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:

What does terrorism involve?

Who can be classified as a terrorist?

What are terrorists trying to achieve?

Who are the supporters of terrorism?

Can there ever be an end to terrorist activity?

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.

Table of Contents

1. What is Terrorism? 2. What do the Terrorists Want? 3. Who are the Terrorists? 4. What are the Techniques? 5. Who are the Targets of Terrorists? 6. Who Supports the Terrorists? 7. Some Major Terrorist Groups 8. What can be Done to Counter Terrorism? 9. Will Terrorism Continue? 10. Conclusions

What are the causes of war? How might the world be made more peaceful? In this landmark work of international relations theory, first published in 1959, the eminent realist scholar Kenneth N. Waltz offers a foundational analysis of the nature of conflict between states. He explores works by both classic political philosophers, such as St. Augustine, Hobbes, Kant, and Rousseau, and modern psychologists and anthropologists to discover ideas intended to explain war among states and related prescriptions for peace. Waltz influentially distinguishes among three "images" of the origins of war: those that blame individual leaders or human nature, those rooted in states' internal composition, and those concerning the structure of the international system. With a foreword by Stephen M. Walt on the legacy and continued relevance of Waltz's work, this anniversary edition brings new life to a perennial international relations classic.

Eve of Destruction The Coming Age of Preventive War Thomas M. Nichols "Thomas Nichols transcends sterile debates about Iraq and the Bush Doctrine and points instead to the fundamental erosion in two long-standing international norms: the inviolability of state sovereignty and the unacceptability of preventive war. These profound changes are driven by the very real threat of mass casualty suicide terrorism as well as humanitarian disasters and the problem of failed states. This is a smart, incisive, and important book."--Robert J. Lieber, Georgetown University "Preventive war is here to stay. The question isn't whether but when and how force will be used preventively. That is the important message of this excellent book. Nichols provides the critical answers clearly and convincingly."--Ivo Daalder, Brookings Institution "Nichols provides a lively guide to the development of this issue after the Cold War."--"Foreign Affairs" In an age of new threats to international security, the old rules of war are rapidly being discarded. The great powers are moving toward norms less restrictive of intervention, preemption, and preventive war. This evolution is taking place not only in the United States but also in many of the world's most powerful nations, including Russia, France, and Japan, among others. As centuries of tradition and law are overturned, will preventive warfare push the world into chaos? "Eve of Destruction" is a provocative contribution to a growing international debate over the acceptance of preventive military action. In the first work to identify the trends that have led to a coming age of preventive war, Thomas M. Nichols uses historical analysis as well as interviews with military officials from around the world to trace the anticipatory use of force from the early 1990s--when the international community responded to a string of humanitarian crises in Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo--to today's current and potential actions against rogue states and terrorists. He makes a case for a bold reform of U.S. foreign policy, and of the United Nations Security Council itself, in order to avert outright anarchy. Thomas M. Nichols is Professor of Strategy and Forrest Sherman Chair of Public Diplomacy at the United States Naval War College. His previous books include "The Russian Presidency" and "Winning the World: Lessons for America's Future from the Cold War." 2008 192 pages 6 x 9 ISBN 978-0-8122-4066-5 Cloth $45.00s 29.50 ISBN 978-0-8122-0294-6 Ebook $45.00s 29.50 World Rights Political Science, Public Policy Short copy: In an age of new threats to international security, the old rules of war are rapidly being discarded by the great powers. This study explores how and why states will exercise the preventive use of force in the twenty-first century, and how this violence might be contained and controlled.

Some of the most brutal and long-lasting civil wars of our time those in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Lebanon, and Iraq, among others involve the rapid formation and disintegration of alliances among warring groups, as well as fractionalization within them. It would be natural to suppose that warring groups form alliances based on shared identity considerations such as Christian groups allying with Christian groups, or Muslim groups with their fellow co-religionists but this is not what we see. Two groups that identify themselves as bitter foes one day, on the basis of some identity narrative, might be allies the next day and vice versa. Nor is any group, however homogeneous, safe from internal fractionalization. Rather, looking closely at the civil wars in Afghanistan and Bosnia and testing against the broader universe of fifty-three cases of multiparty civil wars, Fotini Christia finds that the relative power distribution between and within various warring groups is the primary driving force behind alliance formation, alliance changes, group splits, and internal group takeovers.

