Examining a Terrorist Network Using Contingency Table Analysis

The information revolution of the 21st century has changed the nature of war to focus on the area of network-centric warfare. While the number and strength of dark networks continue to increase, the U.S. Department of Defense seeks to identify, predict, and counteract possible terrorist threats. The intelligence community is undertaking the seemingly impossible task of using the information that is currently available through social networks and military reports. This report will examine the Ali Baba data set that was created in 2003 for the National Security Agency NSA by Mark Jaworoski and Steve Pavlak. The Ali Baba data set contains fictitious Word documents that have recorded the actions of a suspected terrorist network. This report will demonstrate the use of statistics in examining terrorist organizations. Specifically, it will determine if contingency table analysis using the R programming language can be used to analyze a terrorist network.