Comments on James L. Gelvin's “Al-Qaeda and Anarchism: A Historian's Reply to Terrorology”

The article deals with the intellectual and philosophical background of Sartre's thought, which made him susceptible to the influence of left-wing totalitarian structures in general and to left-wing terrorism in particular. Consequently it is argued that Sartre's identification with Stalinism in his younger years, and his later sympathies with the infamous German Baader-Meinhof terrorist gang, were more than mere expressions of his personality, but rather part and parcel of his special blend of existentialism and philosophy. At the end of the article, Sartre's position in this matter is contrasted with the position of another existentialist French thinker, Sartre's contemporary, Albert Camus.     

The Nefarious Helping Hand: Anti-Corruption Campaigns,Social Service Provision,and Terrorism1

This article offers a novel contribution to the terrorism literature by using mathematical modeling and case studies to demonstrate how terrorist and extremist groups can utilize social service provision activities and anti-corruption campaigns instead of violent activities to gain support.The basic argument of the model is that terrorist groups will try to gain support by promising that they will be better distributors of resources than the current regime once they gain power and by promising that they will be less corrupt. However, because all organizations can freely make these promises, their words are cheap talk, and the general population should ignore them. To overcome this problem, organizations must offer a costly signal. Provision of social goods and implementation of explicit anti-corruption campaigns before taking power serves as such a signal. As the United States government and its allies widen their “war on terrorism,” they must consider the ramifications of social service provision and anti-corruption activities, which are common, effective, and potentially useful for increasing the probability of group success.     

Challenges of Protecting India From Terrorism

The secular, pluralistic, ethnically diverse, and vibrant democracy that India has nurtured ever since its independence in 1947 has become the envy of many radical and extremist ideologies and religions that seek to bring in order through tools of fourth generation warfare like Jihad and “Proxy War.” Typical examples of such conflicts facing India are the ones being waged against her by Jehadi organizations like the Lashkar-e-Taiba and other proxy factions supported by the Pakistan Inter Services Intelligence Agency. Despite a few pro-active measures instituted by the government of India after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, there is no clear counter-terrorism policy that has been articulated either in the form of a doctrine or white paper. If India has to dispel the image of being a “soft state,” it is imperative that the government clearly spells out its stand on terrorism.     

Explaining the Origins of the Iran Hostage Crisis: A Cognitive Perspective

Psychological approaches have long been utilized to try to understand the mindsets of terrorists, but much of this literature has drawn on Freudian-inspired psychoanalytic approaches derived from the field of what is sometimes known as abnormal psychology. Building upon recent work which has largely dismissed the value of this kind of approach, this article suggests that we ought to draw more actively than hitherto upon newer, cognitive-based approaches to the study of terrorism. Stressing the importance of analogical reasoning in normal human reasoning, this article seeks to explain the actions of the Iranian students who stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran in November 1979. Cognitive images of “another 1953,” it is argued, played an especially decisive role in the hostage takers' decision-making processes. While analogical reasoning represents only one cognitive approach to decision-making, future research in the field of terrorist studies should utilize more up-to-date “mainstream” approaches to understanding the psychology of terrorist decision-making.     

Tactical Means,Strategic Ends: Al Qaeda's Use of Denial and Deception

This analysis surveys Al Qaeda's employment of denial and deception (D&D) and shows that it uses D&D on tactical and operational levels in order to achieve strategic results. It defines denial and deception and explains how they relate to Al Qaeda, overviews Al Qaeda's changing network structure and seeks to summarize how Al Qaeda employs D&D throughout its operations. This paper is structured to show that denial and deception are institutionalized factors that manifest themselves through all aspects of bin Laden's organization and that the traditional conception of D&D—that nonstate actors are incapable of employing deception as an element of grand strategy—is incorrect.     

Analysis and Evolution of the Global Jihadist Movement Propaganda

The Global Jihadist Movement (GJM) has a series of well-defined objectives, which constitute the central points of their ideology. In the realization of these goals, propaganda and public communication play a central role. This article studies the evolution of the principal characteristics of GJM propaganda, analyzing over 2,000 documents issued by the GJM between 1996 and 2005.     

Terrorism and Democracy: Perpetrators and Victims

Most observers believe that the 'democratic rules of the game' provide a peaceful means for resolving political conflicts. This may be true but not all groups or even single individuals in democratic societies need play by these rules. This analysis uses two data sets: one that classifies most countries of the world based on how they were ruled in the mid-1980s, and the other on the frequency with which their nationals either perpetrated or were victimized by terrorists attacks, to investigate the relationship between terrorism and democracy. The findings suggest that stable democracy and terrorism go together. An analysis of the data reveal that terrorist attacks occur most often in the world's most stable democracies, and that, further, both the perpetrators and victims of those attacks are citizens of the same democracies.     

Hashim,Ahmed S. Insurgency and Counter-insurgency in Iraq

The paper argues that violent Uighur separatism and terrorism conforms in a number of important respects to the human security theory of terrorism, particularly in the realm of political and civil rights. However, it argues that impetus has been given to the various separatist organisations in the region by the development of interconnections between the largely internal aspects of China's policy of integration in the region and the wider Central and South Asian dynamic of Islamic radicalism since 1990.