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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political activism > Terrorism, freedom fighters, armed struggle
There is a wide spectrum of potential threats to the U.S. homeland that do not involve overt attacks by states using long-range missiles or conventional military forces. Such threats include covert attacks by state actors, state use of proxies, independent terrorist and extremist attacks by foreign groups or individuals, and independent terrorist and extremist attacks by residents of the United States. These threats are currently limited in scope and frequency, but are emerging as potentially significant issues for future U.S. security. In this comprehensive work, Cordesman argues that new threats require new thinking, and offers a range of recommendations, from expanding the understanding of what constitutes a threat and bolstering Homeland defense measures, to bettering resource allocation and improving intelligence gathering and analysis. No pattern of actual attacks on U.S. territory has yet emerged that provides a clear basis for predicting how serious any given form of attack might be in the future, what means of attack might be used, or how lethal new forms of attack might be. As a result, there is a major ongoing debate over the seriousness of the threat and how the U.S. government should react. This work is an invaluable contribution to that debate.
This textbook serves as a guide to design and evaluate evidence-based programs intended to prevent or counter violent extremism (P/CVE). Violent extremism and related hate crimes are problems which confront societies in virtually every region of the world; this text examines how we can prevent or counter violent extremism using a systematic, evidence-based approach. The book, equal parts theoretical, methodological and applied, represents the first science-based guide for understanding "what makes hate," and how to design and evaluate programs intended to prevent this. Though designed to serve as a primary course textbook, the work can readily serve as a how-to guide for self-study, given its abundant links to freely available online toolkits and templates. As such, it is designed to inform both students and practitioners alike with respect to the management, design, or evaluation of programs intended to prevent or counter violent extremism. Written by a leading social scientist in the field of P/CVE program evaluation, this book is rich in both scientific rigor and examples from the "real world" of research and evaluation dedicated to P/CVE. This book will be essential reading for students of terrorism, preventing or countering violent extremism, political violence, and deradicalization, and highly recommended for students of criminal justice, criminology, and behavioural psychology.
This book examines the processes and factors shaping the development of homeland security policies in the European Union (EU), within the wider context of European integration. The EU functions in a complex security environment, with perceived security threats from Islamist terrorists, migration and border security issues, and environmental problems. In order to deal with these, the EU has undertaken a number of actions, including the adoption of the European Security Strategy in 2003, the Information Management Strategy of 2009, and the Internal Security Strategy of 2010. However, despite such efforts to achieve a more concerted European action in the field of security, there are still many questions to be answered about whether the European approach is really a strategic one. European Homeland Security addresses two major debates in relation to the development of homeland security in Europe. First, it reflects on the absence of homeland security in European political debate and its potential consequences. Second, it examines the significant policy developments in the EU that suggest the influence of homeland security ideas, notably through policy transfer from the United States. The book will be of great interest to students of European security and EU politics, terrorism and counter-terrorism, security studies and IR.
Terrorism is not the only threat that causes the emergence of crises. The so-called 'crisification' of our security environment also seems to be rising due to many other factors. Such an environment is generating many crises related to politico-military conflicts, natural disasters, infectious diseases, information disruptions, ethnic or religious violence and others. Many of these crises are completely or nearly completely unexpected and have a strong effect on the security of individual people, states and the international community. 'Crisis' has become the key word instead of 'war'. The awareness of this is partially driven by the growing role of electronic media, bringing negative news and reports to nearly all homes, and partially by objective technical factors that allow the fast escalation of local crises to the international level. Globalization therefore has a strong subjective and objective impact on the understanding of security.
This book examines the evolution, function, problems and prospects of private security companies in the maritime sector. The private security industry continues to evolve after its renaissance over the past few decades, first in Africa, and later in Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite this, little academic work has been done to date on the role of private security in the maritime environment. This lacuna has become more pronounced as the threat of piracy, terrorism, and other acts of maritime political violence have caused littoral states and commercial entities alike to consider the use of private security to mitigate risks. Maritime Private Security is an edited volume specifically dedicated to combating the absence of academic research in this area. The discussion of this multi-faceted subject is organised into four key parts: Part I: The Historical and Contemporary Market in Maritime Private Security Services Part II: The Emergence of Private Anti-Piracy Escorts in the Commercial Sector Part III: The Privatization of Coast Guard Services Part IV: Private Security Responses to Maritime Terrorism This book will be of much interest to students of naval policy and maritime security, private security companies, piracy and terrorism, international law and IR in general.
