Brandon J. Kinne, University of California, Davis; Iliyan Iliev, The University of Southern Mississippi, and Nahrain Bet Younadam, University of Arizona

After an Islamic State group-inspired attack in New Orleans killed 14 people on New Year’s Day 2025, President Joe Biden warned that terrorists would find “no safe harbor” in the U.S.

Governments often condemn terrorist groups in this way, as well as making threats and engaging in what we call “verbal attacks.”

But such an approach may be counterproductive; extremist groups tend to respond to such comments by ratcheting up violence against civilians. That’s what we found when we analyzed six years of data on incidents of terrorist violence and their proximity to government denunciations.

Our study focused primarily on the Islamic State group.

The extremist organization came to the world’s attention in early 2014, when it began seizing territory in Iraq and Syria. At the height of its power in 2015, the Islamic State group controlled over 100,000 square kilometers (39,000 square miles).

Although it has declined substantially since then, the group remains the world’s deadliest terror organization – responsible for nearly 2,000 deaths in 2023.

The rapid metastasis of the Islamic State group – it has affiliates across the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia – combined with the extreme brutality of its tactics, triggered waves of condemnations by foreign governments. Former U.S. president Barack Obama initially referred to the Islamic State group as the “JV team” in 2014, implying that the group was not as formidable an opponent as more established groups like al-Qaida. A year later, he vowed to “destroy” the group.

Our motivating research question is whether these and similar statements affect terrorists’ behavior.

Traditionally, researchers have dismissed statements like this as “cheap talk.” And government officials similarly do not take seriously the possibility that such statements might have unintended consequences or inflict actual costs.

But when extremist groups commit terror attacks, they always have an audience in mind. And the Islamic State group closely monitors how governments respond to its actions.

Terrorist groups use attacks on civilians to illustrate the extreme measures they are willing to take to achieve their goals. Our research suggests that when governments denounce terrorists, reject their demands or make retaliatory threats, targeted groups infer that they are not being taken seriously. As a result, they commit further atrocities against civilians, with the intent of signaling their intentions and capabilities even more forcefully.

To confirm this, we used a large-scale machine-coded dataset known as the Integrated Crisis Early Warning System to extract daily data on all events involving the Islamic State group for the period 2014 to 2020. We then employed a coding system known as CAMEO to identify events where governments threatened, denounced or otherwise verbally attacked the group.

We found that when governments initiated any form of verbal attack against the organization, the Islamic State group responded by targeting civilians, typically within two days of a verbal attack.

Our model showed that every three verbal attacks by governments led to an additional, otherwise unexpected attack by the Islamic State group on civilians. These attacks averaged over six deaths per attack, so the humanitarian consequences of this effect are substantial.

Why it matters

Government leaders face enormous pressures to address national security threats, and terrorism is a powerful source of anxiety for citizens.

Yet, counterterrorism is expensive, risky and logistically difficult.

As such, publicly threatening or denouncing an organization offers a tempting alternative strategy. But there has been little research into how government leaders’ words might backfire, encouraging extremists to attack civilians.

At the same time, although the Islamic State group has diminished greatly in capacity, transnational terrorism continues to flourish. And the resurgence of the Islamic State group remains a threat to security in the Middle East and beyond.

What still isn’t known

We extended the analysis to the terrorist groups Boko Haram in Nigeria and Al-Qaida in Iraq, and we found similar results. But further research is needed to determine whether this pattern holds for terrorist groups in general.

Our theory argues that extremists respond so strongly to verbal attacks because they view those remarks as questioning the group’s credibility – a phenomenon we refer to as a “credibility deficit.”

But terrorists have many motivations, including the desire to control territory and repress dissent. We don’t yet know the magnitude of these influences relative to credibility.

The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.

Brandon J. Kinne, Professor of Political Science, University of California, Davis; Iliyan Iliev, Associate Professor of Political Science, The University of Southern Mississippi, and Nahrain Bet Younadam, Postdoctoral Research Associate in the School of Government and Public Policy, University of Arizona

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Nancy Forster-Holt, University of Rhode Island; Cassidy Creech, Utah State University, and James Davis, Utah State University

Succession planning is one of the biggest challenges family businesses face, with aging leaders often reluctant to let go of their power.

