Digital Commons Network^™

Break Their Lineage, Break Their Roots: Investigating The Chinese Government’S Relationship With The Uyghur Population To Determine The Potential For Terrorism And Genocide, Anya Veinberg

Helm's School of Government Conference - 2021-2024

History is wrought with war, crime, and persecution. After nearly every conflict, world leaders vow to never let something similar happen again. Yet, history seems to repeat itself, and so do its conflicts. The Holocaust claimed the lives of millions of Jews and seemed to set a precedent of a modern threshold of evil. How many people would argue that an event strikingly similar to the Holocaust is happening right now in China?

The Chinese government is currently committing acts of violence and faith and race-based discrimination against the Uyghur population.

This work analyzes the interaction between the Chinese government …

Emerging Technologies And Terrorism: An American Perspective

Books, Monographs & Collaborative Studies

In a world where technology is rapidly advancing and available to the masses, companies and policymakers face a daunting reality—non-state actors are using innovation for sinister purposes. While artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous systems promise enhanced threat detection, terrorist groups are exploiting these tools for recruitment and attacks. The future is concerning as AI becomes more widespread and autonomous systems and augmented reality redefine society.

A groundbreaking report is born from a collaboration between NATO COE-DAT and the US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute. This book unveils a grim forecast that terrorists are poised to exploit advances in artificial …

Combating Terrorism To Promote National Security In Nigeria: Libraries And Information Centres To The Rescue, Udemezue Joseph Ogugua, Jovita Amarachi Ikeagwuani Mrs

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Terrorism is a hydra-headed monster and should be stamped out for the benefit of humanity. Fighting terrorism to enthrone national security should be at the front burner of government stakeholders especially this time that non-state actors operate with impunity. The paper discusses the role of libraries and information centres in combating terrorism and promoting national security in Nigeria. Specifically, the paper examines terrorism and national security, terrorism in Nigeria, the role of libraries and information centres in the fight against terrorism to promote national security. It also looks at the challenges encountered by libraries and information centres in the fight …

Guns, Bombs, And Pollution: Unraveling The Nexus Between Warfare, Terrorism, And Ecological Devastation In Iraq, Hogr Tarkhani

The Journal of Social Encounters

Iraq's environment has experienced significant pollution and degradation, earning it the dubious distinction of being one of the most polluted and degraded regions globally, according to the Globe Pollution Review. The past three decades of armed conflict have exacted a heavy toll on the country, resulting in widespread human suffering, including countless fatalities, injuries, and a massive displacement of people. Amidst this death and destruction, the ecosystem has also endured severe damage, and its decline carries long-lasting implications.

The environmental crisis in Iraq has been worsened by the presence of extremist groups such as the Islamic State (ISIS) and various …

Environmental Terrorism Twenty Years On, Elizabeth L. Chalecki

Political Science Faculty Publications

In 2002, a few months after 9/11, I published one of the very first academic examinations of environmental terrorism: what was included in this term and what wasn’t, who might commit such terrorism, and what sorts of environmental resources were vulnerable. Since then, it has been the subject of academic and government analyses. Now, twenty years later, it is time to revisit the concept in light of worsening anthropogenic climate change, the rise of authoritarian states and ecofascism, and gray-zone conflicts in international relations.

Digital Terror Crimes, Cody Corliss

Law Faculty Scholarship

Terror actors operating within armed conflict have weaponized social media by using these platforms to threaten and spread images of brutality in order to taunt, terrify, and intimidate civilians. These acts or threats of violence are terror, a prohibited war crime in which acts or threats of violence are made with the primary purpose of spreading terror among the civilian population. The weaponization of terror content through social media is a digital terror crime.

