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71. August 2017 Issue

Author:
Aaron Brantly, Charlie Winter, Devorah Margolin, Michael Knights, Kristina Hummel, and Raffaello Pantucci
Publication Date:
08-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
CTC Sentinel
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
After a respite from mass-casualty terrorism for more than a decade, the United Kingdom this past spring suffered three such attacks in the space of just 73 days, making clear it faces an unprecedented security challenge from jihadi terrorism. In our cover article, Raffaello Pantucci outlines what investigations have revealed so far about the March attack on Westminster Bridge, the bombing at a pop concert in Manchester in May, and the June attack on London Bridge and Borough Market. The early indications are that the Westminster attacker, Khalid Masood, had no contact with the Islamic State and the Manchester and London Bridge attackers were, at most, loosely connected to the group. The current threat environment, Pantucci writes, continues to be mostly made up of individuals and smaller scattered cells planning lower-tech attacks with very short planning and operational cycles—sometimes remotely guided by the Islamic State—rather than cells trained and dispatched by the Islamic State to launch large-scale, Paris-type attacks, but this could change as more British Islamic State recruits return home. Our interview this month is with Edward You, a Supervisory Special Agent in the Biological Countermeasures Unit in the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate. While the full liberation of Mosul last month effectively ended the Islamic State’s caliphate pretensions, Michael Knights warns the Islamic State and other jihadis are already bouncing back in several parts of Iraq and more strongly and quickly in areas where the security forces are either not strong enough or not politically flexible enough to activate the population as a source of resistance. As the Islamic State transitions from administering territory to a renewed campaign of terrorism and insurgency, Charlie Winter and Devorah Margolin examine the Islamic State’s apparent lifting of its moratorium on using women as suicide bombers. In a commentary, Aaron Brantly argues that creating back-doors in encryption, or banning it, would create significant societal costs without stopping terrorists from accessing the technology.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Science and Technology, Terrorism, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Insurgency, Counter-terrorism, Women, Islamic State, and Encryption
Political Geography:
Iraq, United Kingdom, Europe, Middle East, and Global Focus

72. November 2017 Issue

Author:
Jason Warner, Caleb Weiss, Andrew McGregor, Daisy Muibu, Benjamin P. Nickels, Paul Cruickshank, Mohammed Hafez, Colin P. Clarke, and Phillip Smyth
Publication Date:
11-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
CTC Sentinel
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
The Islamic State’s caliphate project has ended in abject failure, with the group now holding a small vanishing portion of the territory it once controlled in Syria and Iraq. In our cover article, Mohammed Hafez argues the Islamic State is just the latest example of a “fratricidal” jihadi group predestining its own defeat by its absolutism, over-ambition, domineering behavior, and brutality. He argues that the Islamic State’s puritanical ideology blinded it to learning lessons from the GIA’s defeat in Algeria in the 1990s and al-Qa`ida in Iraq’s near defeat in the 2000s. In all three cases, these jihadi groups “managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory” because of their innate inability to show restraint and pragmatism. Our interview is with Angela Misra, the co-founder of The Unity Initiative (TUI), a British Muslim community group widely viewed as one of the most effective in countering violent extremism. Misra describes her increasingly high-stakes efforts to transform the mindset of women convicted of terrorist offenses and recent female returnees from the Islamic State. With the Islamic State recently moving toward embracing combat roles for women, she warns there could be a surge in female terrorism in Western countries. Colin Clarke and Phillip Smyth document how the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is working to transform Shi`a foreign fighter networks into transnational proxy forces capable of fighting both asymmetric and conventional wars. Andrew McGregor outlines the security challenges in Libya’s southern Fezzan region, warning it could emerge as a major new base for jihadi operations with serious implications for European security. Jason Warner and Caleb Weiss look at why the Islamic State has, so far, failed to pose a significant challenge to al-Shabaab. In the wake of a double-truck bombing last month in Mogadishu that killed over 350, Daisy Muibu and Benjamin Nickels examine the local expertise factor in al-Shabaab’s increasingly deadly IED campaign.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Terrorism, Counter-terrorism, Islamic State, Jihad, Al Shabaab, Foreign Fighters, and IED
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, Iran, Middle East, Libya, and Somalia

