Pape, Robert A. 1960-
Pape, Robert A. 1960-
(Robert Pape, Robert Anthony Pape)
PERSONAL:
Born 1960, in Erie, PA. Education:Graduated (summa cum laude) from University of Pittsburgh, 1982; University of Chicago, Ph.D., 1988.
ADDRESSES:
Office—Department of Political Science,University of Chicago, Pick Hall, 418 A, 5828 S. University Ave., Chicago, IL 60637.E-mail—rpape@uchicago.edu.
CAREER:
Writer and professor. Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, teacher of international relations, 1991-96; United States Air Force School of Advanced Airpower Studies, Maxwell Air Force Base, AL, teacher of air power strategy, 1996-99; University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, professor of political science, 1999—, founder and director of the Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism, 2003—. Has appeared as a commentator on national television and radio programs, includingNightline, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, World News Tonight, and National Public Radio.
MEMBER:
WRITINGS:
NONFICTION
Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War,Cornell University Press (Ithaca, NY), 1996.
Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism,Random House (New York, NY), 2005.
Contributor to periodicals, including International Security, American Political Science Review, International Organization, New York Times, Washington Post, New Republic, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs, and Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
SIDELIGHTS:
Robert A. Pape is a professor of political science and author whose work focuses on international security and relations. In his first book,Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War,Pape analyzes over thirty air raids to prove that strategic air power has a wide range of effectiveness. He provides details of the bombing and governmental decision making during air campaigns on Germany, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq, as well as others. The author attempts to prove that success lies in a focused attack on the enemy's military strategy. Reviewers held mixed responses to the book. Stephen Garrett, writing in the American Political Science Review, acknowledged that "the case Pape offers against the enthusiasms of strategic air power theorists is, on balance, a strong and convincing one. This, indeed, is quite a good book by any standard and will have to be taken into account even by those who may dispute its basic thesis." Although Foreign Affairscritic Eliot A. Cohen felt that the book contained a few "overly simple assertions," he concluded that the "skillfully assembled evidence make[s] this a book to be reckoned with."
In 2005 Pape published Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. The book contains information about all 315 suicide attacks that occurred from 1980 to 2003. Pape argues that suicide terrorism increased during these years because the attackers felt that it was an effective way to resist foreign occupation. Consequently, the author concludes that in order to decrease the terrorism threat, the United Statesneeds to eliminate foreign interference. Pape attempts to disprove the popular belief that the majority of suicide terrorists are members of Islamist groups seeking revenge or religious fulfillment.
Dying to Win elicited mixed reviews. Max Abrahms, writing in Middle East Policy, noted that the book is "a significant contribution to terrorism studies that ap- plies statistical analysis to answer core questions about suicide terrorism," and futher commented, "Pape deserves credit for creating this indispensable resource, even if scholars may not accept all of his conclusions." Alternately, Middle East Journal critic Clark McCauley felt that "Pape offers a very narrow view of the rationality of suicide terrorism." Additionally, J. Peter Pham, reviewing the book in the National Interest,stated: "While Pape's findings are extremely valuable and useful for understanding why terrorist organizations adopt suicide tactics against external enemies whom they perceive to be militarily occupying their claimed homeland, they tend to gloss over the personal motivations of the perpetrators of suicide terror, the internal dynamics of the groups that dispatch them and the constituencies they seek to represent." Frank R. Zindler, writing in the American Atheist magazine, felt differently, calling Pape's analysis "paradigm-shifting" and noting that the book "transcends speculation with systematic scholarship, making it one of the most important political studies of recent time."
In an interview with Harry Kreisler of the University of California, Berkeley, Pape described how he became interested in political science: "My very first term, I had no idea what political science was but there was a course offered in international relations, and so I took it and it turned out I loved it." Pape continued: "I was in a course that focused on Morgenthau and great power politics, things that I had been generally interested in but never deeply engaged, and then I found myself taking more and more courses along those lines, and in other areas of political science as well."
BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:
PERIODICALS
American Atheist, summer, 2005, Frank R. Zindler, "Terrorists or Freedom Fighters?," review of Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism,p. 39.
American Political Science Review, June, 1997, Stephen Garrett, review of Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War, p. 506.
Commentary, September, 2005, Jonathan Kay, "Numbers Racket," review of Dying to Win, p. 69.
Foreign Affairs, May-June, 1996, Eliot A. Cohen, review of Bombing to Win, p. 139.
Middle East Journal, autumn, 2005, Clark McCauley, "The Politics of Suicide Terrorism," review of Dying to Win, p. 663.
Middle East Policy, winter, 2005, Max Abrahms, review of Dying to Win, p. 176.
National Interest, fall, 2005, J. Peter Pham, "Killing to Make a Killing," review of Dying to Win, p. 132.
New Republic, January 23, 2006, David Bromwich, "Maenads and Jihadis," review of Dying to Win,p. 27.
ONLINE
University of California at Berkeley, Institute of International Studies Web site,http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/(June 20, 2006), Harry Kreisler, "The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism: Conversation with Robert A. Pape."
University of Chicago, Department of Political Science Web site,http://political-science.uchicago.edu/(June 20, 2006), author profile.