This article is the first to argue that the war crime of terror applies to digital terror crimes perpetrated through social media platforms. It situates digital …

Is Islam A Religion Of Peace?, Robert Greer

Liberty Theological Review

One of the most troubling and controversial doctrines in Islam is that of jihad. Yet, in the West its meaning is unclear. Does it mean the struggle of the human soul to develop a wholesome spirituality, or is it more a struggle that results in terrorist attacks upon all who oppose Islam? Many politicians and academics in the West, along with many journalists and opinion-makers in the mainstream media insist that Islam, rightly understood, is a religion of peace. That means that Islamic jihadists who engage in wanton terrorism upon all who stand in their way are an aberration. They …

Threats To The United States, Elyssa R. Barna

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This research goes over various threats that the United States may deal with in the future, how severe they may be, and what policy implications and further research could be done. This research is done by case studies, looking into different previous threats to the United States including the Cold War, the September 11th, 2001, attacks, the anti-western or jihadist terrorist groups, and the usage of biological and chemical weapons in terrorist attacks. After detailing the changes that have occurred in recent times, such as the evolution of technology and social media, it is explained how this can influence terrorism …

Ideological Parameters For Deradicalization Programs To Measure Changes In Terrorist Ideology In Indonesia, Yudi Zulfahri, Aldi Nur Fadil Auliya

Journal of Terrorism Studies

The paper analyzes the inefficiency of the Deradicalization strategy implemented by The National Counter Terrorism Agency (BNPT), causing the issue of recidivist terrorism in Indonesia. Although the occurrence of recidivism is common in various crimes, it poses unique challenges in terrorism cases, given that the government has allocated a specific budget and established a special agency, BNPT, to tackle terrorism-related issues. The high recidivism rate in terrorism cases has prompted public concern and criticism regarding the effectiveness of Deradicalization programs. Despite the ongoing debate, this paper argues that the success or failure of Deradicalization programs cannot be measured simply by …

Chemicals And Creeds: Cbrn Weapon Use And Religious-Based Terrorism, Nikolai Apilado

Governance: The Political Science Journal at UNLV

General theories of terrorism typically focus on economic, social, or political factors that lead to terrorist acts. Conversely, chemical, biological, radiational, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons are rarely spoken of in academic literature. Yet, these weapons are still used by terrorists in some capacity. In this paper, I argue that religion is the primary factor that influences terrorists to pursue CBRN weapons as opposed to more secular-based terrorists. This is due to the fact that religious-based terrorists are not concerned with preserving their reputation or credibility among society, as well as being so blinded by their religion that they are willing …

Compelling Libya: Operation El Dorado Canyon As Coercive Diplomacy And Counterterrorism, Ronald Tracy Boyd

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

On Tuesday morning, 11 September 2001, the United States was attacked by a small terrorist cell from a group called al-Qaeda. On that day, the United States was at war with terror. However, this was not the first time the United States dealt with terrorism. Thomas Jefferson sent a fleet of warships from the fledgling US Navy and a contingent of US Marines to deal with the Barbary Pirates operating on the "shores of Tripoli," the terrorists of the day. It is interesting that another president, Ronald Reagan, also sent a contingent of US Air Force and US Navy aircraft …

Like Treating The Symptom Rather Than The Cause - The Omission Of Courses Over Terrorism In Nsa Designated Institutions, Ida L. Oesteraas

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

The National Security Agency (NSA) awards Center of Academic Excellence (CAE) designations to institutions that commit to producing cybersecurity professionals who will work in careers that reduce vulnerabilities in our national infrastructure. A review of the curricula in the 327 institutions and their degree programs reveal that only two programs offer a required course about terrorism. Given the fluid nature of terrorism and its threat to national infrastructure, the omission is concerning. It is recommended that NSA-certified cybersecurity programs begin implementing educational content that aim to teach about this emerging crime and justice issue. One suggestion is to embrace the …

Roots To Reconciliation: Understanding Factors Influencing Violent Extremism And Rehabilitation As Imperatives, Sofia Liberti

