Naval postgraduate school monterey, california thesis

emergency plan for action
. This plan is utilized if the 
hostage takers decide to start killing or moving the hostages. From this initial plan, a 
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The Stockholm syndrome derives its name from the reaction of the victims during a 6-day siege in a 
bank vault in Stockholm, Sweden. A lone gunman, trapped during a robbery attempt, herded a man and 
three women into the vault and then demanded and received the release of a former confederate who had 
been imprisoned. Eventually, police drilled through the vault, shot tear gas into it, and forced everyone out.
As they fled, however, the four hostages encircled their captors because, they said, they wanted to protect 
them from possible harm by the police. Later, one of the women said she was in love with the bank robber 
and would wait for his release from prison to marry him. Psychologically, the captor has had life-and-death 
control over the victim and has allowed the victim to survive, earning a sort of everlasting gratitude (Bolz, 
Dudonis, and Schulz, 2002, pp. 209-210).
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Transference is a term used by psychiatrists and psychologists to denote the identification by one 
person with another. Transference can develop between the hostage-taker or kidnapper and his victims, 
too, as well as between the negotiator and perpetrator. It is less likely that the perpetrator will kill a hostage 
when some degree of transference has developed (pp. 210-211). 

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further more refined 
deliberate plan of action
is developed, to be conducted in the event 
negotiations fail. This plan is never finalized; it is updated and refined continuously as 
new information and intelligence come in that can aid in the rescue. A third option 
developed in the rescue planning sequence is the 
emergency-deliberate plan of action
; 
this plan is a variation of the 
deliberate plan of action
. It is a contingency plan in the 
event that the terrorists detect the rescue force during their approach to the target, while 
conducting the intended 
deliberate plan of action
. For example, the rescue force can be 
moving to the target area surreptitiously and a terrorist might be out for a walk outside of 
the target area. The rescue force can be compromised at this point and be forced to 
change their original plan and rush to the target. The new plan now becomes the 
emergency-deliberate plan of action
. These three plans become the essence of the rescue 
order. This is why it is so essential that the operators get intimately involved in the 
planning process, aware of all the changes and contingencies, able to execute it when the 
time comes. 
The keystone of SOF mission planning is that the operational element 
executing the mission must plan the mission (Joint Pub 3-05, 1998, p. IV-
6).
Not only is it critical that planning occurs at the operator level, but the planning 
and rehearsals must fully integrate all participants involved with the rescue operation.
This was a critical mistake during Operation EAGLE CLAW in 1980—the failed rescue 
attempt to recover the hostages in Iran. Throughout the six-month preparation and 
rehearsal process, none of the individual operational elements planned or rehearsed their 
portion of the operation as one group. Staff planners from JTF 1-79 isolated themselves 
from the operational element in a futile effort to preserve operational security, failing to 
disseminate the plan properly. This caused mass confusion once the helicopters departed 
with the assault force, leading up to the disaster at the DESERT ONE (see Chapter VIII 
for case study).
Any consideration to conduct a military rescue attempt must take into account the 
strategic, operational, and tactical, first and second order effects on all four instruments of 
national power—diplomatic, informational, military, economical (known as the 
DIME
).
The rescue option should be the last resort, after the diplomatic, informational, and 

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economical instruments of national power have been exhausted; nevertheless, it should be 
a synergistic approach from the onset of the crisis, and not one that moves incrementally, 
waiting to the last moment to stand up a rescue plan of action.
The characteristics of the hostage takers are critical in determining when to 
conduct the rescue. The intelligence operations require real time precision and ways to 
disseminate immediately to the rescue personnel as well as the negotiating party. Fusion 
of all accurate and timely intelligence must focus on developing the most effective plan 
to rescue the hostages together with the operators in the decision making process. 
A valid rescue plan must meet five prerequisites of any military decision-making 
process. The plan must be 
suitable
—it can accomplish the mission and comply with the 
guidance given from the highest levels. The plan must be 
feasible
—it must be able to 
accomplish the mission within the established time, space, and resource constraints. It 
must be 
acceptable
—it must balance cost with advantage gained by executing a