National heroes or coming anarchy? Vigilant youth and the “war on terror” in Nigeria

In this article, I explore analytically how local youth vigilante groups in terror-stricken northeastern Nigeria – locally known as the Civilian Joint Task Force or yan gora (“youth with sticks”) – are responding to threats to their communities posed by the terrorism of Boko Haram and the human rights abuses of the Nigerian security forces. The article argues that vigilantism has been a way for victimised local youth to reclaim a sense of control and agency in a context of risk, radical uncertainty, powerlessness and heightened fear. While one group of victimised and angry youth (Boko Haram) in northeastern Nigeria are violently resisting the state, another group of victimised and angry youth (yan gora) from the same region are joining forces with the state to protect members of their local communities and to restore peace to their troubled region. However, growing concerns that the yan gora are a “coming anarchy” have compelled state-endorsed youth empowerment schemes geared at integrating the militia into Nigerian security service, while regulating their actions and instilling patriotism and discipline in its members. Yet, such hybrid security arrangements may end up reproducing the very insecurity they were meant to forestall.     

An epistemic break from “expertise”: Misunderstanding Terrorism by Marc Sageman

ABSTRACT

Professor Marc Sageman’s latest contribution to terrorism “studies” builds on an ever-increasing critique of a field in which “expertise” is something that is largely taken for granted, rather than empirically “known”. His book Misunderstanding Terrorism seeks to refocus our attention towards what is knowable through a Bayesian analysis based on his unique access to acts of terrorism within the Western world. Key, however, is his framing of what terrorism “is”, and to that effect, this review article first assesses the work of two individuals writing on terrorism, Rafaello Pantucci and Shiraz Maher, to place Sageman’s significant book within a wider context of terrorism literature.     

The New Generation Warfare: India’s Need for Comprehensiveness

The article is an enquiry into the nature of the new form of warfare known as the fourth generation warfare. The concept of comprehensive national power (CNP) that encapsulates the sum total of a nation’s power, which includes its economic, military, science and technology, education, resources, and global influence, becomes a prerequisite for it, in order to counter this new generation warfare. Therefore, for any nation today faced with this newly emerged threat, there is a need to establish comprehensiveness in its CNP.