Since the start of the Trump era, the United States and the Western world has finally begun to wake up to the threat of online warfare and the attacks from Russia, who flood social media with disinformation, and circulate false and misleading information to fuel fake narratives and make the case for illegal warfare. The question no one seems to be able to answer is: what can the West do about it? Central and Eastern European states, including Ukraine and Poland, however, have been aware of the threat for years. Nina Jankowicz has advised these governments on the front lines of the information war. The lessons she learnt from that fight, and from her attempts to get US congress to act, make for essential reading. How to Lose the Information War takes the reader on a journey through five Western governments' responses to Russian information warfare tactics - all of which have failed. She journeys into the campaigns the Russian operatives run, and shows how we can better understand the motivations behind these attacks and how to beat them. Above all, this book shows what is at stake: the future of civil discourse and democracy, and the value of truth itself.

Late modern wars are legitimised through invocations of humanity; variously the rescue and protection of populations, the re-shaping of entire societies, and the re-constitution of the sphere of the international into a pacified cosmopolitan arena. Drawing on critical social and political thought, this book explores the implications of this legitimisation. It argues that these wars, often referred to as 'liberal', extend forms of exclusion and domination that make war a tool of control now articulated in global terms. In highlighting the domination of contemporary politics by discourses and practices that blur distinctions between war and peace, the international and the human, Jabri points to the dangers that lie at the heart of such practices. These dangers have implications not only for the liberal democratic state, but for the emergence of a global sphere of interaction based on mutual recognition.

Military organizations around the world are normally huge producers and consumers of data. Accordingly, they stand to gain from the many benefits associated with data analytics. However, for leaders in defense organizations-either government or industry-accessible use cases are not always available. This book presents a diverse collection of cases that explore the realm of possibilities in military data analytics. These use cases explore such topics as: Context for maritime situation awareness Data analytics for electric power and energy applications Environmental data analytics in military operations Data analytics and training effectiveness evaluation Harnessing single board computers for military data analytics Analytics for military training in virtual reality environments A chapter on using single board computers explores their application in a variety of domains, including wireless sensor networks, unmanned vehicles, and cluster computing. The investigation into a process for extracting and codifying expert knowledge provides a practical and useful model for soldiers that can support diagnostics, decision making, analysis of alternatives, and myriad other analytical processes. Data analytics is seen as having a role in military learning, and a chapter in the book describes the ongoing work with the United States Army Research Laboratory to apply data analytics techniques to the design of courses, evaluation of individual and group performances, and the ability to tailor the learning experience to achieve optimal learning outcomes in a minimum amount of time. Another chapter discusses how virtual reality and analytics are transforming training of military personnel. Virtual reality and analytics are also transforming monitoring, decision making, readiness, and operations. Military Applications of Data Analytics brings together a collection of technical and application-oriented use cases. It enables decision makers and technologists to make connections between data analytics and such fields as virtual reality and cognitive science that are driving military organizations around the world forward.

Putting into question the conventional view that the military is detrimental to democratic development, Dolman provides a multifaceted examination of the institutional incentives of the military and its relations with civilian authorities. Drawing on classical political theory, a wide range of historical examples, and statistical findings, " The Warrior State" argues that the military can facilitate democracy as the result of specific norms and conditions that focus on individual action. Ironically, this may be best inculcated through a focus on the offensive, precisely the military doctrine commonly seen as most likely to result in international conflict. The paradox of offensive strategies possibly increasing international conflict while also enhancing democracy, which is supposed to decrease such conflict, form a core of this provocative book.