Mandel's comprehensive study provides an integrated, explanatory analysis of the new global security environment, which he terms "the global playground," and the consequent blossoming of ominous flows or "deadly transfers." It includes an analysis of the behavior of rogue states, terrorist groups, transnational criminal organizations, and deviant individuals. Mandel begins with a discussion of the general nature of the emerging global situation and the transborder activities that occur within it, then turns to an overarching analysis of the intractable causes, pernicious consequences, and futile cures associated with these ominous transnational flows. Such activities include clandestine conventional arms, illegal human migration, illicit drugs, hazardous materials, lethal diseases, and information disruption. Both national and international organizations are fundamentally weak when it comes to dealing with such transfers. In contrast to the prevailing view that more deterrence-oriented coercion is necessary to stop these flows, this study suggests that a bottom-up approach involving changes in mass attitudes is crucial. It does not shy away from pointing directly at potential areas of security dysfunction at all levels of policy making. In taking a largely theoretical rather than case-specific approach to exploring these issues, it hopes to avoid the usual laundry list of shocking anecdotal incidents to develop a broader understanding of the new security dilemmas confronting us all. Finally, in demonstrating the futility of existing remedies and in suggesting an alternative, preliminary set of ideas to cope with these transactions, Mandel attempts to give security policy makers a widerarsenal of options from which to choose.
First full length study in English of the Japanese Red Army. Contains lots of new information about the groups links with international terrorism. Reveals the intellectuals who supported terrorism.
This book provides a critical and a conceptual analysis of radical Islamist rhetoric drawn from temporally and contextually varied Islamist extremist groups, challenging the popular understanding of Islamist extremism as a product of a clash-of-civilizations . Arguing that the essence of Islamist extremism can only be accurately understood by drawing a distinction between the radical Islamist explanations and justifications of violence, the author posits that despite the radical Islamist contextualization of violence within Islamic religious tenets, there is nothing conceptually or distinctly Islamic about Islamist extremism. She engages in a critical analysis of the nature of reason in radical Islamist rhetoric, asserting that the radical Islamist explanations of violence are conceptually reasoned in terms of existential Hegelian struggles for recognition (as fundamentally struggles against oppression), and the radical Islamist justifications of violence are conceptually reasoned in terms of moral consequentialism. With a detailed analysis of Islamist extremist discourse spanning a wide range of contexts, this book has a broad relevance for scholars and students working in the field of Islamic studies, religious violence, philosophy and political theory.
In this book, Alaolmolki, an expert on the transnational politics of Central Asia and the Persian Gulf, provides a global view of militant Islamist ideologies, activities, and connections. Unlike many extant books on this topic, "Militant Islamists" does not examine only one particular factor or driving force in political violence such as suicide bombings; rather, this work studies transnational militant Islam on several levels: domestic (e.g., the role of poverty and lack of democracy in Arab and Muslim nations); regional (e.g., the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; Hizbullah in Lebanon; Jemmah Islamiyan in Southeast Asia; Hizb al-Tahrir in Central Asia); global (e.g., the role of the United States and Western Europe in inadvertently helping transnational Islamists). Ultimately, the author traces the effects of the U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq on militant Islamist terrorism, concluding that militant Islam is spreading, not receding, and that the United States would better rely on soft, rather than hard (military), power to overcome it.
Contemporary security policy is no longer a matter of protecting borders or fighting an identified foreign enemy. With counterterrorism high on the security agenda, private citizens and companies have all come to be seen as central to the aim of providing security. Situated within the debate on terrorism risk and security, Corporate Risk and National Security Redefined offers a detailed analysis of the role of private companies in American and Danish counter-terrorism policies. The book shows that a 'responsibilization strategy' is central to both the American and Danish security policy - a strategy which tends to portray security as a 'duty' rather than the 'right' that it traditionally has been considered as. The study however finds that such strategies have been received very differently in the business communities of the two countries. The book brings the corporate understandings of the relation between corporate risk and national security to the fore, and let the reader in on a constant conceptual battle and negotiation on the meaning of national security and corporate risk. Corporate Risk and National Security Redefined will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, critical security, business and terrorism.
