Political terrorism in South‐East Asia

This article will provide an overview of one specific non‐military threat that is beginning to assume greater prominence on south‐east Asia's broadened security agenda: political terrorism.¹ Although by no means new to the south‐east Asian environment, for much of the twentieth century its importance was sidelined and, in a sense ‘contained’, by the more pressing concern over US‐Soviet nuclear rivalry. With the end of the Cold War, however, the ‘bottle has been uncorked’ on a variety of lower‐level threats, with issues such as terrorism now taking on greater prominence and relevance in their own right as significant regional and national security concerns.²     

Alias ‘GBGPGS’: Action directe internationale's transition from revolutionary terrorism to euro‐terrorism

This article discusses terrorism as a ritual act or series of acts that expresses a message. The case of GBGPGS illustrates how complex such messages are by referring them to their French and global contexts. The group's violent struggle against political rules has a ‘sacrificial’ dimension and was justified as a response to ‘crisis’. Through attempting to re‐interpret French extreme‐left traditions, the GBGPGS campaign foreshadowed Euro‐terrorism. The most salient evidence of this shift was the group's concentration on economic globalization and the weakening of traditional state and great power structures.     

The Soviet Union and Churchill's appeals for high‐level talks, 1953–54: New evidence from the Russian archives

New evidence from the Russian archives offers proof that Winston Churchill's calls for top‐level talks, 1953–54, were greeted with mistrust and scepticism by Moscow. Soviet policy makers realized that Churchill was weak, entirely dependent on American policy and unable to act as mediator between East and West. They were also sceptical as to whether any real progress could be made during an Anglo‐Soviet summit meeting and, instead, pressed for four‐power talks at Foreign Minister level. Finally, the Soviet records shed light on the impact of the power struggle within the Kremlin on its responses to Churchill's initiative, with Vyacheslav Molotov preventing Georgi Malenkov from meeting the British Prime Minister.     

Topics in terrorism research: reviewing trends and gaps, 2007-2016

ABSTRACT

The topical focus of research on terrorism has frequently been critiqued for being too narrow, too event-driven and too strongly tied to governments’ counterterrorism policies. This article uses keyword analysis to assess the degree to which these issues remain present in the literature on terrorism as represented by the 3.442 articles published between 2007 and 2016 in nine of the field’s leading academic journals. Several fluctuations notwithstanding, research on terrorism has retained a strong focus on al-Qaeda, jihadist terrorism more generally, and the geographic areas most strongly associated with this type of terrorist violence. Results also indicate that the field remains event-driven and consistently underemphasizes state terrorism as well as non-jihadist terrorism, such as that perpetrated by right-wing extremists.     

‘A good investment?’ State sponsorship of terrorism as an instrument of Iraqi foreign policy (1979–1991)

Governmental support for nonstate actors designated as terrorist organizations is not only a policy that carries significant international and domestic costs; it further poses a theoretical challenge to structural realist thinking about alliance politics in international relations. By debating, firstly, the utility of terrorism as a means to influence systemic power distribution, and, secondly, the functional equality of nonstate actors, this article considers under what conditions state sponsored terrorism occurs despite the expected security loss. Drawing on the example of Iraq between 1979 and 1991, the assumption that the interplay of external security challenges—as well as domestic dissent as an intervening, unit-level factor—affects governmental alignments with terrorist groups will be reviewed in the cases of the Iranian Mujahedin al-Khalq Organization, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and armed Palestinian factions. The article concludes by addressing whether state sponsorship of terrorism is inevitably linked to policy failure or whether it could be seen as a good investment to balance external and internal security challenges successfully.     

France's action directe: Terrorists in search of a revolution

This article focuses on the ideology of the French terrorist group Action directe. Active from 1979 until 1987, AD went through several phases of ideological change. It was originally influenced by both anarchism and Maoism. In the early 1980s, the group substantially revised its ideology. The result was a variant of the Euro‐terrorism which burst forth in a number of countries during the 1980s. After this point, AD drew the inspiration for its attacks from a struggle against NATO and the ‘Americanization’ of Europe. These motives produced a spiral of violence after 1984 and culminated in a series of assassination attempts against French business and military figures. Throughout, AD attempted to realize the same goal: the assembly of a social group willing/capable of taking up the battle for communist revolution. This goal was AD's ‘search for a revolution’.     

The English-Speaking Peoples and Their World Role Since 1900

Winston Churchill's classic the History of the English Speaking Peoples (in four volumes) closed as the nineteenth century came to an end. This article picks up the compelling narrative beginning in 1901. It details how the English-speaking world has triumphed by working together—whether facing the Kaiser's Germany, Axis aggression, or Soviet communism. Now these countries have come together once again in the struggle against Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. What connects these countries remains far greater than what separates them.     

