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The Routledge History Of Terrorism. Edited By Randall D. Law. New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2015, Mark J. Roberts Jan 2015

The Routledge History Of Terrorism. Edited By Randall D. Law. New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2015, Mark J. Roberts

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.


Deterring And Dissuading Cyberterrorism, John J. Klein Jan 2015

Deterring And Dissuading Cyberterrorism, John J. Klein

Journal of Strategic Security

Cyberterrorism, while being written about since the early 2000s, is still not fully understood as a strategic concept and whether such actions can be deterred is hotly contested. Some strategists and policy makers believe that acts of cyberterrorism, especially by non-state actors, may prove to be undeterrable. Yet the leadership of both state and non-state actors tend to act rationally and function strategically, and therefore they can, in fact, be deterred to some degree. Helping to shape the legitimate options following a significant cyberattack, the Law of Armed Conflict has salient considerations for the deterrence of cyberterrorism, particularly the principles …


The Grand Strategy Of Nonstate Actors: Theory And Implications, Garrett Pierman Jan 2015

The Grand Strategy Of Nonstate Actors: Theory And Implications, Garrett Pierman

Journal of Strategic Security

This article addresses the Realist assumption that only actors that are states can be considered to have a strategic culture. The primary issue raised is the question of the ability of non-state actors to have a strategic culture. Al-Qaida is used as a theoretical case study. Ultimately this article rejects the idea of territoriality in strategic culture formulation and calls for academics and policymakers alike to adopt a broader conception of actors on the international, stage. This broader conception of actors would necessitate rich case studies to be done in the future in order to seek an understanding of the …


Using The Oldest Military Force For The Newest National Defense, Brian Claus, Robin A. Gandhi, Julia Rawnsley, John Crowe Jan 2015

Using The Oldest Military Force For The Newest National Defense, Brian Claus, Robin A. Gandhi, Julia Rawnsley, John Crowe

Journal of Strategic Security

The National Guard is establishing Cyber Mission Teams (CMT) that will fulfill a federal role to backfill active duty defending Department of Defense networks, but are also exploring how they could effectively fulfill state missions. The President, Council of Governors, and USCYBERCOM Commander have expressed concerns about U.S. critical infrastructure cyber network vulnerabilities and the increasing magnitude of threat our adversaries pose to those networks’ security. This article explores using this emerging National Guard capability in a state role for protection of critical infrastructure cyber networks. Most of the critical infrastructure is privately owned. Although current executive orders and policy …


The Influence Of U.S. Strategic Culture On Innovation And Adaptation In The U.S. Army, Hassan M. Kamara Jan 2015

The Influence Of U.S. Strategic Culture On Innovation And Adaptation In The U.S. Army, Hassan M. Kamara

Journal of Strategic Security

Culture is an abstract phenomenon that influences its environment. According to culture theorist Edgar Schein, “culture is an abstraction, yet the forces that are created in social and organizational situations that derive from culture are powerful. If we don’t understand the operation of these forces, we become victim to them.” As a subset of culture, the strategic culture of the United States requires study so we can understand its influences on innovation and adaptation in the U.S. Army, and try to manage those that adversely affect the insititution’s ongoing transformation. Using the American Interwar era (1919-1941) as a case—based on …


Isaf's Afghan Truck Drivers: The Overlooked Counterinsurgency Population, Myron Varouhakis, Mark Stewart Jan 2015

Isaf's Afghan Truck Drivers: The Overlooked Counterinsurgency Population, Myron Varouhakis, Mark Stewart

Journal of Strategic Security

A yearlong U.S. Army field study in Afghanistan examined the demographics and threat perceptions of one of the most-at-risk populations, that of Afghan truck drivers working for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force Afghanistan (ISAF). The study collected data from 766 Afghan truck drivers at the U.S.-operated Kandahar Airfield in ISAF’s Regional Command South. The findings show a wide diversity in age of the Afghan drivers as well as in terms of their home province. The findings also show that although all Afghan truck drivers had acute awareness and understanding of the high risks and dangers of the job, they all …


The Direction Of War: Contemporary Strategy In Historical Perspective. By Hew Strachan. New York, N.Y: Cambridge University Press, 2013., Mark Roberts Oct 2014

The Direction Of War: Contemporary Strategy In Historical Perspective. By Hew Strachan. New York, N.Y: Cambridge University Press, 2013., Mark Roberts

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.


Table Of Contents Oct 2014

Table Of Contents

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.


