Indian Jihadism: The Evolving Threat

India has been confronting jihadist violence for decades. Although expeditionary terrorism by Pakistani militants typically receives the most focus, indigenous actors, many benefitting from Pakistani support, are responsible for the majority of jihadist attacks in India. Yet the dynamics of Indian jihadism remain under-explored. This article examines the Indian Mujahideen (IM), which constitutes the primary indigenous jihadist threat. It argues the IM is best understood as a label for a network of modules, with a loose leadership, that is connected to smaller, self-organizing clusters of would-be militants as well as to foreign militant groups like the Pakistani Lashkar-e-Taiba.     

来自东方的威胁

近些年来,俄罗斯有不少媒体、官员、政客和学者在宣扬"中国威胁论",对俄罗斯民众颇具迷惑性.为便于中国读者了解所谓的"中国威胁论",本期刊发俄罗斯政治与军事研究所所长沙拉文2001年连续在<独立军事观察>和<独立报>发表的同一篇文章,此文把中国视为俄罗斯潜在的"头号敌人".文章译自<独立报>2001年9月28日第18[2491]期.     

Securing the nuclear nation

In 1946, in the Southern Urals, construction of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics first plutonium plant fell to the GULAG-Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del (NKVD). The chief officers in charge of the program – Lavrentii Beria, Sergei Kruglov, and Ivan Tkachenko – had been pivotal figures in the deportation and political and ethnic cleansing of territories retaken from Axis forces during WWII. These men were charged with building a nuclear weapons complex to defend the Soviet Union from the American nuclear monopoly. In part thanks to the criminalization and deportation of ethnic minorities, Gulag territories grew crowded with foreign nationals and ethnic minorities in the postwar years. The NKVD generals were appalled to find that masses of forced laborers employed at the plutonium construction site were members of enemy nations. Beria issued orders to cleanse the ranks of foreign enemies, but construction managers could not spare a single healthy body as they raced to complete their deadlines. To solve this problem, they created two zones: an interior, affluent zone for plutonium workers made up almost exclusively of Russians; and anterior zones of prisoners, soldiers, ex-cons, and local farmers, many of whom were non-Russian. The selective quality of Soviet “nuclearity” meant that many people who were exposed to the plant's secret plutonium disasters were ethnic minorities, people whose exposures went unrecorded or under-recorded because of their invisibility and low social value.     

叙利亚撤军与叙黎关系

自二月中旬以来,不平静的中东再起波澜。因黎巴嫩前总理哈里里遭遇汽车炸弹袭击身亡而引发的黎政坛危机和叙利亚宣布从黎巴嫩全部撤军,成为继伊拉克战争、巴以冲突和伊朗核问题等地区热点之后的新热点,备受媒体关注。3月5日, 叙利亚总统巴沙尔宣布,叙将分两个阶段从黎撤军,但鉴于技术原因,全部撤军可能需要一段时间。3月17日,叙完成第一阶段撤军。4月3日,叙再次明确承诺,将履行《塔伊夫协议》和联合国安理会第1559号决议,从4月7日开始第二阶段撤军,最迟于4月30目前全部撤出驻黎部队、军事装备和情报机构, 并允许联合国派核查小组监督撤军情况。     

Citizen Participation in Public Administration: Views from Lebanon

This article examines citizen participation in Lebanon. Specifically, we apply the International Association for Public Participation Spectrum of Public Participation (2007) and use survey, interview, and archival data to understand how and why Lebanese government agencies use citizen participation. In addition to reviewing survey data, we present short cases about citizen participation in the three Lebanese agencies. Our findings indicate that the majority of public agencies in Lebanon use basic forms of citizen participation that span the inform-consult categories on the IAP2 spectrum. The article concludes with a discussion about the challenges of and prospects for citizen participation in the Lebanese public sector.     

Jihadism in Western Europe After the Invasion of Iraq: Tracing Motivational Influences from the Iraq War on Jihadist Terrorism in Western Europe

Abstract

This article investigates the importance of the invasion and occupation of Iraq as motivation for recent acts of jihadist terrorism in Western Europe. It analyses the mass casualty terrorist attack attributed to a group of Islamist militants in Madrid on 11 March 2004, and the killing of a Dutch filmmaker on the streets of Amsterdam by an Al Qaeda–inspired terrorist network. The first case has been assumed to be mainly motivated by the Iraq war, whereas the other case has been perceived as an act by an individual, motivated by domestic factors in Holland. The article situates these acts of terrorism within the theory of so-called spillover effects from armed conflicts to international terrorism. It argues that the Iraq war was a significant motivational factor for the terrorists in both cases, but that the terrorists linked the Iraq issue with perceived injustices against Muslims in Europe and globally.     