The idea that war is sometimes justified is deeply embedded in public consciousness. But it is only credible so long as we believe that the ethical standards of just war are in fact realizable in practice. In this engaging book, Christopher Finlay elucidates the assumptions underlying just war theory and defends them from a range of objections, arguing that it is a regrettable but necessary reflection of the moral realities of international politics. Using a range of historical and contemporary examples, he demonstrates the necessity of employing the theory on the basis of careful moral appraisal of real-life political landscapes and striking a balance between theoretical ideals and the practical realities of conflict. This book will be a crucial guide to the complexities of just war theory for all students and scholars of the ethics and political theory of war.

This definitive reference resource on cyber warfare covers all aspects of this headline topic, providing historical context of cyber warfare and an examination its rapid development into a potent technological weapon of the 21st century. Today, cyber warfare affects everyone-from governments that need to protect sensitive political and military information, to businesses small and large that stand to collectively lose trillions of dollars each year to cyber crime, to individuals whose privacy, assets, and identities are subject to intrusion and theft. The problem is monumental and growing exponentially. Encyclopedia of Cyber Warfare provides a complete overview of cyber warfare, which has been used with increasing frequency in recent years by such countries as China, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Russia, and the United States. Readers will gain an understanding of the origins and development of cyber warfare and of how it has become a major strategic element in warfare for countries throughout the world. The encyclopedia's entries cover all of the most significant cyber attacks to date, including the Stuxnet worm that successfully disabled centrifuges in Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment facility; the attack on Israel's internet infrastructure during its January 2009 military offensive in the Gaza Strip; the worldwide "Red October" cyber attack that stole information from embassies, research firms, military installations, and nuclear and other energy infrastructures; and cyber attacks on private corporations like Sony. Provides comprehensive coverage of the major individuals, organizations, impacts, and issues related to cyber warfare that enables readers to better understanding of the impact of cyber warfare on modern conflicts Includes a detailed chronology that documents the evolution and use of cyber warfare over the past few decades Supplies further readings and a lengthy bibliography that offer a wealth of options to students conducting extensive research on the subject

Operation Enduring Freedom Afghanistan has been the longest war in American history. Even after the drawdown of NATO/ISAF forces it has cast a shadow over Afghanistan's future and highlighted the U.S. failure to gradually wind down the conflict. Today, the resurgent Taliban hold more Afghan territory than before, the civilian toll is at a record high and Afghan military casualties are rising. From sanctuaries in Pakistan and from the Afghan areas they hold, the Taliban are carrying out increasingly daring attacks, including in the capital Kabul. In declaring war in Afghanistan,in 2001, after the world's worst terrorist attack in modern history, U.S. President George W. Bush had the sympathy and support of the world. Yet before he could accomplish his war objectives in Afghanistan, he invaded and occupied Iraq. The course of the war, in Afghanistan, is explained in great detail in this book. The changes of strategies, force levels and the circumstances which brought them about bear description as the U.S. searched for a viable strategy. President Barack Obama thought that he could end the war simply by declaring it over and by making the Afghan people responsible for their own security. The role of Pakistan in this conflict also merits a detailed explanation. The continuing conflict poses a threat to regional peace. This book will be of interest to military professionals as well as the lay reader. It describes an important era of the history of South Asia.

Keith B. Bickel challenges a host of military and strategic theories that treat particular bureaucratic structures, large organizations, and elites as the progenitors of doctrine. This timely study of how the military draws lessons from interventions focuses on the overlooked role that mid-level combat officers play in creating military doctrine. "Mars Learning" closely evaluates Marine civil and military pacification operations in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua, and illuminates the debates surrounding the development of Marine Corps' small wars doctrine between 1915 and 1940. The result is compelling evidence of how field experience obtained before 1940 played a role in shaping the "Marine Corps' Small Wars Manual" and elements of doctrine that exist today. How the Marines organized lessons at that time provides important insights into how doctrine is likely to be generated today in response to post-Cold War interventions around the globe.

