What is "exploitative attack"?

Pinker is difficult even for me to read!

An exploitative attack would be an attack made to exploit a perceived weakness, I suppose.

Ah yes, the Wiki entry was most probably not written by Steven Pinker, but I dare say there was a good deal of COPY and PASTE involved in its composition.

I have got one book by him, but not this one.

Pinker identifies five "historical forces" that have favored "our peaceable motives" and "have driven the multiple declines in violence."[2] They are:

The Leviathan – the rise of the modern nation-state and judiciary "with a monopoly on the legitimate use of force," which "can defuse the [individual] temptation of exploitative attack, inhibit the impulse for revenge, and circumvent ... self-serving biases."
Commerce – the rise of "technological progress [allowing] the exchange of goods and services over longer distances and larger groups of trading partners," so that "other people become more valuable alive than dead" and "are less likely to become targets of demonization and dehumanization."
Feminization – increasing respect for "the interests and values of women."
Cosmopolitanism – the rise of forces such as literacy, mobility, and mass media, which "can prompt people to take the perspectives of people unlike themselves and to expand their circle of sympathy to embrace them."
The Escalator of Reason – an "intensifying application of knowledge and rationality to human affairs," which "can force people to recognize the futility of cycles of violence, to ramp down the privileging of their own interests over others', and to reframe violence as a problem to be solved rather than a contest to be won."[2]:xxvi

Cosmopolitanism – the rise of forces such as literacy, mobility, and mass media, which "can prompt people to take the perspectives of people unlike themselves and to expand their circle of sympathy to embrace them."
The Escalator of Reason – an "intensifying application of knowledge and rationality to human affairs," which "can force people to recognize the futility of cycles of violence, to ramp down the privileging of their own interests over others', and to reframe violence as a problem to be solved rather than a contest to be won."

They are all very good, especially these two.
It's a great pity though, that all parts of the world do not progress at the same time nor at the same pace.
So anomalies like Khmer Rouge, North Korea, and ISIL crop up, which are not part of the programme.
But Mr Pinker's analysis seems masterly.