Analytic Models and Policy Prescription: Understanding Recent Innovation in U.S. Counterterrorism

The threat of terrorism, particularly terrorism involving a weapon of mass destruction (WMD), has received enormous attention in the last decade. Since the mid1990s, the federal government has embarked on a concerted national effort to prepare the country for acts of WMD terrorism. A key component of the counterterrorism agenda is the domestic preparedness program, a series of initiatives aimed at reducing America's vulnerability to a WMD terrorist attack. However, there is a heated debate over whether or not the United States needs a domestic preparedness program at all. This article argues that much of the debate originates in disparate approaches to analyzing terrorism. Terrorism studies specialists use an internal model that analyzes the root causes, motives, and historical patterns of terrorism and concludes that the threat of WMD terrorism against the United States is not sufficient to warrant the domestic preparedness budget. Policy makers and national security experts, however, rely on an external risk assessment model that considers terrorism within the context of the many risks to American security. This assessment model evaluates WMD terrorism on the basis of risk and consequences, and reaches a logical conclusion that the potential for mass destruction not only merits, but also requires a level of domestic preparedness.     

大中东:美国对外战略的前沿

2006年11月美国中期选举结束后,美对外战略及其政策策略向何处去,布什余任内如何作为,成为国际关注的焦点.迹象显示,受多重因素影响和制约,美对外战略前沿仍会继续聚焦于大中东地区(沿北非、中东、中亚延伸至南亚、西南亚的"动荡弧地带"),美中东政策将保持一定的延续性和稳定性,大中东地区仍是美优先推进反恐、防扩散战略的主要场所及推进"民主、自由"改造的重要试验场.大中东地区形势走向对国际局势和地区格局将持续产生深刻影响.     

美国中亚战略面面观

中亚地区"颜色革命"的尘埃尚未落定,要求美国撤军的呼声又起,美国防部长拉姆斯菲尔德今年两度前往中亚,引起了国际社会的普遍关注,中亚地区在相当长的一段时期内难以平静下来;美国的霸权已经进入中亚,在可预见的未来不仅不会轻易退出,反而将成为该地区一个十分重要的角色,这是由美国的中亚战略所决定的.     

Trends in Transnational Terrorism and Implications for U.S. National Security and U.S. Terrorism Risk Insurance Act

The unprecedented losses brought about by the attacks of 11 September 2001 have cast the issue of terrorism risk insurance into sharp relief. In particular, it has raised questions as to whether attacks on this scale are an insurable risk and the extent to which the private insurance industry is able and/or willing to price such risks independent of a Federal safety net. Although the Bush administration has committed to renew the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) to offset the human and materiel costs that might result from future cataclysmic terrorist strikes taking place on U.S. soil, it is not apparent that this legislative framework is relevant to the type of extremist contingencies that the United States is likely to face over the short-to-medium term. Any long-term solution to providing insurance in America will necessarily need to go beyond TRIA's existing framework by dropping the “foreign interest” designation for certified attacks; including some sort of supplemental program that includes mandatory coverage for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) assaults; and investigating ways to increase the take-up rates of terrorism insurance by lowering its cost to the customer. An oversight board mandated to evaluate the Act's performance and relevance to evolving terrorist trends would also be useful.     

Semi-Proxy Wars and U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy

On 4 February 2014, Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan (aka Al Qaeda Central) repudiated Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Ayman al-Zawahiri declared that al-Baghdadi and his newly formed Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) were no longer part of Al Qaeda's organization and Al Qaeda Central could not be held responsible for ISIL's behavior. It represents the first time that Al Qaeda Central has renounced an affiliate publicly. The announcement was driven by months of fighting between ISIL and Jabhat al-Nusra, another Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria. In fact, in Syria, Al Qaeda fighters are competing against each other for influence, as well as against other opposition groups, the Syrian regime, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iraqi militiamen, and Lebanese Hezbollah. This chaotic, semi-proxy war is unlike any previous problem encountered, made even more challenging by the limited U.S. presence on-the-ground. More worrisome, this semi-proxy war also has spread beyond Syria. Similar dynamics have emerged in Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon to a certain extent. This article argues that these dynamics necessitate a twist in U.S. counterterrorism strategy.     

Terrorism and the U.S. energy infrastructure

James DeFronzo, Revolutions &; Revolutionary Movements (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991), 336 pp. $59.95.

David Scott Palmer, Ed., Shining Path of Peru (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992), 271 pp. $45.00.

Stanley E. Spangler, Force and Accommodation in World Politics (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, August 1991).

James J. Wirtz, The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991).

David Omissi, Air Power and Colonial Control: The Royal Air Force, 1919–1939 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990), 260 pp. $35.     

Countering the Islamic State: U.S. Counterterrorism Measures

This research note discusses the tactics and strategies of the United States to counter the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) from the onset of Operation Inherent Resolve beginning on 8 August 2014 and continuing into early 2015. Through both kinetic and non-kinetic actions, the United States and its coalition has sought to degrade and defeat ISIL. But how effective have these measures been with regard to the group's ability to maintain control over parts of the Iraqi population and territory? ISIL's fast growing affiliate network poses a unique challenge and this study suggests that the kinetic measures of Operation Inherent Resolve have weakened ISIL's tactical capabilities but U.S. efforts to stem the group's recruitment have not been as successful.