Over the last decade (and indeed ever since the Cold War), the rise of insurgents and non-state actors in war, and their readiness to use terror and other irregular methods of fighting, have led commentators to speak of 'new wars'. They have assumed that the 'old wars' were waged solely between states, and were accordingly fought between comparable and 'symmetrical' armed forces. Much of this commentary has lacked context or sophistication. It has been bounded by norms and theories more than the messiness of reality. Fed by the impact of the 9/11 attacks, it has privileged some wars and certain trends over others. Most obviously it has been historically unaware. But it has also failed to consider many of the other dimensions which help us to define what war is - legal, ethical, religious, and social. The Changing Character of War, the fruit of a five-year interdisciplinary programme at Oxford of the same name, draws together all these themes, in order to distinguish between what is really changing about war and what only seems to be changing. Self-evidently, as the product of its own times, the character of each war is always changing. But if war's character is in flux, its underlying nature contains its own internal consistency. Each war is an adversarial business, capable of generating its own dynamic, and therefore of spiralling in directions that are never totally predictable. War is both utilitarian, the tool of policy, and dysfunctional. This book brings together scholars with world-wide reputations, drawn from a clutch of different disciplines, but united by a common intellectual goal: that of understanding a problem of extraordinary importance for our times. This book is a project of the Oxford Leverhulme Programme on the Changing Character of War.

"Virtual War and Magical Death" is a provocative examination of the relations between anthropology and contemporary global war. Several arguments unite the collected essays, which are based on ethnographic research in varied locations, including Guatemala, Uganda, and Tanzania, as well as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and the United States. Foremost is the contention that modern high-tech warfare--as it is practiced and represented by the military, the media, and civilians--is analogous to rituals of magic and sorcery. Technologies of "virtual warfare," such as high-altitude bombing, remote drone attacks, night-vision goggles, and even music videoes and computer games that simulate battle, reproduce the imaginative worlds and subjective experiences of witchcraft, magic, and assault sorcery long studied by cultural anthropologists.

Another significant focus of the collection is the U.S. military's exploitation of ethnographic research, particularly through its controversial Human Terrain Systems (HTS) Program, which embeds anthropologists as cultural experts in military units. Several pieces address the ethical dilemmas that HTS and other counterinsurgency projects pose for anthropologists. Other essays reveal the relatively small scale of those programs in relation to the military's broader use of, and ambitions for, social scientific data.
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Contributors." Robertson Allen, Brian Ferguson, Sverker Finnstrom, Roberto J. Gonzalez, David H. Price, Antonius Robben, Victoria Sanford, Jeffrey Sluka, Koen Stroeken, Matthew Sumera, Neil L. Whitehead

This important new book deals with the changing nature of war in the post-Cold War era and the emergence of new forms of warfare in which warlords, mercenaries and terrorists play an increasingly important role.

In the modern era, warfare came to play a crucial role in the formation of states, whereas the new wars emerging at the beginning of the 21st century have mostly gone together with the failure or collapse of states. The author draws out the key shifts involved in this process: from symmetrical conflicts between states to asymmetrical global relationships of force; from national armies to increasingly private or commercial bands of warlords, child soldiers and mercenaries; from pitched battles to protracted conflicts in which there is often little fighting and most of the violence is directed against civilians. Changes in weapons technology have combined with complex economic factors to make the prospect of endlessly simmering wars a real danger in the years to come.

Against this background, the author outlines the rise of a novel form of international terrorism, conceived more as a political method of communication than as an element in a military strategy. The resulting challenges faced by Western governments, and the costs and benefits associated with any response, are taken up in a concluding section that contrasts the characteristic European and American approaches and examines the implications for the future of international law.

This book will be of important to students of political science, international relations, war and peace studies, conflict studies and peace studies. It will also appeal to the general reader with an interest inthis topical subject.

