the strongest,

most ruthless group survived...

Isis.

If data can predict
the rise of Isis,

can it tell us
how the islamic state

could be defeated?

So, how should we deal
with the islamic state?

We have three options...
one of them is stay the course,

which essentially means
continue using air power.

Peter believes this
will only perpetuate warfare,

the evolutionary pressure

that gave rise to Isis
in the first place.

The second option
is to escalate.

This means we must be
more ruthless than our enemy,

but given that this would cause
widespread civilian deaths,

Peter believes
it's not an option.

The other opposite
extreme is to do nothing.

In the face of a brutal
organization like Isis,

doing nothing seems shocking.

But Peter is convinced that

if we completely turn
our backs on the region,

the war that created
Isis will diminish.

They'll be left like
a backgammon champion

with no one to play against.

Peter knows this course
will be painful.

Isis and the horrors
they perpetuate

will not go away in an instant.

We'll have to sit by
and let it happen.

But Peter points to his data.

This is the best option
in terms of saving most lives.

Essentially, it means
closing the board

and going home.

In this era of terrorism,

we may not like our options.

But disagreements and debate
are what make us free.

Today, the tools of science
offer us new approaches.

The war against terror
is a war of ideas.

As terrorists seek
to impose their rigid ideas,

our greatest weapon
is our openness to new ideas.