Articles

86 Items

Black Americans register to vote in the July 4 Georgia Democratic Primary in Atlanta, Ga., on May 3, 1944. Registrations are increasing in Atlanta as black schools are giving instructions to students in ballot casting procedure.

AP Photo

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

White Supremacy, Terrorism, and the Failure of Reconstruction in the United States

| Summer 2021

White Southerners opposed to Reconstruction used violence to undermine Black political power and force uncommitted white Southerners to their side. Although structural factors made it harder for the U.S. government to suppress this violence, a series of policy failures prompted Reconstruction’s failure and generations of injustice.

Journal Article - Terrorism and Political Violence

Book Review: The Dragons and the Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West

| 2021

David Kilcullen, a professor at the University of New South Wales, contributes to the debate of  whether contemporary great-power resurgence constitutes a second bi-polar competition by assessing resurging state and non-state competitors and the challenges they pose to the United Statesled world order. While the emerging security environment might not be a new Cold War, Kilcullen contends it may be more dangerous than in the past.

In this photo taken on Wednesday, March 28, 2018, members of the Kurdish internal security forces stand on their vehicle in front of a giant poster showing portraits of fighters killed fighting against the Islamic State group, in Manbij, north Syria. Manbij, a mixed Arab and Kurdish town of nearly 400,000, was liberated from Islamic State militants in 2016 by the YPG fighters with backing from U.S-led coalition airstrikes. With Turkey's threats, the town has become the axle for U.S. policy in Syria, threate

(AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

The Political Power of Proxies: Why Nonstate Actors Use Local Surrogates

| Spring 2020

Unlike state sponsors, which value proxies primarily for their military utility, nonstate sponsors use proxies mainly for their perceived political value. An analysis of three case studies—al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the People’s Protection Units in Syria, and Hezbollah in Lebanon—illustrates this argument.

people look at a destroyed houses near the village of Barisha, in Idlib province, Syria, after an operation by the U.S. military which targeted Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the shadowy leader of the Islamic State group.

Ghaith Alsayed

Newspaper Article - The New York Times

Intelligence From al-Baghdadi Raid, Including 2 Prisoners, Could Reveal Trove of ISIS Clues

| Oct. 28, 2019

Delta Force commandos took two Islamic State fighters as prisoners and a trove of intelligence from the now-destroyed compound where AbuBakral-Baghdadi, the world’s most wanted terrorist, had been hiding, officials said Monday.

Nigerian schoolgirls sitting in presidential palace

(AP Photo/Azeez Akunleyan)

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

“We Have Captured Your Women”: Explaining Jihadist Norm Change

| Summer 2019

In Pakistan and Nigeria, jihadist entrepreneurs have capitalized on external trigger events not only to successfully challenge established religious doctrine and norms, but to adopt radically new norms, including the use of gendered violence.

Great Decisions Cover

Foreign Policy Association

Journal Article - Foreign Policy Association

The State of the State Department and American Diplomacy

| Jan. 03, 2019

During the Trump administration, the usual ways of conducting diplomacy have been upended. Many positions in the State Department have never been filled, and meetings with foreign leaders such as Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin have been undertaken with little advance planning. What effect are these changes having now, and how will they affect ongoing relationships between the United States and its allies and adversaries?

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right and U.S. President Donald Trump shake hands

AP

Journal Article - Washington Quarterly

Cooperating with Iran to Combat ISIS in Iraq

| Fall 2017

"The United States and Iran are the two key players in the fight against ISIS, not least of all because they are two of the group's main targets. Indeed, other countries, particularly in Europe, have also been targeted by the group and seen ISIS attempt to recruit among their populations. As a result, they also share an interest in combatting the group. But the United States and Iran have made the fight against ISIS a security policy priority and allocated considerable resources to undertaking efforts in Iraq and Syria. While the two adversaries have aligned interests in Iraq, they have undertaken separate counterterrorism efforts to tackle the group."

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AP

Magazine Article - New Scientist

Anatomy of Terror: What Makes Normal People Become Extremists?

    Author:
  • Peter Byrne
| Aug. 16, 2017

"Mironova trained as a mathematician, game theorist and behavioural economist....she is one of few researchers to venture directly into combat zones to examine the roots of jihadist terror. Her work has been funded variously by the US National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), George Soros's Open Society Foundations, the United Nations and the World Bank."