The Cyberterrorism Threat: Findings from a Survey of Researchers

This article reports on a recent research project exploring academic perspectives on the threat posed by cyberterrorism. The project employed a survey method, which returned 118 responses from researchers working across 24 different countries. The article begins with a brief review of existing literature on this topic, distinguishing between those concerned by an imminent threat of cyberterrorism, and other, more skeptical, views. Following a discussion on method, the article's analysis section then details findings from three research questions: (1) Does cyberterrorism constitute a significant threat? If so, against whom or what?; (2) Has a cyberterrorism attack ever taken place?; and (3) What are the most effective countermeasures against cyberterrorism? Are there significant differences to more traditional forms of anti- or counterterrorism? The article concludes by reflecting on areas of continuity and discontinuity between academic debate on cyberterrorism and on terrorism more broadly.     

黎巴嫩新总统米歇尔·苏莱曼

2008年5月25日，黎巴嫩国民议会以绝对多数票选举，黎巴嫩武装部队司令米歇尔·苏莱曼为黎巴嫩独立后的第12任总统，苏莱曼也成为1989年黎巴嫩各派达成《塔依夫协议》、结束内战后的第4任总统和第3位出任总统的黎巴嫩武装部队司令。由此，黎巴嫩持续达半年多的总统选举危机得以解决。5月26日，苏莱曼在军乐团奏国歌、仪仗队敬礼和21响礼炮齐鸣中，     

构成安全威胁的脆弱国家——经济学和外部干预层面的反思

冷战结束后国际局势的新变化,增强了重新认识和研究脆弱或失败国家的紧迫性。如今,许多新近出现及处于从威权或独裁体制向奉行自由市场经济的开明体制转轨的国家已清楚地意识到,对国家的认识不能想当然。虽然国家的构建主要取决于一个国家自身的努力,但外部力量的影响和干预同样必不可少。在脆弱国家与安全议题之间存在着很强的相关性。     

The Almajiri Heritage and the Threat of Non-State Terrorism in Northern Nigeria--Lessons from Central Asia and Pakistan

The Almajiri heritage is, like the madrassahs in Central Asia, a system of Muslim education that dates back several centuries. With the imposition of British colonial rule between 1902 and 1960 on parts of the Sokoto Empire that currently constitute northern Nigeria, the North's amalgamation with Southern Nigerian British protectorates in 1914, and the formal abolition of slavery in northern Nigeria in 1936, this heritage underwent major structural and functional transformations. Given the lessons from the 1980 Maitatsine terrorist insurgence in Kano, Nigeria, and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in northern Nigeria since 1999, a potential exists that the heritage may evolve into an apparatus for perpetuating non-state terrorism. Drawing on the trajectory of similar educational systems in Central Asia prior to, during, and following Russian communist rule, this article outlines reasons for the growing terrorist potential of the Almajiri heritage, and suggests measures for avoiding such trajectories.     

论分裂主义对国家安全的威胁

分裂主义对国家安全特别是国家核心安全的威胁巨大,它不仅危害到国家的领土、主权完整,对国家认同造成严重冲击,而且在分裂主义采用暴力方式和外部干涉的情况下,直接威胁到国家的军事安全。分裂主义不是非传统安全的问题,而属于传统安全威胁。中国所面临的分裂主义威胁非常严重,在反分裂及安全研究方面,简单套用西方的理论体系来解释我国的核心安全利益问题是危险的。     

A Challenging State of Affairs: Public Administration in the Republic of Lebanon

ABSTRACT

This article highlights Lebanon’s administrative challenges and reform efforts, since the end of its Civil War (1975–1990). In recent years, Lebanon and international donors have worked to improve transparency, promote modern management techniques, and encourage the use of information technology throughout the public sector. Despite these efforts, Lebanon’s public institutions remain constrained by the centralization of power, corruption, outdated bureaucratic structures, and deficiencies in administrative knowledge. The success of future reform efforts will depend on whether the Lebanese bureaucracy can overcome the challenges created by regional political tensions, its Syrian refugee crisis, and an increasingly indifferent Lebanese public.     

Islam and Attitudes toward U.S. Policy in the Middle East: Evidence from Survey Research in Lebanon

This study examines the impact of religious orientation on attitudes toward U.S. Middle Eastern policy among Muslim Lebanese. The data came from a stratified random sample, consisting of 262 Sunni and Shi'i respondents of both genders, conducted in the Greater Beirut area during February and March of 2002. Consistent with the literature about Islamism, the present analysis reveals an empirical distinction between personal and political dimensions of religion in Lebanon. Specifically, support for political Islam is associated with unfavorable attitudes toward U.S. policy in the region, but personal religiosity is unrelated to attitudes toward foreign policy. The study findings contribute in clarifying the debate that has been raging since the September 11 attacks, pitting Islam against the West and associating Islam with political violence.