73. The Recruitment of Migrant Workers By London Science and technology Firms

Author:
Andrew P. Goodwin
Publication Date:
08-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Oxford Economics
Abstract:
Access to talent is central to London’s competitiveness. It is important that all companies can recruit the skills and experience they need to innovate and grow. Tier 2 of the UK’s visa system is the main economic route for skilled immigration from outside the European Economic Area (EEA), where the position cannot be filled by a UK/EEA national or is on the Shortage Occupation List. This report assesses the extent to which start-ups and SMEs, particularly those in the science and technology sectors, have difficulties in recruiting from outside the EEA through Tier 2. It finds that while some firms are undoubtedly facing challenges, the problem is not especially widespread across the science and technology sector as a whole. However, at least some employers are encountering difficulties with Tier 2 and a faster, better-supported, and simpler process would make a real difference to employers.
Topic:
Migration, Science and Technology, Labor Issues, and Immigrants
Political Geography:
United Kingdom, Europe, London, and England

74. Digitizing Refugees: The Effect Of Technology On Forced Displacement By Timothy Loh

Author:
Timothy Loh
Publication Date:
04-2016
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
Abstract:
Recent technological advances have brought with them a swath of benefits for displaced persons fleeing their country of origin. Relatively cheap mobile devices have made it easy for refugees today to keep in touch with each other and with their families over large distances using instant messaging or video-calling services. These capabilities provide refugees with a larger social network, and may prove especially important to those not as well-integrated into their host communities, such as Somali refugees in Jordan. Improved formal wire transfer systems and informal banking systems have also eased the sending of monetary remittances, a crucial aspect of social ties between refugees and their families in the homeland, who use the money for immediate subsistence needs as well as social functions. Transnational social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter have, in some cases, also benefited refugees, often in raising awareness of the refugee crisis.
Topic:
Migration, Science and Technology, Refugees, Internet, and Displacement
Political Geography:
Europe, Middle East, and United States of America

75. Emerging Security Challenges: An Introduction

Author:
Detlef Puhl
Publication Date:
03-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
The security landscape at the beginning of the 21st century is a fluid and dynamic one, characterized by developments in technology, in weapons and communications systems as well as by shifts in the international political landscape and organizational structures of non-state actors posing serious and imminent threats to national and international security. Within this environment NATO finds itself at a crossroads. Its Strategic Concept, adopted in Lisbon in November 2010, marks the beginning of its adjustment to this new reality, reflecting a security environment with effects far beyond NATO and its partners – an environment which will see the fundamental global shifts continue in the coming years: In the global distribution of power, including revisionist activities in our immediate neighborhood and a fundamental challenge to our rules-based international order by mainly radical islamist organizations; in demographics; in economics; in technology; in the environment. Faced by such very different global challenges to our security, NATO must seek to maintain its cohesion and develop a broader notion of transatlantic security and enhance its relevance in meeting modern day threats and challenges.
Topic:
Security, NATO, Science and Technology, and Weapons
Political Geography:
Europe, North Atlantic, and North America

76. The Workforce of Pioneer Plants

Author:
Ricardo Hausmann and Frank Neffke
Publication Date:
01-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
Is labor mobility important in technological diffusion? We address this question by asking how plants assemble their workforce if they are industry pioneers in a location. By definition, these plants cannot hire local workers with industry experience. Using German social-security data, we find that such plants recruit workers from related industries from more distant regions and local workers from less-related industries. We also show that pioneers leverage a low-cost advantage in unskilled labor to compete with plants that are located in areas where the industry is more prevalent. Finally, whereas research on German reunification has often focused on the effects of east-west migration, we show that the opposite migration facilitated the industrial diversification of eastern Germany by giving access to experienced workers from western Germany.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Labor Issues, Labor Policies, Human Capital, Diversification, and Mobility
Political Geography:
Europe, Germany, and European Union

