stochastic terrorism
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27 January 2026
The Trump/ICE method is akin to stochastic terrorism. You flood a city with untrained hotheads. You pump them up with white nationalist propaganda and tell them to escalate and kick ass. You also make clear you'll shield them from any legal accountability. You don't know specifically who is going to kill someone but you know there will be a sizeable number of killings as a predictable outcome of establishing those conditions.
—Josh Marshall, Bluesky, 24 January 2026
Stochastic terrorism is a relatively new term, seemingly arising in national security and risk management circles following the 9-11 attacks in 2001. The earliest use of the term that I have found is in an article by risk analyst Gordon Woo in the Fall 2002 issue of the Journal of Risk Finance. Woo uses “A Stochastic Terrorism Model” as a section header in that article.
Stochastic, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, describes something that is
randomly determined; that follows some random probability distribution or pattern, so that its behaviour may be analysed statistically but not predicted precisely
And a concise definition of stochastic terrorism appeared in a post to the Daily Kos on 10 January 2011:
Stochastic terrorism is the use of mass communications to incite random actors to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable. In short, remote-control murder by lone wolf.
Shortly after this appearance in the Daily Kos the first appearance of the phrase in traditional media is in a letter to the editor of the Vancouver, Washington Columbian:
In the aftermath of the murderous shooting rampage in Tucson, with “false equivalency” accusations of “incendiary rhetoric” and “inciting violence” being indiscriminately leveled at media pundits on both sides of the political aisle, the venomous vitriol of Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, Neal Boortz et al against President Obama and liberals in general, stands head and shoulders above any punditry from “the left.”
This brings to mind the phenomenon of “stochastic terrorism”—“the use of mass communications to stir up random lone wolves to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable”
While the definition of stochastic terrorism has remained unchanged since it was coined c. 2002, about a decade after its coinage, the context in which it commonly appeared has shifted. It was coined in the context of terrorism directed at nation-states by groups such as the IRA and Al-Qaeda. But since around 2011, when the term moved from the discourse of experts in national security and risk management into that of journalists and the general public, it has tended to be applied in reference to right-wing, anti-democratic domestic actors. And most recently, as the Bluesky post by journalist Josh Marshall demonstrates, it is being used in reference to the US government targeting its own population.
Sources:
Carver, Michael T. “Our Reader’s Views” (letter to the editor). Columbian (Vancouver, Washington), 27 January 2011, C4/3–4. Columbian Archive.
G2geek. “Stochastic Terrorism: Triggering the Shooters.” Daily Kos, 10 January 2011.
Marshall, Josh (@joshtpm.bsky.social). Bluesky, 24 January 2026.
Oxford English Dictionary Online, 1917, s.v. stochastic, adj.
Woo, Gordon. “Quantitative Terrorism Risk Assessment.” Journal of Risk Finance, 4.1, Fall 2002, 7–14 at 9/2.