Modeling Transnational Terrorists' Center of Gravity

Since the September 11th terrorist attack, there has been an increased emphasis on understanding and modeling terroristsgroups. While several efforts have focused on identifying transnational terrorists' centers of gravity (COGs), most of theseefforts have proposed COGs using a traditional nation-state paradigm. In today's "global village", terrorist groups are nolonger limited by locality and national boundaries. With the increasing threats from transnational terrorist groups, newparadigms and models are necessary to properly analyze today's, and tomorrow's, conflict. Analysis should be based on theidentified and quantified transnational terrorists' COGs and their associated interactions. Unfortunately, not all of thetransnational terrorists' COGs and their interconnected cause and effect relationships are fully known or understood.