HSEP 301 (POLI 367)

Fall 2023

Review 1

 

 

This looks big, but don't worry.  If you have come to class, or viewed the lectures, and done all the reading, nothing here should be new to you.

            Also, though there are a lot of terms, obviously, not each one of them is the subject of an essay. These terms, in order, are an outline of everything we've done so far. A group of them might be the subject of an essay, or maybe a comparison between one issue and another. Usually, you can't explain a single term without referring to the terms next to it. So, really, if you can say one or two things about each term and how it relates to the terms around it and fits into the threats presented by terrorism you're doing fine. Some terms, however, are filled with enough significance to be short answers/identifications on the test (four or five sentences), but you'll be able to figure out which ones.

 

Remember that you have the PPT slides. They are a version of this review sheet.

Terms with (*) in front of them may not have been included in the lectures, but were discussed, at length, in the readings.

 

 

We may not get through all of this. If I need to edit some of this out, I will let you know at least a week before the exam.

 

List of Terms

 

Defining Terrorism

*The French Revolution definition

*Narodnaya Volya (People’s Will activities and purpose)

*Skirmishers

*The range of official definitions

*Hoffman’s definition

*Terrorists reject the rules of war

 

Modern Definition

1.    *Political Agenda

*Terrorism is agenda setting

Success of Palestinian terrorism in agenda setting

2.    Violence as the method

*Terrorism as a weapon of the weak

*Asymmetric warfare

*Attacking the enemy by causing it pain and creating fear

Al-Qaeda’s hope: US will feel the pain/fear and withdraw from the Middle East or US will overreact and incite greater resistance to US in the region and globally

The Terrorist Logic (from PPT slide)

Madrid Bombing 2004

3.    *Civilians as targets

*Civilian as audience and civilian as target

4.    *Publicity

*choice of targets (Hoffman)

5.    *Non-State Actors?

 

Key Issues

Terrorism as crime vs. terrorism as warfare

 

Categories/Typologies for terrorist groups

Ideological

Ethno-national

Narco-terrorism

Religious nationalism

Differences between the different types

Why a typology is useful for counterterrorism

 

 

Current trends

Religious nationalism

Development of weapons of mass destruction capability

Globalization’s role

            Impact of global travel

            Impact of global finance

            Impact of global communication

Independence of terrorist groups

            State-sponsored vs. independent groups

Terrorist network structures

 

Does terrorism work? Arguments for and against

On not confusing ends (political goals) with means (methods of achieving those goals)

 

History of Terrorism

Terrorism is not new

Zealots, assassins, thugs

 

*First Wave of modern terrorism

*assassinations

*as revolutionary (up until WW I)

 

Second Wave

*anti-colonial

Ethnonationalism

*Palestine
*Menachem Begin

*Irgun

*Goals? Success?

 

*Algeria

*FLN

*Urban Terrorism

*Goals? Success?

 

Third Wave

*State-sponsored terrorism (Hoffman)

*Leftist groups in Europe and Japan

*RAF (Baader-Meinhof Group)

*PLO as tutor

Soviet role

*PLO goals and strategy

*internationalization strategy

*Black September Organization and 1972 Munich Olympics

*Publicity equals success?

 

Fourth Wave

Global and religious

*The range of religious terrorist attacks in the 1990s (Hoffman)

*Characteristics of religious terrorism

*believing it is self-defense in the terrorist’s narrative

Desire for mass casualties

*Jewish extremism: Kach and Meir Kahane

*Aum Shinrikyo

*White Supremacists Christians in US (Timothy McVeigh, see below)

 

*Salafist Radical Terrorism

*Wahhabi ideas

*Qutb

*AQ vs. Muslim Brotherhood

*The religious roots: Saudi Arabia and Qutb’s role

Iranian revolution

*Afghan war vs. Soviets

*“Jihadis” or non-Afghans who came to Afghanistan

*alliance against the USSR and backing for mujahidin

*role of US, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan

*role of Madrassas (Saudi funded religious schools)

*Soviet defeat: all the vets of the Afghan war go home and launch local “jihad” against their governments

*Taliban

Have a strong knowledge of the PPT Figure on the Origins of Fourth Wave Terrorism

*Radical Islamic Ideology

Where transnationalists and nationalists share ideas

Where transnationalists and nationalists disagree

Example of each type

 

 

Fifth Wave?