Global Sof And Interagency Collaboration, Christopher Lamb Jul 2014

Global Sof And Interagency Collaboration, Christopher Lamb

Journal of Strategic Security

The United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) has emphasized the importance of international SOF collaboration, or what USSOCOM refers to as a “global SOF network.” It is difficult to achieve requisite levels of collaboration even among departments and agencies within a single country, much less on an international basis. Yet USSOCOM has been rightly praised for its trailblazing collaboration efforts in counterterrorism operations, so perhaps it can extend successful collaboration to its “global SOF network.” This article argues collaboration lessons from the past decade of counterterrorism operations can be used to facilitate better international SOF collaboration. Even if the lessons …


Table Of Contents Jul 2014

Table Of Contents

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.


Forces Of Habit: Global Sof's Role In Countering Illicit Drug Trafficking, Paul Rexton Kan Jul 2014

Forces Of Habit: Global Sof's Role In Countering Illicit Drug Trafficking, Paul Rexton Kan

Journal of Strategic Security

Illicit drug trafficking is a prominent national security issue in a globalizing world. Drug trafficking intersects with major security issues such as rogue and narco-states, weak and failing states, insurgencies and terrorism, transnational organized crime and protracted intrastate conflicts. These are the same issues that sets the operational environment for the deployment of SOF. Rather than treating drug trafficking as a singular and separate security issue, global SOF counternarcotics operations must adapt previous approaches to new realities.


Redefining The Indirect Approach, Defining Special Operations Forces (Sof) Power, And The Global Networking Of Sof, Scott Morrison Jul 2014

Redefining The Indirect Approach, Defining Special Operations Forces (Sof) Power, And The Global Networking Of Sof, Scott Morrison

Journal of Strategic Security

The current Defense Strategy assigns Special Operations Forces (SOF) to play a central role in countering terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and irregular warfare. However, there has been little published that defines the role of Special Operations alongside air, land, and sea domains. The U.S. Special Operations Community struggles to define its own theoretical concepts such as direct approach and indirect approach. The U.S. SOF circles typically define direct approach with direct action and the indirect approach with foreign internal defense or security force assistance. Military theorist Liddell Hart viewed the indirect approach as a method to orient upon, target, …


The Global Sof Network: Posturing Special Operations Forces To Ensure Global Security In The 21st Century, Keenan D. Yoho, Tess Deblanc-Knowles, Randy Borum Jul 2014

The Global Sof Network: Posturing Special Operations Forces To Ensure Global Security In The 21st Century, Keenan D. Yoho, Tess Deblanc-Knowles, Randy Borum

Journal of Strategic Security

Globalization’s “interconnecting” effects have blended with an ethos of instability to create an extraordinarily complex global security environment. Though the number of armed conflicts worldwide has declined since the early 1990s, the character of those conflicts has evolved in some troubling ways. Conventional inter-state wars are less common, but they have been displaced by a proliferation of smaller scale, asymmetric, diffuse and episodic struggles: What Trinquier calls “subversive warfare or revolutionary warfare.” The participants in these conflicts are not limited to national military forces, but include a range of non-state actors, including militias, ethnic groups, illicit transnational networks, informal paramilitary …


Enabling Local Solutions To Global Problems: The Role Of Cultural Intelligence In Building Global Sof Networks, Emily Spencer Jul 2014

Enabling Local Solutions To Global Problems: The Role Of Cultural Intelligence In Building Global Sof Networks, Emily Spencer

Journal of Strategic Security

In order to provide regional solutions to potentially world-wide problems, global special operations forces (SOF) networks maximize the benefits of SOF, in particular, their aptitude and ability to perform in a culturally intelligent manner. Indeed, to be able to facilitate regional solutions to potentially global problems, SOF need to exhibit high levels of cultural intelligence, which requires an understanding of culture combined with an ability to apply strategic thinking. By being able to address issues critically and creatively – the hallmarks of strategic thinking – while understanding and behaving appropriately in a variety of cultural contexts, SOF, acting within global …


From The Ground Up: The Importance Of Preserving Sof Capacity Building Skills, Whitney Grespin Jul 2014

From The Ground Up: The Importance Of Preserving Sof Capacity Building Skills, Whitney Grespin

Journal of Strategic Security

The last decade of international engagements marks a shift in the way that the American military fights wars and mitigates conflict overseas. Although America has long had an affinity for creative destruction and cycles of force buildup and tear down, it is increasingly apparent that such an approach is not a viable option for the U.S. military’s path ahead. After a decade of costly conflict with large conventional forces and an abundance of direct action operations, the American way of war is evolving towards less muscle, more mind.

