Although the United States has prioritized its fight against militant groups for two decades, the transnational jihadist movement has proved surprisingly resilient and adaptable. Many analysts and practitioners have underestimated these militant organizations, viewing them as unsophisticated or unchanging despite the ongoing evolution of their tactics and strategies. In Enemies Near and Far, two internationally recognized experts use newly available documents from al-Qaeda and ISIS to explain how jihadist groups think, grow, and adapt. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Thomas Joscelyn recast militant groups as learning organizations, detailing their embrace of strategic, tactical, and technological innovation. Drawing on theories of organizational learning, they provide a sweeping account of these groups' experimentation over time. Gartenstein-Ross and Joscelyn shed light on militant groups' most effective strategic and tactical moves, including attacks targeting aircraft and the use of the internet to inspire and direct lone attackers, and they examine jihadists' ability to shift their strategy based on political context. While militant groups' initial efforts to upgrade their capabilities often fail, these attempts should generally be understood not as failures but as experiments in service of a learning process-a process that continues until these groups achieve a breakthrough. Providing unprecedented historical and strategic perspective on how jihadist groups learn and evolve, Enemies Near and Far also explores how to anticipate future threats, analyzing how militants are likely to deploy a range of emerging technologies.

Although the United States has prioritized its fight against militant groups for two decades, the transnational jihadist movement has proved surprisingly resilient and adaptable. Many analysts and practitioners have underestimated these militant organizations, viewing them as unsophisticated or unchanging despite the ongoing evolution of their tactics and strategies. In Enemies Near and Far, two internationally recognized experts use newly available documents from al-Qaeda and ISIS to explain how jihadist groups think, grow, and adapt. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Thomas Joscelyn recast militant groups as learning organizations, detailing their embrace of strategic, tactical, and technological innovation. Drawing on theories of organizational learning, they provide a sweeping account of these groups' experimentation over time. Gartenstein-Ross and Joscelyn shed light on militant groups' most effective strategic and tactical moves, including attacks targeting aircraft and the use of the internet to inspire and direct lone attackers, and they examine jihadists' ability to shift their strategy based on political context. While militant groups' initial efforts to upgrade their capabilities often fail, these attempts should generally be understood not as failures but as experiments in service of a learning process-a process that continues until these groups achieve a breakthrough. Providing unprecedented historical and strategic perspective on how jihadist groups learn and evolve, Enemies Near and Far also explores how to anticipate future threats, analyzing how militants are likely to deploy a range of emerging technologies.

American dependence on oil sends hundreds of billions of dollars overseas every year, forces the U.S. to put its troops in harm's way, and undermines American diplomatic efforts. As the United States experiences rapidly increasing oil and commodities prices, coupled with sluggish economic growth, it is critical that American policymakers address this challenge in a thoughtful and systematic manner. From Energy Crisis to Energy Security provides a framework for doing so. In this volume, scientific, security, and industry experts have prepared in-depth chapters on the problems we confront, the technologies at our disposal, and policy and paradigmatic approaches to this critical problem. With a foreword by R. James Woolsey, contributors include Robert McFarlane, Robert Zubrin, Bruce Dale, Roger S. Ballentine, Laura Chasen, George Philippidis, Kenneth J. Nemeth, and Rick Tolman.

Terrorism in the West 2008 provides a comprehensive examination of terrorism events, and landmark court cases, that occurred in the West in 2008. Included in the assessment are religious, political, nationalist, and single-issue terrorist groups. The study also highlights discernible trends in violent extremist activity, and what this means for the future of the terrorist threat.

In recent years, over two hundred men and women born or raised in the West have participated in, or provided support for Islamic terrorist plots and attacks. Several studies have examined the demographics of homegrown Islamic terrorists: their socioeconomic status, education level, professional prospects, and possible mental illnesses. To date, no study has empirically examined the process through which these terrorists are radicalizing, which constitutes a substantial gap in the literature. This study seeks to address that gap through an empirical examination of 117 homegrown "jihadist" terrorists from the U.S. and U.K.