Southeast Asia and the Golden Triangle's Heroin Trade: Threat and Response

The Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia lies at the heart of the global heroin trade, accounting for roughly 60 percent of all illicit opium production. Narcotics from this part of the world have had an insidious, corrosive, far reaching and, at times, highly destabilizing impact. In particular, they have been linked to an explosion of AIDS, social instability, a lack of economic performance, official corruption and the growing force of organized crime. These effects have been felt, in one form or another throughout Southeast Asia, North America, Australasia, and Northeast Asia. Dealing with the threat posed by the Golden Triangles heroin trade will require a fully inclusive strategy that emphasizes both supply disruption and demand reduction. While certain Southeast Asian states have pledged to intensify the scope and effectiveness of their drug policies, official apathy is widespread and continues to mitigate against effective counter-measures.     

Six Deadly Flaws

Following publication of the Brahimi Report on the future of UN Peacekeeping Operations under Chapter 6 of the UN Charter, the author, a former Operations Officer with UNTSO-OGL on the Israeli-Lebanon border, casts a critical eye over the report's recommendations and identifies areas that raise some concern.     

Terrorism: A strategic perspective

This paper compares the U.S. national security strategy's vision for counter‐terrorism missions to the political realm in which conventional military forces and terrorists operate. Terrorist acts and state responses are analyzed to demonstrate that they have differing political effects, which calls into question the political utility of a conventional military counterterrorist response. Terrorism is placed within context of the present era as, according to Martin van Creveld, evolving historical conditions are wrenching warfare out of the political realm in which Clausewitz's analysis originally posited warfare's extension of political activity based on state power. The article also discusses terrorism's nebulous placement within the levels of war to reveal another aspect of terrorism's different relationship to the political realm. Ultimately, this challenges the U.S. national security strategy's conclusion that conventional military force used in “punitive” or “counterterrorism” operations is an effective political response to terrorism.     

Forward to the Past? Loyalist Paramilitarism in Northern Ireland Since 1994

This article considers in detail loyalist paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland since the paramilitary cease-fires of 1994. The continuing nature of contemporary loyalist violence is documented with reference to sectarian attacks against members of the “Other”/Catholic community and associated symbols of that community, violence directed at other loyalists, and the potential for future violence given constitutional uncertainty regarding Northern Ireland's position within the United Kingdom. The article also challenges assumptions within the broader literature of an inability within loyalist paramilitary groups to move beyond violence in the post-cease-fire period with particular reference to their conflict transformation efforts.     

Locating Al Qaeda's Center of Gravity: The Role of Middle Managers

This article claims that the ongoing debate about the structure and dynamics of Al Qaeda has failed to appreciate the importance of an organizational layer that is situated between the top leadership and the grass-roots. Rather than being “leaderless,” it is the group's middle management that holds Al Qaeda together. In Clausewitzian terms, Al Qaeda's middle managers represent a center of gravity—a “hub of … power and movement”—that facilitates the grass-roots’ integration into the organization and provides the top leadership with the global reach it needs in order to carry out its terrorist campaign, especially in Europe and North America. They are, in other words, the connective tissue that makes Al Qaeda work. The article substantiates this hypothesis by providing a number of case studies of Al Qaeda middle managers, which illustrate the critical role they have played in integrating the grass-roots with the top leadership. The policy implications are both obvious and important. If neither the top leadership nor the grass-roots alone can provide Al Qaeda with strategic momentum, it will be essential to identify and neutralize the middle managers, and—in doing so—“cause the network to collapse on itself.”     

After Oslo and Utøya: A Shift in the Balance Between Security and Liberty in Norway?

The article addresses the challenges a society faces to when trying to balance security and liberty after a terrorist attack. A main question is to what extent attitudes toward counterterror measures changed in Norway after the massive terror attacks in July 2011. A hypothesis that people will be more in favor of such measures after a terror attack is examined using data from two surveys—one conducted in 2006 and one in August 2011, with additional results from a survey in 2012. The Norwegian response after the 2011 attacks is compared to the response to the same questions in the United States shortly after 11 September 2001. A main finding is that in Norway, in contrast to the United States, levels of support for counterterror measures declined immediately after the attacks. The authors argue that this can be explained partly by the different levels of trust in the two countries, and partly by differences in the political executive's framing of the crisis. In 2012, support of counterterror measures in Norway has risen to pre-2011 levels. This is related to the changed discourse after the publication of the report from the 22 July Commission.     

The predicament of elections in war-torn societies

Why do elections held in the shadow of civil wars sometimes generate more violence in already war-torn societies, while in other circumstances they do not? This article develops a conceptual framework based on three clusters of factors to analyse the conflict-generating aspects of elections in war-torn societies: the key actors in the electoral processes; the institutions of elections; and the stakes of the elections. Two types of war-related elections are distinguished: elections held during an ongoing civil war, and elections held in the post-war period when peace is to be implemented. While different in many respects, the two contexts share critical characteristics through their association with the legacy of warfare. Several important implications emerge from the analysis. First, relating to militant and violent actors, incentive structures need to be altered by addressing both the opportunities and means of violence. Second, to prevent inducements for violent behaviour, institutional arrangements – including electoral commissions – have to be crafted with consideration given to local conflict dynamics and the history of violent conflict. Finally, the stakes of elections in war-shattered societies can be reduced through, for instance, constitutional pact-making and the oversight of external actors in electoral processes.