Articles

15 Items

Sub-Saharan migrants climb over a metallic fence that divides Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Melilla on Friday, March 28, 2014.

Santi Palacios/ AP

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Barriers to Entry: Who Builds Fortified Boundaries and Why

    Authors:
  • Ron E. Hassner
  • Jason Wittenberg
| Summer 2015

Contrary to conventional wisdom, states do not typically construct fortified boundaries in response to border disputes or to prevent terrorism. Instead, most build such boundaries for economic reasons, to keep out unwanted migrants from poorer states. Further, Muslim states are more likely to both build and be the targets of fortified boundaries.

In this Thursday, Feb. 17, 2011 file photo, hundreds of newly trained al-Shabaab fighters perform military exercises in the Lafofe area 18 km south of Mogadishu, Somalia.

Farah Abdi Warsameh/ AP

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

The Security Bazaar: Business Interests and Islamist Power in Civil War Somalia

| Winter 2014/15

The support of the local business community helped to make Islamists’ a powerful force in the Somali civil war. The Islamists gained business support not because of shared religious affiliation, but because they ran a more stable and less costly protection racket than did other belligerents.

Darfur rebels are seen in their northern desert stronghold of Bir Maza in Sudan, Sunday, Dec. 9, 2007.

Alfred De Montesquiou/ AP

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Why Factions Switch Sides in Civil Wars: Rivalry, Patronage, and Realignment in Sudan

| Fall 2014

Why do armed groups switch sides in civil wars? In weak states with few obstacles to switching sides, groups defect for material gain or to acquire military support in local struggles. Such shifts have implications for how long civil wars will endure, how they will end, and the prospects for state building.

This frame grab taken from an August 5, 2007 video message carrying the logo of al-Qaida's production house as-Sahab and provided by IntelCenter, a U.S. government contractor monitoring al-Qaida messaging, purports to show Ayman Zawahri.

AP

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Delegitimizing al-Qaida: Defeating an 'Army Whose Men Love Death'

    Authors:
  • Jerry Mark Long
  • Alex S. Wilner
| Summer 2014

Al-Qaida has established a metanarrative that enables it to recruit militants and supporters. The United States and its allies can challenge its ability to do so by delegitimizing the ideological motivations that inform that metanarrative.

An unmanned U.S. Predator drone flies over Kandahar Air Field, southern Afghanistan.

Kirsty Wigglesworth / AP

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Attacking the Leader, Missing the Mark: Why Terrorist Groups Survive Decapitation Strikes

    Author:
  • Jenna Jordan
| Spring 2014

Many academics and policymakers argue that the removal of leaders is an effective strategy in combating terrorism. Leadership decapitation is not always successful, however. A theory of organizational resilience explains why some terrorist organizations survive decapitation. Application of this theoretical model to the case of al-Qaida reveals that the deaths of Osama bin Laden and other high level al-Qaida operatives are unlikely to cause significant organizational decline.

Gertrude Kitongo poses with her mobile phone in Johannesburg, South Africa. She cherishes a cell phone as a link to family and friends and also sees it as a radio, a library, a mini cinema, a bank teller, etc., Nov. 8, 2011.

AP Photo

Magazine Article - Finance & Development

Africa's New Engine

| December 2011

Cell phone use has grown faster in Africa than in any other region of the world since 2003....Of course, South Africa—the most developed nation—still has the highest penetration, but across Africa, countries have leapfrogged technology, bringing innovation and connectivity even to remote parts of the continent, opening up mobile banking and changing the way business is done.

Dec. 8, 2008: Somalia's al-Shabab jihadis outside Mogadishu. Training camps there are attracting hundreds of foreigners, including Americans which pose a threat far from Somalia, including to the U.S. homeland.

AP Photo

Journal Article - Current Trends in Islamist Ideology

The Ideological Hybridization of Jihadi Groups

| November 18, 2009

In the past five years, "far enemy groups" such as al-Qaeda Central have adopted a more hostile and explicitly takfiri rhetoric toward Muslim regimes. Conversely, "near enemy" activists such as the militants in Algeria have become more anti-Western in both words and deeds. A process of ideological hybridization has occurred, with the result that the enemy hierarchies of many jihadist groups are becoming more unclear or heterogeneous than they used to be.

Young women shop for China-made plastic flowers in a store opened by Chinese businessmen in Bissau, Guinea-Bissau, Jan. 3, 2007. In Africa, China has found a huge market for its cheap goods and the natural resources it needs to sustain its growth.

AP Photo

Newspaper Article - that's China

Exploring the Sino-African Relationship: Both Sides Have Something to Offer

| February 2, 2008

China's Ministry of Science and Technology launched the China-Africa Science and Technology Partnership on November 24, 2009.  The ministry announced that technological cooperation will be enhanced in areas such as water management and conservation, sanitation, crop breeding, health, and renewable energy. One hundred joint research partnerships will be created, and 100 African scientists at the postdoctoral level will have the opportunity to conduct research at China's technology parks, research institutes, and private enterprises. Chinese scientists and engineers will also travel to African countries to provide technical guidance, and in order to increase the research capacities of African countries, China will also donate laboratory equipment.

Science, Technology, and Globalization Project Director Calestous Juma shared his insights into the history and future of Sino-African relations in a February 2008 interview with that's China columnist Jing Zhang.

Journal Article - Science

Science and Technology for Sustainable Well-Being

| January 25, 2008

"I would urge every scientist and engineer with an interest in the intersection of S&T with sustainable well-being...to 'tithe' 10% of your professional time and effort to working in these and other ways to increase the benefits of S&T for the human condition and to decrease the liabilities. If so much as a substantial fraction of the world's scientists and engineers resolved to do this much, the acceleration of progress toward sustainable well-being for all of Earth's inhabitants would surprise us all."