Terrorism in Colombia: Logic and Sources of a Multidimensional and Ubiquitous Phenomenon

This article examines contemporary uses of terrorism in Colombia. Combining an historical analysis with the most complete database available on political violence, we illustrate how terrorism in Colombia constitutes a specific strategy that can be distinguished from other manifestations of violence. We argue that Colombia's non-state armed groups have turned terrorism into a pivotal element of their repertoires of action. These parties have not only increased their reliance on this strategy and introduced more refined forms such as de-territorialized terrorism, but also have specialized in particular terrorist attacks that suit their general objectives. While paramilitary groups rely mostly on massacres and forced disappearance, guerrillas concentrate on agitational terrorism including kidnappings and indiscriminate bombings.     

Maritime security in the United States: Latent threats and latent vulnerabilities

Americans and their government are seemingly unconcerned about the possibility that maritime facilities and personnel might be at risk to armed violence. Not only are current maritime security efforts minimal, they feature a curious dichotomy: one thrust is directed toward occasional acts of terrorism, the other toward coastal defense in wartime. Despite a manifestly more interactive world marked by the ready availability of powerful, mobile weapons, no serious efforts have been directed toward protecting maritime facilities and personnel in the United States against special operations or unconventional warfare. This indifference reflects the prevalence of the Clausewitzian paradigm in America's attitude toward war and the country's historical experience with coastal defense in the wars of this century. The fragmented structure of civil and military protection available to protect ports and other facilities suggests that protection could not be quickly upgraded in the face of a rapidly‐developing threat.     

Acts of Truth Telling and Testimony in the Conceptualisation of Reparations in Post-conflict Peru

ABSTRACT

The internal armed conflict of Peru (1980–2000), a struggle which saw the rise of various guerrilla movements, notably Shining Path, against the State, left an estimated 69,280 fatalities and countless survivors of human rights violations. Among the victims, particularly toward the end of the conflict, were over 300,000 indigenous, predominantly illiterate, women in impoverished rural communities who had been targeted by State officials and forced into undergoing sterilisation surgeries. To date, no reparation has been enacted in response. This article reviews acts of truth telling, in particular the use of oral testimony within the project of Quipu, of the victims of these enforced sterilisations, as a nonviolent method of historical justice. The article finds that calls for violent social justice (that is, the internal armed conflict) have not protected the rights of the most vulnerable (among them, indigenous women), though arms may have been taken up in an attempt to do so, but have in fact increased the forms of violence within the armed conflict. By contrast, testimony as nonviolent action protects victims’ right to the truth and their right to resist, as it turns against violent histories and toward possible reparation.     

The United Nations and the right to self‐determination: A response to Mahalingam's reply

France has had a long history of struggle with various forms of terrorism and over the past decade has achieved particular success against Algerian Islamic terrorist groups – the GIA and GSPC – with close links to Al-Qaeda. This article reviews France's experience of terrorism since the end of the Second World War and details the evolving state responses to these challenges and the sophisticated anti-terrorist apparatus that now serves the French state. It then considers the role of France in the post-11 September ‘war on terrorism’ and argues that France remains in the front-line of the struggle against Al-Qaeda and that the French experience has much to contribute to the international war against Islamic terrorism.     

Red Dawn is Now: Race vs. Nation and the American Election

This article details the long-standing struggle within the American far right between those whose mission it is to resist the perceived subversion of international communism and its neo-Soviet successors now in power in the Kremlin and those whose mission is dedicated to preserving the White Race from the twin threats of miscegenation and marginalization from the corridors of power. Using the metaphor of the 1984 low-budget spectacular Red Dawn and noting the current pattern of Russian interference in the election and contacts with the Trump campaign, it traces the struggle from the ascendancy of anti-communism in the 1950s and 1960s to the current triumph of the race warriors and conspiracy theorists who championed the candidacy of Donald Trump. “Red Dawn Is Now” concludes with the observation that, for those who most fear foreign subversion, the revelations about Russian penwetration of the American election process and the Trump presidency represents a 21st-century version of the Soviet occupation that the young patriots of Red Dawn fame successfully repelled. If this is so, it suggests the possibility that Thomas Jefferson's observation that “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants” may be prophetic and that the fifth wave of terrorism might at long last be at hand.     

A Critical Perspective on Terrorism: Case Study of Jundallah and Jeish ul-Adl in Iran

ABSTRACT

An extensive body of traditional terrorism research exists where the focus is on Iran as a terrorist state and a terrorism sponsor. This article explores an alternative terrorism narrative by examining the non-state actors, Jundallah and Jeish ul-Adl. The deficiency of information in the literature is addressed by applying the first and second-order critique approach of Richard Jackson’s knowledge, power and politics theoretical framework in contrast with the traditional terrorism studies approach. A first-order critique seeks to destabilise the accepted knowledge that Iran is both a terrorist state and a terrorism sponsor. This provides the grounds to study other aspects of “knowing” in relation to the second-order critique, where a critical ground outside the discourse suggests that Iranian officials have declared that the non-state terrorist actors of Jundallah and Jeish ul-Adl constitute a threat to Iran’s political stability. The outcome of the analyses here bridges the gap between the new aspect of terrorism, the non-state actors, and critical terrorism studies in order to contest the traditional discussion of terrorism in Iran. The rationale behind new terrorism varies and necessitates that new meanings and strategies be adopted in relation to Iran.     