Written by two leading scholars, this book is an accessible overview of the global political consequences of the 9/11 terror attacks. The War on Terror has defined the first decade of this century. It has been marked by the deaths of thousands of people, political turmoil, massive destruction, and intense fear. Regardless of the name it goes under, the long war on terror will continue to affect lives across the world. Its catalyst, 9/11, did not have to happen, nor did the character of the responses. This book offers a set of novel interpretations of how we got here, where we are, and where we should be heading. It is organised around twelve penetrating and readable essays, full of novel interpretations and succinct summaries of complex ideas and events. In their examination of those aspects of global order touched by terror, the authors argue that the dangers of international terrorism are not overblown. Future 9/11s are possible: so is a more just and law-governed world. Terrorism cannot be disinvented, but with more intelligent policies than have been on show these past ten years, it can be overcome and made politically anachronistic. This book will be essential reading for all students of terrorism studies, international security, war and conflict studies and IR in general, as well as of much interest to well-informed lay readers.
The terror attacks of 9.11 signalled that people are increasingly put at risk of not only terrorism but natural and technological disasters as well. Since 9.11 scholars have been asking new questions about catastrophe and made important and interesting innovations in methods, concepts, and theories regarding disaster and terror. This volume brings together a creative set of papers, most of which are about the 9.11 attacks. They draw from several disciplines to address key questions: what lessons does the response to the collapse of the World Trade Center have for disaster planning? what has 9.11 meant for civil liberties in the US? how will survivors react over the long run? and how do we conceptualize panic and mass response?
Despite the growth of interest in the study of terrorism since 9/11, terrorism analysts rarely take a multidisciplinary approach to the subject. This leaves a number of terrorisM's characteristics to be explored in new and unique ways. "TerrorisM's Unanswered Questions" brings together scholars from the fields of criminology, international relations, law, political science, security studies, and sociology to answer several important questions where consensus has yet to be reached. Each chapter offers a new approach to the question asked that is both unique and challenges popular thought. The result is an original work appealing to a broad audience of scholars and students who desire to develop a better understanding of terrorisM's characteristics. In the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States terrorism became a topic for the masses to explore, rather than the hidden purview of analysts and scholars tucked away at the CIA or in the ivory tower. Now, more than five years later, there remains much to be discovered about terrorism and its causes. This volume takes a look at some of terrorisM's unanswered questions. How do we define terrorism? What threat does the United States face from weapons of mass destruction? Why has international law failed to stop terrorism? These are but three of the questions addressed in this volume. While the editors do not claim to have all of the answers, they do promise a view of terrorism not seen before.
This intriguing approach to international conflict seeks to facilitate a dialogue between academics and policymakers on how to better anticipate and prevent state failure, subsequent forced migration, and the terrorist threat that often results. Despite the far reaching implications of state failure, little research has been devoted to its consequences. Postulating that failed and failing states enable the existence of terrorist organizations, The Tragedy of Failure: Evaluating State Failure and Its Impact on the Spread of Refugees, Terrorism, and War bridges that gap. Both descriptive and prescriptive, the book offers a nuanced examination of the relationship between forced migration, state failure, and terrorism. The author suggests policy strategies that are capable of anticipating the onset of forced migration situations before they develop into crises and presents quantitative forecasting models with the ability to predict the occurrence of state failure and forced migration as much as two years in advance. Buoyed by this work and the tools it offers, policymakers can focus more closely on the issue of failed states and the movement of refugees and internally displaced persons in the interest of targeting and eliminating dangerous terrorist organizations.