Global Studies Senior Capstone

Islamic religion and culture are often misunderstood, misrepresented, and consequently most vilified in the world, despite comprising well over a fifth of the world population. This paper attempts to discern Islam's view on violence/non-violence, the factors that lead to religious extremism, and what countering violent extremist movements and rehabilitation look like. While it is important to recognize that this religion/faith/worldview is not understood in the same way or prioritized to the same degree by each and every Muslim, this paper hopes to become a resource for de-bunking the misguided beliefs about Islam in today's media linking ideas such as terrorism …

2023 Annual Estimate Of The Strategic Security Environment, Usawc Ssi

Books, Monographs & Collaborative Studies

The Annual Estimate of the Strategic Security Environment serves as a guide for academics and practitioners in the defense community on the current challenges and opportunities in the strategic environment. This year’s publication outlines key strategic issues across the four broad themes of Regional Challenges and Opportunities, Domestic Challenges, Institutional Challenges, and Domains Impacting US Strategic Advantage. These themes represent a wide range of topics affecting national security and provide a global assessment of the strategic environment to help focus the defense community on research and publication. Strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China and the implications of …

From Counter-Strike To Counterterrorism: How The Cheater Reconfigures Our Understanding Of Asymmetric Warfare, Enya C. Silva

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Around the turn of the century, as the United States increased its military presence in the Middle East in what was widely known as the War on Terror, computer games were also rising in popularity. Military inspired narratives and settings are very common in video games, especially in the genre known as the first person shooter – characterized by a single player, first person point of view. Alexander Galloway provides a vocabulary for understanding the video game, and the first person shooter in particular, derived from the framework of game studies. Scholarship around video games usually either seeks to affirm …

Incels, Violence, And Masculinity: How Masculinity And Membership To Online Communities Shape Perceptions Of Violence, Meghan Scarlott

Student Theses

As online involuntary celibate (incel) forms have grown, they have become dominated by violent and misogynistic rhetoric. There have also been instances of offline violence being motivated by incel ideology and anti-feminist beliefs. Past research has established a link between inceldom and violent rhetoric through analysis of incel forum posts and activity. However, comparisons between non-incels and incels regarding masculinity and violence have rarely been conducted. We used a survey design to compare incels and non-incels on three factors: support for violence, inceldom characteristics, and internalized masculinity. Consistent with prior research, incels held more negative views of women and feminism …

Evolutions In Suicide Bombing: Exploring The Relationship Between The Tactic And Its Application By Non-State Armed Groups Across Various Conflict Zones Over Time, David E. Firester

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The following dissertation considers variations in the use of suicide bombing by Non-State Armed Groups (NSAGs), at the organizational level of analysis. It is both a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the conditions under which insurgents that accept the practice’s legitimacy have applied it to a range of specified target sets. The broad focus of this endeavor centers on unpacking insurgent groups’ behaviors across a number of unique battlespaces, but the main question I seek to answer is: what decision dynamics accompany violent non-state actors’ use of suicide bombing and how do we interpret their behavioral interaction across various conflict …

Terrorist Attacks Against Sports Venues: Emerging Trends And Characteristics Spanning 50 Years, Grace R Rahman, Gregory N Jasani, Stephen Y Liang

2020-Current year OA Pubs

INTRODUCTION: Sports venues foster community and support local economies. Due to their capacity to host hundreds to thousands of spectators, sports venues are vulnerable to becoming targets of terrorism. Types of venues targeted, regional trends, and methods of attack employed world-wide have not been well-described.

METHODS: A search of the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) was conducted from 1970 through the end of 2019. Pre-coded variables for target type "business" and target subtype "entertainment/cultural/stadium/casino" were used to identify attacks involving venues where sports events might be viewed by spectators as part of an audience. Sports venues were specifically identified using the …

The Path Of Securitization: Transformation Of Free Papua Movement (Opm) Terminology From Armed Criminal Groups To Separatist And Terrorist Groups, I Putu Hadi Pradnyana

