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.
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