77. An Uncompleted Attempt at the End of the Nineteenth Century: The Shipping Company of Sakarya River

Author:
Ömer Karaoğlu
Publication Date:
06-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Bilgi
Institution:
Değişim Yayınları
Abstract:
XVIIth century and next periods were the years of the expansion of commercial capitalism by means of shipping trade. The activity of west in Mediterranean trade along the line a series of developments which constricted the Ottoman domination. At the beginning of the XIXth century, it was seen the expansion in foreign trade and financial dependence conjunction with the process of integration with western economies. In this process, the western countries experienced the significant improvements in the ship technology and sea transporting. The steamships moved to a new phase the superiority of western capitalism. The Ottoman State tried to develop the resistance by reforms in this new process. It was intended to improve the water resources of Anatolia and also to prevent damage to agricultural lands in accordance with the Tanzimat reforms. It was realised the public services in order to get benefit of the rivers to contribute to the national economy. The river transporting failed mostly. The old shipping technology was dependent on the wind directions. It could be done the transportation on the rivers such as Euphrates, Tigris, Nile and Danube. The shipping company of Sakarya river was aborted attempt in Ottoman territory. It was given the concession for this initiative that was started towards the end of Abdulaziz I (1861-1876) period but it was not ready for operating activities in the legal term. This study is the subject of this unfinished experiment.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Maritime Commerce, Water, and Shipping
Political Geography:
Europe, Asia, and Ottoman Empire

78. When the generation gap collides with military structure: The case of the Norwegian cyber officers

Author:
Hanne Eggen Roislien
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
As the military integrates cyber into its structures, gradually more nations are recruiting and educating personnel to serve as "cyber officers". Tech-savvy men and women from ‘Generation Y’ grew up in the post-modern era, recognized not only by its individualism and erosion of overarching, coherent maxims, but also by the fact that technology is taken for granted. Thus, in the situation of the cyber officer a particular generation gap occurs, one in which the characteristics of postmodernity, military command structures and the inter-disciplinarity of cyber pull in conflicting directions. This friction creates a peculiar situation as technology and cyber contribute to sharpen the generation gap that necessarily exists between the young generation of cyber officers, and their superiors in the military. I explore this quandary through an examination of cyber officers’ testimonies. In particular, I focus on the cyber officers’ conceptualization of “cyber” and how this resonates with that of their superiors’. The data is ethnographic, based on interviews with cyber officer students at the Norwegian Defence Cyber Academy.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Military Strategy, and Cybersecurity
Political Geography:
Europe, Norway, Northern Europe, and Scandinavia

79. The Authoritarian Resurgence: Forward to the Past in Russia

Author:
Lilia Shevtsova
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Democracy
Institution:
National Endowment for Democracy
Abstract:
The Russian system of personalized power has demonstrated the ability to reproduce itself by both imitating and containing the West. In its quest for survival, the system has used foreign policy to a) compensate for the Kremlin’s diminishing resources, and b) contain the West’s impact inside and outside of Russia. The Kremlin’s continued experiments with new “technology” to prolong the system’s life include not only repression but also information warfare, as is seen in the development of a pro-Kremlin lobbyist network in the West to support the left-right “International.”
Topic:
Science and Technology, Authoritarianism, Conflict, and Disinformation
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and North America

80. The Hybrid Legal-Scientific Dynamic of Transnational Scientific Institutions

Author:
Oren Perez
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
The objective of the present article is to develop a better understanding of the institutional dynamic of transnational regulatory scientific institutions (RSIs). RSIs play a significant role in the transnational regulatory process by mediating between the scientific community and policy-making bodies. I argue that RSIs have a hybrid structure involving both political-legal and epistemic authority. The hybrid structure of RSIs – their capacity to exert both normative and epistemic authority – constitutes an innovative response to the demand of modern society for scientific certainty and to the scarcity of normative power in the international domain. This hybrid nature has a triple structure involving three complementary pairs: law~science, law~non-law and science~pseudoscience. I examine the way in which RSIs cope with the challenge of maintaining their epistemic and legal authority against the tensions generated by their hybrid structure. The discussion of hybrid authority is related to the problem of scientific uncertainty. I examine this theoretical argument drawing on an in-depth analysis of three RSIs that reflect the institutional diversity of the RSI network: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection and the European Committee of Homeopaths. I conclude with a discussion of some of the policy issues associated with the institutional design of RSIs. The policy discussion refers, first, to the risk posed by RSIs’ hybrid structure to their internal stability and, second, to some potential adverse social impacts that need to be considered alongside RSIs’ projected benefits.
Topic:
International Law, Science and Technology, Law, and Regulation
Political Geography:
Europe and Italy