To this end, the specialized training, mentoring, and capacity building skills that …


The Dawn Of A New Age? Democracies And Military Victory, Steve Dobransky Apr 2014

The Dawn Of A New Age? Democracies And Military Victory, Steve Dobransky

Journal of Strategic Security

Democracies are perceived often by the public as relatively docile and not suited best for wars. This paper challenges this perception by analyzing the relationship between regime type and war outcomes. It builds upon David Lake’s 1992 model in “Powerful Pacifists: Democratic States and War” by updating it to the present period. It examines the empirical evidence and scholarly debate in order to test and elaborate on the argument that democratic states in the modern era are more prone to fighting and winning wars. This paper, furthermore, adds a number of new variables to the Lake model to analyze the …


Table Of Contents Apr 2014

Table Of Contents

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.


Is Cyber Deterrence An Illusory Course Of Action?, Emilio Iasiello Apr 2014

Is Cyber Deterrence An Illusory Course Of Action?, Emilio Iasiello

Journal of Strategic Security

With the U.S. government acknowledgement of the seriousness of cyber threats, particularly against its critical infrastructures, as well as the Department of Defense officially labeling cyberspace as a war fighting domain, the Cold War strategy of deterrence is being applied to the cyber domain. However, unlike the nuclear realm, cyber deterrence must incorporate a wide spectrum of potential adversaries of various skill, determination, and capability, ranging from individual actors to state run enterprises. What’s more, the very principles that achieved success in deterring the launch of nuclear weapons during the Cold War, namely the threat of severe retaliation, cannot be …


Diversionary Foreign Policy In Authoritarian States: The Use Of Multiple Diversionary Strategies By Saddam Hussein During The Gulf War, Kilic B. Kanat Apr 2014

Diversionary Foreign Policy In Authoritarian States: The Use Of Multiple Diversionary Strategies By Saddam Hussein During The Gulf War, Kilic B. Kanat

Journal of Strategic Security

The diversionary theory of war has been considered one of the most contested theories that link domestic and external conflicts. Thus far scholarship in this field has focused on one-time single diversionary attacks, which led to the temporary deflection of attention from domestic problems to external ones. This study intends to bring revisions to the assumptions in the center of diversionary theory and demonstrate these through a well-known but underutilized case. This article intends to show that leaders have not one single option but rather a repertoire of different foreign policy actions in their possession to divert the attention of …


Intelligence And Public Diplomacy: The Changing Tide, Jonathan Pinkus Apr 2014

Intelligence And Public Diplomacy: The Changing Tide, Jonathan Pinkus

Journal of Strategic Security

This article argues that the executive branches of governments will need to change the way that they employ intelligence for public diplomacy in the context of military action. Intelligence assessments that have been “politicized” through distortion and/or omission have led to poor decision-making and a decline in public trust. These propositions are demonstrated using the American and British public diplomacy that preceded the 2003 invasion of Iraq as a case study. This case is then compared to a second case study, the American and British public appeals for a strike on Syria following the 2013 Ghouta chemical attack. The article …


International And Domestic Challenges To Comprehensive National Cybersecurity: A Case Study Of The Czech Republic, Nadiya Kostyuk Apr 2014

International And Domestic Challenges To Comprehensive National Cybersecurity: A Case Study Of The Czech Republic, Nadiya Kostyuk

Journal of Strategic Security

While many countries and companies have fallen victim to cyber attacks over the past few years, including American companies such as Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook, Czech websites remained relatively safe until March 2013, when they were interrupted by a series of cyber attacks. Even though the origin of the attacks remains debatable, this case study demonstrates the importance of cooperation between nations in the nascent phase of the internet development and their more powerful allies. Domestic challenges that nations face in addressing cybersecurity in an effective and comprehensive manner include ambiguous legislation, recalcitrant officials, and a lack of both fiscal …


Fighting To The End: The Pakistan Army’S Way Of War. By C. Christine Fair. New York, Ny: Oxford University Press, 2014., Mark Roberts Jan 2014

Fighting To The End: The Pakistan Army’S Way Of War. By C. Christine Fair. New York, Ny: Oxford University Press, 2014., Mark Roberts

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.