Builds a revisionary theoretical framework for researching intelligence knowledge and applies it to the Swedish Military and Security DirectorateGunilla Eriksson revises our perception of intelligence as carefully collected data and objective truth, arguing that there are hidden aspects to intelligence analysis that need to be uncovered and critically examined. This twofold study investigates the character of intelligence knowledge and the social context in which it is produced, using the Swedish Military and Security Directorate (MUST) as a case study.Eriksson argues that there is an implicit framework that continuously influences knowledge production: what kind of data is considered relevant, how this data is interpreted and the specific social and linguistic context of the organisation, surrounded by unarticulated norms and specific procedures. She asks whether these conventions hamper or obstruct intelligence assessments; an essential analysis, given that history has shown us the grave consequences basing policy on intelligence's wrong conclusions.Sources includeThe annual Swedish Armed Forces Strategic Intelligence Estimates from 1998 2010Lengthy and highly valuable interviews with the analysts, including managers, working at MUST, giving insights into everyday life at the institution and leading to many important resultsParticipant observation carried out by the author at MUST working meetings and seminars during the production process of the 2010 estimate, and drawing on her experience from her years working as an active analyst

Bringing together experts from across the globe to provide a comprehensive introduction to strategic studies, this is the only overview to critically engage with both enduring and contemporary issues that dominate strategy. Throughout the chapters, readers are encouraged to explore key debates and alternative perspectives. A debates feature considers key controversies and presents opposing arguments, helping students to build critical thinking skills and reflect upon a wide range of perspectives. The new edition has been thoroughly updated to incorporate the latest developments in the field of strategic studies. Four new chapters feature in-depth coverage of cyber power and conflict, strategic culture, the evolution of grand strategy in China, and the relationship between military technology and warfare. Digital formats and resources The seventh edition is available for students and institutions to purchase in a variety of formats, and is supported by online resources - The e-book offers a mobile experience and convenient access along with functionality tools, navigation features and links that offer extra learning support: www.oxfordtextbooks.co.uk/ebooks - Online resources for students include: case studies that help to contextualise and deepen understanding of key issues; web links and further reading that provide students with opportunities to deepen their understanding of main topics and explore further areas of research interest; and multiple choice questions that test students' knowledge of the chapters and provide instant feedback. - Online resources for lecturers include: customisable PowerPoint slides to ensure clarity of explanation of key concepts and debates; and a test-bank of questions to reinforce key concepts and test students' understanding.

Rebooting Clausewitz offers an entirely new take on the work of history's greatest theorist of war. Written for an undergraduate readership that often struggles with Clausewitz's master work On War--a book that is often considered too philosophical and impenetrably dense--it seeks to unpack some of Clausewitz's key insights on theory and strategy. In three fictional interludes Clausewitz attends a seminar at West Point; debates the War on Terror at a Washington think tank; and visits a Robotics Institute in Santa Fe where he discusses how scientists are reshaping the future of war. Three separate essays situate Clausewitz in the context of his times, discuss his understanding of the culture of war, and the extent to which two other giants--Thucydides and Sun Tzu--complement his work. Some years ago the philosopher W.B. Gallie argued that Clausewitz needed to be 'saved from the Clausewitzians'. Clausewitz doesn't need saving and his commentators have contributed a great deal to our understanding of On War's seminal status as a text. But too often they tend to conduct a conversation between themselves. This book is an attempt to let a wider audience into the conversation.

Aside from the occasional nod to epaulets or use of camouflage, war and fashion seem to be strange partners. Not so, argue the contributors to this book, who connect military industrial practices as well as military dress to textile and clothing in new ways. For instance, the book includes a series of commentaries on the impact of military dress in the airline industry, in illustrated wartime comics, and even considers today's muscled soldier's body as a new type of uniform. Elsewhere, the impacts of conquest introduce a new set of postcolonial aesthetics; this is because military and colonial regimes disrupted local textile production and garment making. In another chapter, it is argued that textiles and fashion are important because they reflect a core practice, one that bridges textile artists and designers in an expressive, creative, and deeply physical way to matters of cultural significance. And the book concludes by calling the very mode of "military chic" into ethical question.
The premier text to illustrate the impact of war on textiles, bodies, costume, art, and design, "Fashion and War in Popular Culture "will be warmly welcomed by scholars of fashion design and theory, historians of fashion, and those interested in theories of warfare and military science.