This book explains how people can be radically manipulated by extreme groups and leaders to engage in incomprehensible and often dangerous acts through psychologically isolating situations of extreme social influence. These methods are used in totalitarian states, terrorist groups and cults, as well as in controlling personal relationships. Illustrated with compelling stories from a range of cults and totalitarian systems, Stein's book defines and analyses the common identifiable traits that underlie these groups, emphasizing the importance of maintaining open yet supportive personal networks. Using original attachment theory-based research this book highlights the dangers of closed, isolating relationships and the closed belief systems that justify them, and demonstrates the psychological impact of these environments, ending with evidence-based recommendations to support an educational approach to awareness and prevention. Featuring a foreword by John Horgan, the new edition has been fully updated to include recent work on political extremism and radicalization and totalitarian systems, as well as the recent highly publicized NXIVM case. Terror, Love and Brainwashing, second edition is essential reading for professionals, policy makers, legal professionals, educators and cult survivors and their families themselves.
First published in English in 1920, this work is a reissue of Karl Kautsky's seminal work dealing with the origins and history of the forces at work in revolutionary epochs, which offers pathbreaking insights on the development of civilisation. The opening chapters, dealing with eigthteenth century France, are of special interest to the student of the French revolution. The section devoted to the Commune of Paris offers a stimulating and provocative description of this famous govenment of the working class. The reissue of this controversial and extraordinary work will be welcomed by all those interested in the history of Communism in particular and the theory and history of revolution in general.
This book examines the Islamist radicalisation process in Europe, developing a new theoretical model based on an empirical study of the evolution of Islamist radicals in their social environment. The approach of this book is to examine how, and under what conditions, people choose to radicalise. It focuses on the experience of radicalisation from the perspective of those who have undergone it. The study is based on trial and court material, along with an extensive number of interviews collected from many different European countries, and this biographical approach is used to address individuals and the details of their social environment. Overall, the explanatory framework departs from the existing deterministic paradigm (with grievances as causes), also present in some psychological models, and argues that radicalisation is a process much like occupational choice a rational choice made with social and ideational significance. It addresses critically the assumption that, because the result of the radicalisation process could be seen as abnormal, the cause of it might be of a similar nature. Parallels are drawn with other forms of extremism and European counter-radicalisation policies are considered critically. This book will be of great interest to students of terrorism studies and political violence, political Islam, social movements, European politics and IR/security studies in general.
Delivered From the Mouth of the Dragon: A Face To Face Encounter With Islamist Terrorism combines a critical analysis of Nigeria's nationality problem and a brutal personal account of how the author was placed under a fatwa for speaking out against Islamization. This well formed study argues that the precarious state of political affairs in Nigeria lay in a jihadist plan that has allowed the Boko Haram insurgency to emerge. The book also chronicles political repression against opponents of jihadism. It further underscores the vulnerability of the African political opposition class seeking asylum in Africa.
This book argues that much of the literature on political leadership has made little meaningful connection with the issues of peace, conflict and divided societies. In providing a critical interpretation of political leadership during the Northern Ireland peace process, Cathy Gormley-Heenan shows how the 'leadership lens' offers insights not offered by conventional analyses of peacemaking processes. Using interviews with political elites in Northern Ireland, the book discusses the confusions, contradictions and chameleonic nature of leadership and its role, capacity and effect.
Terrorism: The Basics is an ideal starting point for anyone interested in one of the most discussed, written about and analysed aspects of modern life. Common misconceptions are dispelled as the authors provide clear and jargon-free answers to the big questions:
These questions and more are answered with reference to contemporary groups and situations allowing readers to relate theory to what they have seen on the news. Written with clarity and insight, this book is the perfect first book on terrorism for students of all levels.
