Imam Feisal speaks about the need for interreligious dialogue and cooperation while addressing the debate surrounding the community center near the World Trade Center.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Cooperation, Islam, and Terrorism
A bloody bank robbery in Medan in August 2010 and the discovery in Aceh in February 2010 of a terrorist training camp using old police weapons have focused public attention on the circulation of illegal arms in Indonesia. These incidents raise questions about how firearms fall into criminal hands and what measures are in place to stop them. The issue has become more urgent as the small groups of Indonesian jihadis, concerned about Muslim casualties in bomb attacks, are starting to discuss targeted killings as a preferred method of operation.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Arms Control and Proliferation, Crime, Terrorism, and Counterinsurgency
President Barack Obama's policy of a conditions-based redeployment in Afghanistan starting in July 2011 leaves him a lot of flexibility. The administration will likely decide to maintain the troop numbers in Afghanistan near the surge level next year, pending another review.
Gabriella Slomp's "Carl Schmitt and the Politics of Hostility, Violence and Terror" examines Schmitt's work as a whole, but sets out in particular to draw out contradictions and tensions in Schmitt's theoretical endorsement of authoritarian state power.
Habeas is working. The judges of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia have ably responded to the Supreme Court's call to review the detention of individuals at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. As former federal judges, many of us expressed our confidence as amici in Boumediene v. Bush that courts are competent to resolve these cases. We write now to affirm that our confidence has been vindicated. While we take no position on particular cases, a review of the District Court's treatment of the Guantánamo litigation convinces us that the court has effectively developed a consistent, coherent, and stable jurisprudence.
Global terrorism, irregular migration, proliferation of WMDs and piracy are all issues currently included in the EU's Mediterranean maritime security agenda. Due to the peculiar nature of these threats, the European Security Strategy claims that multilateral action is the most effective way to deal with these security threats. The involvement of regional and non-regional influential actors - both state and nonstate actors - is deemed crucial. Therefore, this analysis illustrates Mediterranean institutionalised security cooperation within many regional fora: EMP/UfM, NATO Mediterranean Dialogue, the Western Mediterranean Dialogue. Finally, some concrete actions are suggested for the EU to play an effective role.
Topic:
Security, Terrorism, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Maritime Commerce, and Piracy
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
Current trends in defense thinking show signs of being influenced by the notion that preparing for one form of war has brought about another. We find evidence of this notion in a number of official speeches, the 2008 National Defense Strategy, and the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review Report. It is captured in the almost routine claim that America's superiority in conventional warfare is so great that it is driving our adversaries toward irregular methods. All of these examples share the basic assumption that we are now fighting (and will likely continue to fight) conflicts for which we have not prepared—precisely because we have not prepared for them. Thus, the modern complement—a preparation paradox—to the old Latin adage “If you want peace, prepare for war,” might well be “If you want one kind of war, prepare for another.”
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Terrorism, War, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Counterinsurgency
Insurgent and terror groups operating in the tribal areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan are deepening their involvement in organized crime, an aspect of the conflict that at once presents enormous challenges and also potential opportunities for Coalition forces trying to implement a population‐centric counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy. Within a realm of poor governance and widespread state corruption, anti‐state actors engage in and protect organized crime—mainly smuggling, extortion and kidnapping—both to raise funds and also to spread fear and insecurity, thus slowing the pace of development and frustrating attempts to extend the rule of law and establish a sustainable licit economy. Militant groups on either side of the frontier function like a broad network of criminal gangs, not just in terms of the activities in which they engage, but also in the way they are organized, how funds flow through their command chains and how they interact—and sometimes fight—with each other. There is no doubt that militant groups have capitalized on certain public grievances, yet their ties to criminal profiteering, along with the growing number of civilian casualties they cause on both sides of the frontier, have simultaneously contributed to a widening sense of anger and frustration among local communities. Through a series of focused and short anecdotal case studies, this paper aims to map out how key groups engage in criminal activity in strategic areas, track how involvement in illicit activity is deepening or changing and illustrate how insurgent and terror groups impose themselves on local communities as they spread to new territory. It is hoped that a closer examination of this phenomenon will reveal opportunities for disrupting the problem, as well as illustrate how Coalition forces, the international community and moderate Muslim leaders might capitalize on an untapped public relations opportunity by better protecting local communities who are the main victims of it.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Terrorism, Insurgency, and Counterinsurgency