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This book describes and analyzes the convergence of transnational
organized crime and jihadist terrorism that has taken place within
Russian-speaking social networks in Western Europe. Studies have
shown that while under certain circumstances links between criminal
organizations and terrorist groups appear, these are usually
opportunistic and temporary in nature. Only rarely do they develop
into something deeper and transformative, a convergence between
crime and terrorism. This book reveals that Russian-speaking
transnational organized crime and jihadist terrorism pose a serious
threat to security and constitute a major challenge for law
enforcement. Through their links with transnational organized
crime, Russian-speaking jihadist networks from the Caucasus and
Central Asia have easier access to weaponry, commercial explosives,
and forged IDs than many other jihadist networks. Being in effect
an integral component of transnational organized crime, the
Russian-speaking jihadists can be assessed as potentially more
capable than many other jihadists. The book assesses the effects of
terrorism and organized crime on Russian-speaking diasporas in
Western Europe and examines the implications for counterterrorism
as well as policing on how to counteract the illegal activities of
these networks. Drawing on Swedish court cases the work shows that
an additional, and sometimes more effective way, to fight terrorism
is by focusing on the non-terrorist types of crime perpetrated by
terrorists. This book will be of much interest to students of
terrorism and counter-terrorism, political violence, criminology,
security studies and IR in general.
This volume examines the lone actor terrorist phenomenon, including
the larger societal trends which may or may not have led to their
acts of terrorism. With lone actor terrorism becoming an
increasingly common threat, the contributors to this volume aim to
answer the following questions: What drives the actions of
individuals who become lone actor terrorists? Are ideological and
cultural issues key factors, or are personal psychological motives
more useful in assessing the threat? Do lone actors evolve in a
broader social context or are they primarily fixated loners? What
response strategies are available to security services and law
enforcement? What is the future outlook for this particular
terrorist threat? Although these issues are frequently discussed,
few books have taken a global perspective as their primary focus.
While many books focus on lone actor terrorists in relation to
terrorist groups, such as Al-Qaida and the Islamic State, few, if
any, cover lone actors of all ideological backgrounds, including
the variants of active shooters and malicious insiders in
information security, such as Edward Snowden - with both of these
latter categories constituting an important variant of lone actors.
Utilising the expertise of academics and practitioners, the volume
offers a valuable multidisciplinary perspective. This book will be
of much interest to students of terrorism and counter-terrorism,
political violence, criminology, security studies and IR.
This volume examines the lone actor terrorist phenomenon, including
the larger societal trends which may or may not have led to their
acts of terrorism. With lone actor terrorism becoming an
increasingly common threat, the contributors to this volume aim to
answer the following questions: What drives the actions of
individuals who become lone actor terrorists? Are ideological and
cultural issues key factors, or are personal psychological motives
more useful in assessing the threat? Do lone actors evolve in a
broader social context or are they primarily fixated loners? What
response strategies are available to security services and law
enforcement? What is the future outlook for this particular
terrorist threat? Although these issues are frequently discussed,
few books have taken a global perspective as their primary focus.
While many books focus on lone actor terrorists in relation to
terrorist groups, such as Al-Qaida and the Islamic State, few, if
any, cover lone actors of all ideological backgrounds, including
the variants of active shooters and malicious insiders in
information security, such as Edward Snowden - with both of these
latter categories constituting an important variant of lone actors.
Utilising the expertise of academics and practitioners, the volume
offers a valuable multidisciplinary perspective. This book will be
of much interest to students of terrorism and counter-terrorism,
political violence, criminology, security studies and IR.
This book describes and analyzes the convergence of transnational
organized crime and jihadist terrorism that has taken place within
Russian-speaking social networks in Western Europe. Studies have
shown that while under certain circumstances links between criminal
organizations and terrorist groups appear, these are usually
opportunistic and temporary in nature. Only rarely do they develop
into something deeper and transformative, a convergence between
crime and terrorism. This book reveals that Russian-speaking
transnational organized crime and jihadist terrorism pose a serious
threat to security and constitute a major challenge for law
enforcement. Through their links with transnational organized
crime, Russian-speaking jihadist networks from the Caucasus and
Central Asia have easier access to weaponry, commercial explosives,
and forged IDs than many other jihadist networks. Being in effect
an integral component of transnational organized crime, the
Russian-speaking jihadists can be assessed as potentially more
capable than many other jihadists. The book assesses the effects of
terrorism and organized crime on Russian-speaking diasporas in
Western Europe and examines the implications for counterterrorism
as well as policing on how to counteract the illegal activities of
these networks. Drawing on Swedish court cases the work shows that
an additional, and sometimes more effective way, to fight terrorism
is by focusing on the non-terrorist types of crime perpetrated by
terrorists. This book will be of much interest to students of
terrorism and counter-terrorism, political violence, criminology,
security studies and IR in general.