Journal of Terrorism Studies

The purpose of this study is to analyze the pattern of securitization in Papua using the speech act framework. Regarding the response to the change in status or terminology of the Free Papua Movement or Organisasi Papua Merdeka (OPM) to the Separatist Terrorist Group. The Securitization Theory of the Copenhagen School defines security as a social construction and process, not as an objective condition. This contrasts with the traditional security studies approach which defines security in terms of the threat, use, and control of military force by state actors. This research will focus on the pattern of securitization of the …

The Warriors' Views: Mid-Level Officers On American Interventions, Foreign Policy, And The Road To 9/11, 1993-2001, Michael Anthony Anderson

Doctoral Dissertations

When President William Jefferson Clinton took office, the United States had entered into a new era, though it was heavily influenced by almost a half-century of Cold War. Foreign policy staples had been embedded into United States foreign policy habits, influencing American decisions even as it tried to transition to a new global environment. The Cold War had left America, but America had a hard time leaving the Cold War. The nation had difficulty transitioning away from applying containment, relying on mutually assured destruction in preventing weapons of mass destruction attacks, and focusing on major conventional warfare when small-scale contingencies …

Effects Of Witnessing Terrorist Attacks On Perceived Causes Of Terrorism And Support For Security Measures, Austin Trevor Sullivan

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The following research aims to understand how individuals who were aware of, and affected by, terrorist attacks at the time they took place perceive the causes of terrorism and support security measures. It is hypothesized that the extent to which one â??witnessedâ?? attacks characterized by more traditional forms of terrorism, such as bombings and religiously motivated and affiliated perpetrators (Wave four), versus new forms of terrorism, such as shootings and lone wolves (Wave five), would be affected by the age of the witness. This research proposes an indirect pathway from age to "witnessing" terrorist attacks to attributions for the attacks …

Mena Terrorism And The West: Explaining Why Terrorist Groups From The Middle East And North Africa Target Western Democracies, Michael A. Defeo

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Terrorist groups from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region remain one of the most formidable threats to international security. While their organization and motives have been significantly different over time, a commonality is that they tend to disproportionately target Western democracies. This dissertation argues that this trend is mainly a consequence of the foreign policies that these states pursue in the region. These policies, in terms of support for Israel and interventionism, are theorized as being the precipitous causes of MENA terrorism. Likewise, it is argued that the democratic institutions and extents of globalization in these states are …

Neo-Nazi Postmodern: Right-Wing Terror Tactics, The Intellectual Neue Rechte, And The Destabilization Of Memory In Germany Since 1989, Esther E. Adaire

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation argues that from 1989 onwards an increasingly terroristic neo-Nazi underground in Germany became gradually entangled with the reactionary Neue Rechte, whose crusade against the German culture of remembrance is also a crusade against European integration, increased migration, and the conceits of liberal democracy. This entanglement produced an ideologically coherent extreme-right political movement with a heavily armed and tactical paramilitary faction that has, contrary to what various governments of the Federal Republic have wanted to believe, been developing in Germany since the early 1990s. Moreover, tactics of information warfare initiated by so-called “postmodern” terrorists of the 1990s would, by …

David Versus Goliath: The Power Of Weakness In Asymmetric Warfare—Lessons From History, Nicholas K. Petaludis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Under what conditions do violent nonstate actors (VNA) succeed against states? Why does David sometimes beat Goliath? Since at least the time of Thucydides and the Peloponnesian Wars, the realist narrative in international relations measures power primarily in relative, coercive, and deterrent terms. Strong states should accordingly face fewer constraints and enjoy more options while pursuing their national interests. Unconventional warfare, and its subsets of terrorism and insurgency, should—given these circumstances, end in VNA failure. Sometimes, however, VNAs find success. By comparing the literature on historical and current case studies, I propose that a set of preconditions and two mechanisms …

Typing A Terrorist Attack: Using Tools From The War On Terror To Fight The War On Ransomware, Jake C. Porath