While we’re experts in family business and not politics, we couldn’t help but notice striking parallels between our research and the dynamics of the 2024 election campaign. For much of the race, the leading candidates were former incumbents – both over age 75 and both resistant to stepping aside.

As the race unfolded last year with both candidates digging in their heels – well, we can’t say we were surprised.

While Joe Biden eventually ended his run after an intense pressure campaign – a decision he reportedly regrets – Donald Trump stayed in the race and campaigned his way to victory. In fact, Trump, despite being unique in many ways, acted like a typical owner of a family business. Which, of course, he is.

That’s why research into family business offers a useful lens through which to understand current events.

What research reveals about family business leaders

Family businesses are the backbone of the American economy, by some estimates representing about 90% of all U.S. enterprises. Up to 40% of family businesses at any given time are facing a succession issue, yet many avoid planning for it, opting to wait out the leader. And by 2030, more than 30% are expected to lose their leaders to retirement or death. The challenges of finding a successor are particularly significant when a leader is buoyed by what family business researchers call “heroic self-concept.”

People with a heroic self-concept – an idea that was introduced to the family business literature in 1989 – believe they have a heroic mission and derive a sense of heroic stature from their attachment to leadership roles. Examples from history include Winston Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt. From business, think Richard Branson of the Virgin companies, or Steve Jobs of Apple.

But while anyone can be a hero, not everyone has a heroic self-concept. In our recent study of more than 1,000 family business leaders – 785 men and 263 women – we found that male but not female leaders of family businesses were motivated by heroic self-concept.

Our work was informed by “precarious manhood theory,” a concept from social psychology that argues manhood is a status men have to fight to achieve. It’s hard-won, easily lost and must be proven continually.

Our findings suggest “letting go” is a particularly fraught issue for male leaders for precisely this reason: They’re more likely to feel a need to continually pursue a heroic mission and cultivate their heroic stature.

Trump as the family business patriarch

With his long history as a family business leader, Trump offers a natural extension of our work. His entire career has been spent cultivating a heroic stature. He consistently emphasizes his business successes, portraying himself as a dealmaker, a winner and a man with a mission.

While it’s important to note that this analysis is based on our research findings and doesn’t represent a clinical evaluation, we think Trump’s reluctance to let go illustrates three key insights from family business research.

First, family business leaders are motivated by a sense of unfinished mission. Trump’s tagline, “Make America Great Again,” speaks to the heroic mission. The heroic mission is an achieved status that, according to the precarious manhood theory, must be continually reproven through risk-taking, competitive aggression and other acts of masculine swagger.

Meanwhile, family business leaders tend not to talk about leaving and eschew retirement planning, research shows. They stay in office much longer on average than nonfamily CEOs – on average by about nine more years in a privately held company and by about 20 more years than the average for the CEO of a publicly traded company. And in retirement they often yearn for lost stature.

Likewise, Trump has framed his return as a necessary step in completing his unfinished business and cementing his legacy. Running for office again allows Trump to step back into the spotlight, reclaim the narrative and reinforce his image.

Second, when older leaders hold on to power, frustrated successors become casualties. Aging leaders who are reluctant to let go can deter potential successors from joining or remaining with the business, leading to a loss of talent. Uncertainty about the timing of the succession process combined with the view that the leader may never fully give up control can leave potential successors frustrated and resentful, feeling their ambitions have been stifled.

We believe this tendency isn’t confined to family business but can be seen in U.S. government, too. When the leader is reluctant to let go, it can lead to a situation where potential successors seek opportunities elsewhere, leaving a shortage of qualified leaders. It can also prevent the introduction of fresh ideas and innovation, making it difficult for a business to adapt to change. This is the classic institutional drama that plays out in a gerontocracy. And perhaps it’s no coincidence that Democrats are struggling with similar concerns.