The book describes and analyses the 'Swedish Deluge' (potop
szwedski), the devastating 1655-1660 wars fought between Sweden,
the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Brandenburg-Prussia, Muscovite
Russia, Transylvania, Cossack Ukraine, the Tatar Khanate of Crimea,
and the Holy Roman Empire during the reign of Swedish King Charles
X Gustavus, an experienced former general from the Thirty Years'
War. By invading the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, King Charles
saw an opportunity to put an end to the Polish King's claim to the
Swedish throne and to gain additional territories which would
enable him to control the Baltic Sea maritime trade. The book
focuses on the Swedish-Commonwealth war, which provoked the
political and military collapse of the Commonwealth. However, since
this conflict cannot be disentangled from the simultaneous wars
between the Commonwealth and Muscovy, from 1654 to 1667, and
between Sweden and Muscovy, from 1656 to 1661, they are described
as well. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian cossacks fought for freedom from
what they perceived as the oppression of the Commonwealth. Michael
Fredholm von Essen presents new research on a war previously seldom
described in English. Moreover, the book explains the continued
development of the Swedish Army after the Thirty Years' War. It
also provides full details on the dissimilar military systems of
the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Brandenburg-Prussia, Muscovite
Russia, Cossack Ukraine, Transylvania, the Crimean Tatar Khanate,
and the Imperial expeditionary forces engaged in the Swedish
Deluge.
The book describes and analyses the emergence of the early modern
Russian army, before the military reforms introduced by Tsar Peter
the Great brought it in line with developments in Western Europe.
It will be shown that Tsar Peter's reforms, although decisive,
rested on a legacy of previous reforms. Yet, the origin of the
early modern Russian army can be found in the East, not the West.
The close association during the Middle Ages with the Mongol Golden
Horde had transformed the Muscovite military system into a Eurasian
one. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, links with the
Northern Caucasus and Siberia brought further Oriental influences
into the Russian military system. While the Mongol legacy of the
early Muscovite army has been described elsewhere, the real and
continuous impact of Oriental influences in the early modern
Russian army has not yet been detailed. Besides, the detailed
information on the Russian army in 1673/1674 which can be found in
the military handbook then produced by a Swedish intelligence
officer has never been fully used in English-language works. This
information shows that by the second half of the seventeenth
century, Russia already had an army that although not up to date
according to Western standards, still was able to hold its own
against both Western and Eastern adversaries. The book ends with
1689, when Tsar Peter's reign began and Russia's border in the east
with China was negotiated.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has developed into a
key regional security group in Asia, its member states representing
no less than "half of humanity". Alarmists believe that the SCO is
making itself into a NATO of the East, thus posing a long-term
threat to the West. Moreover, several members are key players in
economic development and energy production, hence political
developments within the SCO can no longer be ignored by the global
market. Even so, the organization has long been disregarded by
political leaders in the West and is seldom reported in Western
media or analysed in academic works. As such, this ground-breaking
volume - the first study to properly treat a key regional grouping
in Asia and with contributors from across the region and beyond -
will be a key reference for many specialists and academics working
on Asian affairs.
The book describes and analyses the early modern Swedish army
during the Thirty Years War after the death in 1632 of King
Gustavus Adolphus. At this time, military operations were handled
by field marshals under the overall command of the Swedish
Chancellor, Axel Oxenstierna. The book expands our understanding of
the Swedish army during the Thirty Years War by focusing on its
later operations, including those against Polish and Danish
opponents, and not only on the better-known operations in Germany
against the Catholic League and the Holy Roman Empire. Meanwhile,
Oxenstierna continued his administrative reforms, which enabled
Sweden consistently to raise troops, despite the small population
of Sweden and its territories, and enabled an intelligence and
logistics system which could supply the armies, despite the vast
geographical depth of operations. While the Swedish army of
Gustavus Adolphus positioned Sweden as an emerging great power, it
was the subsequent developments of the army under Oxenstierna that
enabled the Swedish rise to regional great power status. While the
army of Gustavus Adolphus has been described elsewhere, the Swedish
army's later developments are less well known. Moreover, the book
includes current research that has not yet appeared in the English
language. It also describes the 1643-1645 Swedish invasion of
Denmark ('Torstensson's War') and the battles and sieges, including
those of Vienna and Prague, that led up to the Peace of Westphalia,
which concluded the Thirty Years War. Finally, the book covers the
military aspects of the establishment of Sweden's first American
colony.