A Review of: “Rogelio Alonso. The IRA and Armed Struggle.”

ABSTRACT

In the conceptual literature on terrorism, there is no shortage of answers to the question: “What is terrorism?” Indeed, the terrorism literature has been heavily criticized for a deluge of definitions. And yet the booming quantitative terrorism literature generally examines a narrow set of “what is terrorism?”: how country-level factors explain variation in the number of terrorist attacks. This article demonstrates the variety of ways in which scholars currently operationalize terrorism and compares them to the ways it could be operationalized. I replicate studies using alternative operationalizations of terrorism to examine the consequences of the terrorism literature’s collective bet to focus on attack counts at the country level. Finally, I discuss the implications of the narrow set of operational choices with an eye towards how a greater variety of approaches would produce a more robust research agenda.     

Terrorism and public opinion: A five country comparison

This article examines public attitudes towards terrorism in five countries: Uruguay, Spain, Italy, Germany and Northern Ireland. It analyzes public concern over terrorism, images of the terrorists, support for the terrorists' goals, and public approval of anti‐terrorist measures. There are significant differences between nationalist and revolutionary terrorism. Nationalist terrorists have a high degree of support from an ethnic constituency, while revolutionary terrorists attract a much smaller degree of support primarily from the educated young. It is concluded that public opinion towards terrorism is a product of complex historical situations, and that public attitudes are unaffected by the terrorist campaign itself.     

Mark S. Hamm. Terrorism as Crime: From Oklahoma City to Al-Qaeda and Beyond

Few issues are more important to scholars of security studies than understanding the impact of state sponsorship on the capabilities of non-state armed actors. The subject of our study—Lebanon's Hezbollah—was selected based on its reputation amongst scholars and policymakers alike as an exceptionally capable organization. In our inquiry, we seek to answer the following questions about Hezbollah's rapid emergence during the 1980s as one of the world's premier armed non-state actors: (a) how did Iranian sponsorship contribute to Hezbollah's effectiveness?; and (b) to what extent did Hezbollah's success depend on characteristics endogenous to the organization itself? To preview our conclusions, state sponsorship can contribute markedly to non-state actors' capabilities by providing resources and sanctuary. However, the ultimate effectiveness of non-state armed groups depends heavily on such internal characteristics as their decision-making processes and members' backgrounds. Thus, while state support may be necessary for non-state actors to achieve their goals, it is insufficient as a guarantee of their effectiveness.     

Terrorism dissertations and the evolution of a specialty: An analysis of meta‐information

The notion that the terrorism subject‐area has failed to become a specialty because of too few researchers and trainees in the field arose first in 1983, and most recently in 1997 (by Reid), thus indicating an ongoing, unsolved obstacle in the developmental life of this sub‐field. This issue is discussed in the present study.

Authors of M.A. and Ph.D. theses were considered here as the future researchers in this field and as fulfilling the role of apprenticeship. The literature has pointed to this function as one of several conditions enabling a sub‐field to become a specialty, since it fulfills the function of self‐reproduction by providing a discipline with new and young researchers, new views and ideas and more accumulated and organized knowledge.

The abstract and bibliographical details of theses and dissertations were retrieved and analyzed from Dissertation Abstract International, which is a UMI database on OCLC's FirstSearch. This analysis of meta‐information should provide some indication of the status of the subject of terrorism today as a subfield and its chances of becoming an institutionalized specialty in the future.     

This violence good,that violence bad: normative and state-centric discourses in British school textbooks

ABSTRACT

Under the statutory obligations of the Prevent strategy, British schools have greater responsibility to counter terrorism and extremism than ever before. However, research has yet to fully explore how schools tackle such a complex issue in the classroom. This research critically examines the discourses of terrorism and extremism found within British secondary school textbooks to deepen understanding of how terrorism and extremism are taught in schools. This article deploys a mode of critical discourse analysis to assess and critique the ways in which the political realms of terrorism and extremism are constructed. I argue that these discourses construct an ethical proximity between the text, the reader and the state, while rendering voiceless both the “terrorist” and the civilian living in states prioritised by British foreign policy. As such, this article argues that British school textbooks construct a normative perspective through which the violence of states is sanitised and normalised. It raises concern regarding the role of contemporary schooling in perpetuating a global politics of violent foreign policy.