Lone Wolves

Characteristics

*and the internet

 

 

Al-Qaeda

Origins, Objectives, Doctrines

*In Afghanistan

*The anti-Soviet alliance

*mujahedin

*The foreign fighters or “Jihadis”

*The jihadi recruitment organization run by bin-Laden

*Abdullah Azzam

*AQ’s founding

The 1990 Gulf War and Bin-Laden’s offer to Saudi Arabia

Saudi King turns him down, throws him out

*in Sudan

*Goals in Middle East

*Global goal: recreation of the caliphate

*1998 fatwa

*Ideological influence of Sayyid Qutb

*Influence of Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt

*AQ and the Taliban

 

 

Leadership and leadership structure

*Osama bin-Laden’s background

*Ayman al-Zawahiri background

*Decentralization, regional nodes, cells

*Central leadership

*Cells

*Regional nodes and entrepreneurship

Corporate/Hierarchical vs. network model

Types of networks

*Links to regional groups

            *global reach of Al-Qaeda

*Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

*different level of affiliations with AQ

 

Support for Al-Qaeda

*Training of recruits

*method of recruiting

*where does AQ recruit?

*use of civil wars as training ground: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria

Ethnic makeup of membership

*Funding

            Hawala

            *infiltration of Islamic charities

 

*cost of operations (expensive or cheap?) (Hoffman)

*In Sudan

*In alliance with Taliban

 

 

Strategy and Tactics

*The Debate: Near or Far Enemy

*Why attack the US?

*AQ strategies (Byman)

*attrition

*undermine morale

*Naji: The Management of Savagery

Tactics

*and suicide bombing

*and lone wolves

*Operations: Hit the US

*Create global network to match US global reach

*Maximize casualty level

            *Lessons of Beirut 1983 and Somalia 1993

*1993 Trade Center attack

*Embassy attacks 1998

*Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM) and 9/11

 

AQ Evolution

*The Iraq War

*AQI

*Saudi citizens and AQ vs. Saudi government and AQ

*AQ Affiliates

*AQAP

*AQIM

*AQ “franchise” concept

*ISIS/ISIL/Daesh

*al-Baghdadi

*Zarqawi

*ISIS vs. AQ

*Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Nusra Front, AQ affiliate in Syria)

*ISIS goals

 

Who and Why Lecture

 

Why do some organizations and individuals Choose terrorism as a strategy?

1. Strategic or Instrumental Model

(Rational Choice)

Cost-benefit analysis

When is violence a “rational” choice?

As a response to repression of minority group: LTTE or Hezbollah

Asymmetric warfare

Palestinian terrorism after 1967

Impact of Six Day War on Islamic radical ideologues

 

2. Realist Model

Power matters

Demonstrating your power

 

 

3. Democracy as a factor

Debate on whether Democracies produce terrorists

As targets

Authoritarian states as the breeding ground for terrorists

Negotiating an end to terrorism with democracies

 

4. Ethno-nationalism

 

5. Expectation-Frustration-Aggression

Davies J-Curve

 

6. Resource Mobilization Theory

 

Who joins a terrorist group and why?

Leaders vs. Members

1. *Poverty and Lack of Education thesis

Terrorists: above average education and income for their nations

Demographic profile of a terrorist

2. Ideology

3. Economic Factors

underemployment/over-education

4. Transitions

5. Alienation, humiliation, identity

Grievance

Significance Quest Theory

6. Social networks

Socialization

7. Prison, torture, revenge

8. *money