This is the comprehensive account of the long and difficult road traveled to end the fifty-year armed conflict with the FARC, the oldest guerrilla army in the world; a long war that left more than eight million victims. The obstacles to peace were both large and dangerous. All previous attempts to negotiate with the FARC had failed, creating an environment where differences were irreconcilable and political will was scarce. The Battle for Peace is the story not only of the six years of negotiation and the peace process that transformed a country, its secret contacts, its international implications, and difficulties and achievements but also of the two previous decades in which Colombia oscillated between warlike confrontation and negotiated solution. In The Battle for Peace Juan Manuel Santos shares the lessons he learned about war and peace and how to build a successful negotiation process in the context of a nation which had all but resigned itself to war and the complexities of twenty-first-century international law and diplomacy. While Santos is clear that there is no handbook for making peace, he offers conflict-tested guidance on the critical parameters, conditions, and principles as well as rich detail on the innovations that made it possible for his nation to find common ground and a just solution.

Strategic Illusions, 1936-1941. Using Japanese as well as British official, private, and published sources, Professor Marder is the first scholar to have studied this subject from both sides and to give a rounded account of an extraordinary story.

Peace, many would agree, is a goal that democratic nations should strive to achieve. Considering the question of whether democracy is dependent on war, two celebrated political scientists trace the ways in which governments have mobilised armies since antiquity. They find that our modern form of democracy not only evolved in a brutally competitive environment but also was quickly excised when the powerful no longer needed their citizenry to defend against existential threats. Bringing to life many of the battles that shaped our world, the authors show how centralised monarchies replaced feudalism, why dictatorships can mobilise large forces but often fail at long-term military campaigns and how drone warfare has weakened democracy. In the spirit of Francis Fukuyama and Niall Ferguson, Forged Through Fire has far-reaching implications and will become the centrepiece of the democratic debate.

As a concept, deterrence has launched a thousand books and articles. It has dominated Western strategic thinking for more than four decades. In this important and groundbreaking new book, Lawrence Freedman develops a distinctive approach to the evaluation of deterrence as both a state of mind and a strategic option. This approach is applied to post-cold war crisis management, and the utility and relevance of the concept is addressed in relation to US strategic practice post-9/11, particularly in the light of the apparent preference of the Bush Administration for the alternative concept of pre-emption.

The study of deterrence has been hampered by the weight of the intellectual baggage accumulated since the end of the Second World War. Exaggerated notions of what deterrence might achieve were developed, only to be to knocked down by academic critique. In this book, Freedman charts the evolution of the contemporary concept of deterrence, and discusses whether - and how - it still has relevance in today's world. He considers constructivist as well as realist approaches and draws on criminological as well as strategic studies literature to develop a concept of a norms-based, as opposed to an interest-based, deterrence. This book will be essential reading for students of politics and international relations as well as all those interested in contemporary strategic thought.

Free-roaming killer drones stalk the battlespace looking for organic targets. Human combatants are programmed to feel no pain. Highpower microwave beams detonate munitions, jam communications, and cook internal organs. Is this vision of future war possible, or even inevitable? In this timely new book, Everett Carl Dolman examines the relationship between science and war. Historically, science has played an important role in ending wars think of the part played by tanks in breaching trench warfare in the First World War, or atom bombs in hastening the Japanese surrender in the Second World War but to date this has only increased the danger and destructiveness of future conflicts. Could science ever create the con-ditions of a permanent peace, either by making wars impossible to win, or so horrific that no one would ever fight? Ultimately, Dolman argues that science cannot, on its own, end war without also ending what it means to be human.