The “Surgical” Legitimacy Of Drone Strikes? Issues Of Sovereignty And Human Rights In The Use Of Unmanned Aerial Systems In Pakistan, Alcides Eduardo Dos Reis Peron Jan 2014

The “Surgical” Legitimacy Of Drone Strikes? Issues Of Sovereignty And Human Rights In The Use Of Unmanned Aerial Systems In Pakistan, Alcides Eduardo Dos Reis Peron

Journal of Strategic Security

The Revolution in Military Affairs had an important role in providing the United States Armed Forces the technical instruments necessary to conduct high-risky operations in the context of Irregular Warfare. The development of these instruments, such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), allowed the emergence of a discourse of surgical and lean wars by the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, whose legitimacy of the interventions were related to the accuracy and technical superiority of the UAVs. Focusing in the case of the U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, this article seeks to debate the legal limits of the employment of …


Future Challenges In Drone Geopolitics, Matthew Crosston Jan 2014

Future Challenges In Drone Geopolitics, Matthew Crosston

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.


Lost In Debate: The Safety Of Domestic Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Yeonmin Cho Jan 2014

Lost In Debate: The Safety Of Domestic Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Yeonmin Cho

Journal of Strategic Security

The United States is poised to integrate commercial unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into the national airspace and enable government entities to use UAS in a more expedient manner. This policy change, mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, offers new economic, social and scientific opportunities as well as enhanced law enforcement capacity. However, such benefits will be accompanied by concerns over misuse and abuse of the new technologies by criminals and terrorists. Privacy has been the focus of public debate over the more widespread use of UAS. This paper examines a variety of issues …


Help Wanted: American Drone Program Needs Multifaceted Support To Be Effective, S. Hall Jan 2014

Help Wanted: American Drone Program Needs Multifaceted Support To Be Effective, S. Hall

Journal of Strategic Security

The U.S. drone program in Pakistan faces strong resistance in Pakistan. Because the program solely seeks to eliminate terrorist groups and leaders through bombing campaigns, with no built in social support, the local population’s anti-American sentiment has reached the highest level in history. This angry mood against U.S. drone programs is spreading throughout the Islamic world. To counter this anti-American sentiment, and increase the drone program’s effectiveness, the U.S. must invest in multifaceted, socio-economic support efforts to educate the population and rebuild the gratuity, trust, and commitment of Pakistan’s people to the “War on Terror.”


Investigating The Relationship Between Drone Warfare And Civilian Casualties In Gaza, Dr. Ann Rogers Jan 2014

Investigating The Relationship Between Drone Warfare And Civilian Casualties In Gaza, Dr. Ann Rogers

Journal of Strategic Security

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), better known as drones, are increasingly touted as ‘humanitarian’ weapons that contribute positively to fighting just wars and saving innocent lives. At the same time, civilian casualties have become the most visible and criticized aspect of drone warfare. It is argued here that drones contribute to civilian casualties not in spite of, but because of, their unique attributes. They greatly extend war across time and space, pulling more potential threats and targets into play over long periods, and because they are low-risk and highly accurate, they are more likely to be used. The assumption that …


Table Of Contents Jan 2014

Table Of Contents

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.


Pandora’S Presumption: Drones And The Problematic Ethics Of Techno-War, Matthew Crosston Jan 2014

Pandora’S Presumption: Drones And The Problematic Ethics Of Techno-War, Matthew Crosston

Journal of Strategic Security

Present American policy proclaims the compatibility of drone usage with the traditional Rules of Engagement and the Laws of War. Largely absent in this is an examination of how enemy combatants are being defined on both sides of drone activity: not just the targets and operators but also the relevance of drone technology proliferation. This work engages the void to reveal inconsistent and contradictory ethical standards in American drone policy, based largely on an assumed continued technical preeminence that is by no means guaranteed. The argument is not a humanitarian lament against hegemony: it is a realist argument addressing how …


Drones: The American Controversy, Michael C. Heatherly Jan 2014

Drones: The American Controversy, Michael C. Heatherly

Journal of Strategic Security

One of the most enduring problems confronted by a free society is the method through which law and order are maintained. There is an inherent tradeoff between freedom and the preservation of order through the construct and enforcement of laws. These attributes alone could be the subject of great debate. However, the United States and many other modern nations are experiencing a proliferation of technology that greatly enhances the sensory and capabilities of the user. If that user is the government, the debate over apparent intrusions into the lives of private citizens is amplified. The questions examined by this article …