This book analyses the root causes of suicide terrorism at both the elite and rank-and- file levels of the Hamas and also explains why this tactic has disappeared in the post-2006 period. This volume adopts a multi-causal, multi-level approach to analyse the use of suicide bombings by Hamas and its individual operatives in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It uses extensive fieldwork and on-the-ground interviews in order to delve beneath the surface and understand why and how suicide operations were adopted as a sustained mechanism of engagement within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Three core factors fuelled Hamas's suicide bombing campaigns. First, Palestinian suicide operations are a complex combination of instrumental and expressive violence adopted by both organisations and individuals to achieve political and/or societal survival, retaliation and competition. In other words, suicide bombings not only serve distinct political and strategic goals for both Hamas and its operatives but they also serve to convey a symbolic message to various audiences, within Israel, the Palestinian territories and around the world. Second, suicide operations perform a crucial role in the formation and consolidation of Palestinian national identity and are also the latest manifestation of the historically entrenched cultural norm of militant heroic martyrdom. Finally, Hamas's use of political Islam also facilitates the articulation, justification and legitimisation of suicide operations as a modern-day jihad against Israel through the means of modern interpretations and fatwas. This approach not only facilitates a much needed, multifaceted, holistic understanding of suicide bombings in this particular region but also yields policy-relevant lessons to address extreme political violence in other parts of the world. This book will be of much interest to students of Hamas, terrorism, Middle East politics and security studies.
Conferences, lectures, funding opportunities, and publications now all fully embrace terrorism and counter-terrorism as topics worthy of serious reflection and investigation among criminologists. The papers in this volume bring out the distinct contribution criminologists and criminological sociologists have to offer in the study of counter-terrorism from theoretical, methodological, and substantive viewpoints. The discussions of this title include a usefully broad variety of themes, including conceptual and theoretical perspectives in the criminology of terrorism; hate crimes and terrorism; civil liberties and the control of terrorism; terrorism, war and crime; state crime and terrorism; terrorism and transnational crime; the police dimensions of counter-terrorism; terrorism and the (international) court; terrorism and punishment; and, other issues. The specific criminological orientation of the book makes this volume stand out among others. Bringing together distinguished scholars to present these various themes, the volume hopes to bring a comprehensive and insightful state-of-the-art overview of terrorism and counter-terrorism as themes of criminological reflection.
In the era of war on terror, the term terror has tended to be applied to its sudden eruptions in the metropolises of the global north. This volume directs its attention to terror's manifestations in other locations and lives. The title Living Through Terror refers both to the pervasiveness of terror in societies where extreme violence and war constitute the everyday processes of life as well as to the experience of surviving terror and living into the future. The contributions consider terror's effects in those ignored and silenced locations where terror is either naturalised (the Philippines, South Africa, Timor Leste, Sri Lanka) or made invisible (the neo-liberal democracies of Australia and Italy). The stories of ruined places, displaced bodies and identities shattered and remade that emerge from these pages bring into view the socio-political systems, cultural geographies and regimes of territoriality through which terror is engendered and naturalised, and the institutions and imaginaries that continue to underpin them. The essays, literary writings and images collected here attend, in their different ways, to subjects living in and with terror as an element incorporated in their everyday, and to the processes by which terror exercises itself in their lives, whether it is perpetrated by state or non-state actors. Simultaneously, the contributions attest to the tactics subjects deploy to confront and negotiate conditions of terror, their attempts to live with and through terror and, ultimately, their strategies to recover through the everyday and the ordinary the seeds of life and hope.
The Randstad metropolitan region encompassing Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam and Utrecht in the western Netherlands is regarded worldwide as a model of a 'successful' polycentric metropolis. It is widely cited as an example of how a region of interconnected small cities can effectively compete globally by providing complementary functions which together match the power of large monocentric cities. The methods of strategic spatial planning, regional design and strategic projects that are said to underpin this polycentric metropolis are used as models for practitioners and students around the world. But is this high reputation deserved? Does the Randstad really function as a polycentric metropolis? The operation of the Randstad as a polycentric networked region is controversial both in terms of the actual strength of relations between its component parts, and the value of promoting polycentricity in policy. What are the costs and benefits of a Randstad metropolis? Does polycentricity improve the performance of the region in economic, social and environmental terms? How has the polycentric metropolis evolved and what part is played by its delta location? Has spatial planning made a difference in the form and operation of the region today? How will this spatial configuration fare in the face of the climate crisis and need to create healthy cities and regions? Is there benefit in pursuing the idea of a polycentric metropolis in government policy and action, and how? These questions are of critical interest within the Netherlands but experience in the Randstad offers valuable insights to many other complex urban regions around the world. This book will provide a critical analysis of the Randstad and lessons for strategic planning in other metropolitan regions. |
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