Pepperdine Law Review

The United States faces a grave challenge in its fight against cyberattacks from abroad. Chief among the foreign cyber threats comes from a finite number of “ransomware-as-a-service” gangs, which are responsible for extorting billions of dollars from American citizens and companies annually. Prosecuting these cybercriminals has proven exceedingly difficult. Law enforcement often struggles to forensically trace ransomware attacks, which makes identifying and prosecuting the perpetrators challenging. Moreover, even when prosecutors can identify the perpetrators of these attacks, the ransomware gangs are headquartered in foreign adversarial nations that do not extradite criminals to the United States. Finally, ransomware gangs are governed …

Uninvited Guests In The Backyard: Dangers And Risks Of Terrorist And Anti-American Activity In Latin America, Santiago Spadiliero

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

The international security environment has changed. In the last two decades, new challengers to the American liberal order arose, with China being the most defiant one, in political and military terms. Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative opened the doors to these extra-continental powers, as their loans provided an alternative source of funding for Latin America, walking these countries away from American-led lending institutions. In this new context, Latin America becomes a desirable piece of land in which these new challengers can safely create trade routes while decreasing American influence. Russia and Iran also want to project power in America’s backyard. …

A Hollow Victory And Unending Problem: The Undying Anti-Russian Insurgency In Ukraine, Abraham Ashley

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

This thesis uses quantitative and qualitative research methods to: (1) explore the base causes of insurgency in Ukraine, (2) examine the historical basis for Ukrainian insurgency, (3) provide historical examples of successful and unsuccessful insurgencies to contrast against Ukraine, and (4) provide recommendations for NATO and Ukrainian policy. Collectively, this project demonstrates that current Russian counterinsurgency tactics will not be successful without significant adjustment. This Ukrainian insurgency may also derail the possibility of peace in the region.

Vulnerable Culture: Protecting History In War And Peace, Molly Luce

CMC Senior Theses

Cultural, historic, and religious sites and objects have a strong correlation with the identity of the community they belong to, in addition to that of humanity. Rosilawati et al. assert that “Cultural heritage and social identity exists in correlation and are interconnected. The shared identity associated with one’s cultural background and historic setting may initiate feelings of pride in one’s culture.”^[1]Essentially, the looting and destruction of such sites and antiquities is not only an attack on the tangible, but the very essence of a population. As the War in Ukraine rages on, Ukrainian cultural heritage sites and historic …

Racialization And International Security, Richard W. Maass

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

Racialization—the processes that infuse social and political phenomena with racial identities and implications—is an assertion of power, a claim of purportedly inherent differences that has saturated modern diplomacy, order, and violence. Despite the field's consistent interest in power, international security studies in the United States largely omitted racial dynamics from decades of debates about international conflict and cooperation, nuclear proliferation, power transitions, unipolarity, civil wars, terrorism, international order, grand strategy, and other subjects. A new framework lays conceptual bedrock, links relevant literatures to major research agendas in international security, cultivates interdisciplinary dialogues, and charts promising paths to consider how overt …

Countering Terrorism On Tomorrow’S Battlefield: Critical Infrastructure Security And Resiliency (Nato Coe-Dat Handbook 2), Sarah J. Lohmann, Lucas M. Cox, Denise Feldner, Trevor P. Helmy, Frank J. Kuzminski, Marcus Mohlin, Aleksander Olech, Wuraola Oyewusi, Gabriel T. Raicu, Silke Ruhl, Sabrina Schulz, Máté Tóth, Megan A. Ward

Books, Monographs & Collaborative Studies

Every day, malicious actors target emerging technologies and medical resilience or seek to wreak havoc in the wake of disasters brought on by climate change, energy insecurity, and supply-chain disruptions. Countering Terrorism on Tomorrow’s Battlefield is a handbook on how to strengthen critical infrastructure resilience in an era of emerging threats. The counterterrorism research produced for this volume is in alignment with NATO’s Warfighting Capstone Concept, which details how NATO Allies can transform and maintain their advantage despite new threats for the next two decades. The topics are rooted in NATO’s Seven Baseline requirements, which set the standard for enhancing …