And yet, while this tendency can create long-term problems for an institution, insiders are often complicit. There’s little evidence that Trump’s family – or party – wants or expects him to step down. Similarly, we found that when leaders prioritize their personal need for control and status, family members, supporters, employees and associates often respond by avoiding the issue entirely, suppressing their real views.

Our research also suggests that a leader’s prolonged quest for immortality can strain family unity. Evidence of this for Trump may include the defection from the administration by prior Trump family and team members.

Our study adds nuance to a significant body of research showing that older male leaders are steeped in society’s expectations for men, which valorize “youthful” masculine behaviors and identity. That leaves them with little to guide or inspire their behavior in later life. The pressure on men to constantly prove their worth and manhood can leave them strongly attached to the status and identity they get from being a leader.

The dynamics of leadership, succession and the influence of the heroic self-concept that we study aren’t limited to the boardroom. They play out on a much larger stage, shaping the decisions and actions of individuals who hold immense power, even on national and global scales.

Across the world, national leaders keep getting older. Let’s get curious about why they don’t let go.

Nancy Forster-Holt, Clinical Associate Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, URI Aging Fellows, UMaine Center on Aging Research Associate, University of Rhode Island; Cassidy Creech, Assistant Professor of Marketing and Strategy, Utah State University, and James Davis, Professor of Management, Utah State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Scott L. Montgomery, University of Washington

President-elect Donald Trump has sparked diplomatic controversy by suggesting the U.S. needs to acquire Greenland for reasons of “national security” and refusing to definitively rule out using military force to do so. Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory, “is not for sale,” said Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen.

Trump’s interest in Greenland is not new. He first expressed interest in the territory in 2019, but it never developed into any action.

Whether or not Trump has actual plans this time around to advance any attempt in Washington to own Greenland is far from clear. But given the incoming president’s repeated statements and invocation of national security, it’s worth considering what strategic value Greenland might actually have from the perspective of the U.S.’s geopolitical priorities.

As a scholar of geopolitical conflicts involving natural resources and the Arctic, I believe Greenland’s value from an international political perspective can be viewed in terms of four fundamental areas: minerals, military presence, Arctic geopolitics and the territory’s potential independence.

A matter of minerals

Greenland’s most valuable natural resources lie with its vast mineral wealth, which holds real potential to advance its economy. Identified deposits include precious metals such as gold and platinum, a number of base metals – zinc, iron, copper, nickel, cobalt and uranium – and rare earth elements, including neodymium, dysprosium and praseodymium. A detailed 2023 summary published by the Geologic Survey of Denmark and Greenland suggests new deposits will be found with the continued retreat of the Greenland Ice Sheet.

Greenland’s rare earth resources are particularly significant. These elements are essential not only to battery, solar and wind technology but also to military applications. If fully developed, the Kvanefjeld – or Kuannersuit in Greenlandic – uranium and rare earth deposit would place Greenland among the top producers worldwide.

During the 2010s, Greenland’s leaders encouraged interest from outside mining firms, including leading Chinese companies, before finally granting a lease to the Australian company Energy Transition Minerals (formerly Greenland Minerals Ltd).

When China’s Shenghe Resources took a major share in Energy Transition Minerals, it raised red flags for Denmark, the European Union and the U.S., which felt China was seeking to expand its global dominance of the rare earth market while reducing Europe’s own potential supply.

The issue was put to rest in 2021 when Greenland’s parliament banned all uranium mining, killing further development of Kvanefjeld for the time being. That same year saw the government also prohibit any further oil and gas activity. Predictably, a majority of mining companies have subsequently steered clear of Greenland due to perceived concern of any investment being jeopardized by future political decisions.

Fears of China abroad

China’s interest in Greenland stretches back at least a decade.

In 2015, Greenland Minister of Finance and Interior Vittus Qujaukitsoq visited China to discuss possible investment in mining, hydropower, port and other infrastructure projects. One firm, China Communications Construction Company, bid to build two airports, one in the capital, Nuuk, the other in Ilulissat.

Another Chinese firm, General Nice Group, offered to purchase an abandoned Danish naval base in northeastern Greenland, while the Chinese Academy of Sciences asked to build a permanent research center and a satellite ground station near Nuuk.

