To compete and thrive in the 21st century, democracies, and the United States in particular, must develop new national security and economic strategies that address the geopolitics of information. In the 20th century, market capitalist democracies geared infrastructure, energy, trade, and even social policy to protect and advance that era’s key source of power—manufacturing. In this century, democracies must better account for information geopolitics across all dimensions of domestic policy and national strategy.
In the 1980s, thousands of Arabs volunteered to fight in Afghanistan against the Soviet occupation. The consequences of their involvement are widely known. The so-called Arab Afghan movement spawned al-Qaida and other extremist groups well into the 1990s. But why did the Arabs go to Afghanistan in the first place? Or more interestingly: why had the Muslim world not seen private transnational mobilization for war before the 1980s? Who initiated and led the mobilization effort and why? What was the role of states such as Saudi Arabia? The presentation relies on findings from new empirical research conducted for a book project about the jihadist ideologue Abdallah Azzam and the first Arab Afghans.
Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come-first served basis.