This is the first book to scrutinize the root causes of problems
today with Afghan reconstruction. It begins in 1880 with the coming
to power of Emir Abdur Rahman and departure of an occupying British
army. On the northern border, Russian forces were also poised.
Determined to preserve Afghan independence, Abdur Rahman devised a
nation-building project grounded on centralized, autocratic rule
and based on security, modernization and economic reform. Though
continued by his successors, this project ultimately failed. A key
reason for this was that, even as Abdur Rahman implemented policies
that might be understood as `Western' and `rational', the great
powers of the day took their cue from traditional institutional
relationships in Afghanistan; local patronage relations were
extended to the international level. In the process, Afghanistan
became a rentier state, Abdur Rahman's model abandoned in favor of
foreign subsidies increasingly diverted from security and economic
development. Successive foreign powers, especially the Soviet Union
and United States, have upheld this centralized, rentier model of
governance and development despite it consistently failing over the
years. This work explores dynamics seldom covered in other studies
of Afghanistan, including conflict between state-imposed
pashtunization and multiple local/ethnic identities, likewise
contradictions between the clericalism and secularism deployed in
the nation-building process. It explores the largely overlooked ebb
and flow of institutional development in Afghanistan, at all
levels, in the context of international interest in the country,
with special attention to Soviet and US/Coalition strategies and
their effects. It also focuses on the power of patronage relations
in establishing and retaining control in Afghanistan, and how the
extension of such relations to the international level transformed
Afghanistan into a rentier state that struggles to unite its
people. Described by one Afghanistan expert as an excellent piece
of work, very well documented with close attention to detail, this
study offers sober analysis and critical insights. It will interest
scholars and students of Afghan affairs plus policy-makers,
diplomats, soldiers, international organizations and NGOs,
businesses, journalists and many others engaged with Afghanistan
and issues of political, military and economic power,
democratization and civil-military relations in the region.
This is the first book to scrutinize the root causes of problems
today with Afghan reconstruction. It begins in 1880 with the coming
to power of Emir Abdur Rahman and departure of an occupying British
army. On the northern border, Russian forces were also poised.
Determined to preserve Afghan independence, Abdur Rahman devised a
nation-building project grounded on centralized, autocratic rule
and based on security, modernization and economic reform. Though
continued by his successors, this project ultimately failed. A key
reason for this was that, even as Abdur Rahman implemented policies
that might be understood as `Western' and `rational', the great
powers of the day took their cue from traditional institutional
relationships in Afghanistan; local patronage relations were
extended to the international level. In the process, Afghanistan
became a rentier state, Abdur Rahman's model abandoned in favor of
foreign subsidies increasingly diverted from security and economic
development. Successive foreign powers, especially the Soviet Union
and United States, have upheld this centralized, rentier model of
governance and development despite it consistently failing over the
years. This work explores dynamics seldom covered in other studies
of Afghanistan, including conflict between state-imposed
pashtunization and multiple local/ethnic identities, likewise
contradictions between the clericalism and secularism deployed in
the nation-building process. It explores the largely overlooked ebb
and flow of institutional development in Afghanistan, at all
levels, in the context of international interest in the country,
with special attention to Soviet and US/Coalition strategies and
their effects. It also focuses on the power of patronage relations
in establishing and retaining control in Afghanistan, and how the
extension of such relations to the international level transformed
Afghanistan into a rentier state that struggles to unite its
people. Described by one Afghanistan expert as an excellent piece
of work, very well documented with close attention to detail, this
study offers sober analysis and critical insights. It will interest
scholars and students of Afghan affairs plus policy-makers,
diplomats, soldiers, international organizations and NGOs,
businesses, journalists and many others engaged with Afghanistan
and issues of political, military and economic power,
democratization and civil-military relations in the region.
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