None of this sat well with the first Trump administration, which put pressure on Denmark to convince Greenland’s government that a significant, official Chinese presence on the island was unwanted. The Danes and Greenlanders complied, rebuffing Chinese attempts to invest in Greenland-based projects.

The Trump administration, in particular, viewed China’s interest in Greenland as having hidden commercial and military motives, concerns that continued under the Biden administration in its recent lobbying of another Australian mining firm not to sell any of its Greenland assets to Chinese companies.

Long-standing US interest

The U.S. has had a long-standing security interest in Greenland dating from 1946, when it offered Denmark US$100 million in gold bullion for it. The Danes politely but firmly declined, with their foreign minister saying he didn’t feel “we owe them the whole island.”

In the early 1950s, the U.S built Thule Air Force Base 750 miles (about 1,200 kilometers) north of the Arctic Circle. Originally a missile early warning and radio communications site, it was transferred to the newly formed U.S. Space Force in 2020 and renamed Pituffik Space Base in 2023.

The northernmost military facility of the U.S., Pituffik has updated radar and tracking capabilities to provide missile warning, defense and space surveillance, and satellite command missions. While it also supports scientific research focused on the Arctic, the base is intended to increase military capabilities in the Arctic region for both the U.S. and its allies.

The base has the ability to track shipping as well as air and satellite positions, giving it both real and symbolic importance to American strategic interests in the Arctic. As a result, much of the U.S. foreign policy establishment, not just those in Trump’s orbit, view any notable Chinese presence in Greenland, whether temporary or permanent, with concern.

Geopolitics of the Arctic

Greenland is geographically situated between the Northern Sea Route and the Northwest Passage, two Arctic shipping routes whose importance is growing as sea ice shrinks. By around 2050, a Transpolar Sea Route is likely to open through the central Arctic Ocean, passing Greenland’s eastern shores. Furthermore, the island is the basis of Denmark’s sovereignty claim to the North Pole – rivaled by claims by Russia and Canada.

While international law recognizes no national sovereignty in international waters, that has done little to end the diplomatic tug-of-war over the pole. The matter is far from trivial: Sovereignty would give a country access to potentially significant oil, gas and rare earth resources, as well as superior scientific and military access to the future Transpolar Sea Route.

Yet, this dispute over ownership of the North Pole is only one part of the geopolitical struggle for offshore territory in the region. Russia’s growing militarization of its enormous coastal area has been countered by NATO military exercises in northern Scandinavia, while China’s own moves into the Arctic, aided by Moscow, has seen the launch of several research stations supported by icebreakers and agreements for research and commercial projects.

China’s government has also asserted it has rights in the region, for navigation, fishing, overflight, investment in oil and gas projects, and more.

Greenland for Greenlanders?

All of these factors help decipher the realities involved in the U.S.-Denmark-Greenland relationship. Despite Trump’s words, I believe it is extremely unlikely he would actually use U.S. military force to take Greenland, and it’s an open question whether he would use coercive economic policies in the form of tariffs against Denmark to give him leverage in negotiating a purchase of Greenland.

Yet while Trump and other foreign policy outsiders view Greenland through an external strategic and economic lens, the island is home to nearly 60,000 people – 90% of them indigenous Inuit – many of whom treat the designs of foreign nations on their territory with skepticism.

Indeed, in 2008, Greenland voted to pursue nationhood. The island receives an annual subsidy of 500 million euros ($513 million) from Denmark, and to further economic independence, it has sought foreign investment.

Interest from China has accompanied Greenland’s moves toward independence, backed by Beijing’s strategy to be an Arctic player. The thinking in Beijing may be that an independent Greenland will be less shackled to NATO and the European Union, and as such, more open to investment from further afield.

Ironically, Trump’s recent comments have the potential of achieving something very different than their aim by encouraging Greenland’s prime minister, Mute Egede, to propose a referendum in 2025 on full independence.

“It is now time for our country to take the next step,” he said. “We must work to remove … the shackles of colonialism.”

Scott L. Montgomery, Lecturer, Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.