Jus Ad Bellum after 9/11: A State of the Art Report

An examination of the applicability of conventional and revisionist just war principles to the global war on terror

Trafficking in Persons: U.S. Policy and Issues for Congress

[Excerpt] This report focuses on international and domestic human trafficking and U.S. policy responses, with particular emphasis on the TVPA and its subsequent reauthorizations. The report begins with a description of key TIP-related definitions and an overview of the human trafficking problem. It follows with an overview of major foreign policy responses to international human trafficking. The report then focuses on responses to trafficking into and within the United States, examining relief for trafficking victims in the United States and discussing U.S. law enforcement efforts to combat domestic trafficking. The report concludes with an overview of current anti-trafficking legislation and an analysis of policy issues

Re-imagining the Borders of US Security after 9/11: Securitisation, Risk, and the Creation of the Department of Homeland Security

The articulation of international and transnational terrorism as a key issue in US security policy, as a result of the 9/11 attacks, has not only led to a policy rethink, it has also included a bureaucratic shift within the US, showing a re-thinking of the role of borders within US security policy. Drawing substantively on the 'securitisation' approach to security studies, the article analyses the discourse of US security in order to examine the founding of the Department of Homeland Security, noting that its mission provides a new way of conceptualising 'borders' for US national security. The securitisation of terrorism is, therefore, not only represented by marking terrorism as a security issue, it is also solidified in the organisation of security policy-making within the US state. As such, the impact of a 'war on terror' provides an important moment for analysing the re-articulation of what security is in the US, and, in theoretical terms, for reaffirming the importance of a relationship between the production of threat and the institutionalisation of threat response. © 2007 Taylor & Francis

Border Security: Understanding Threats at U.S. Borders

[Excerpt] The United States confronts a wide array of threats at U.S. borders, ranging from terrorists who may have weapons of mass destruction, to transnational criminals smuggling drugs or counterfeit goods, to unauthorized migrants intending to live and work in the United States. Given this diversity of threats, how may Congress and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) set border security priorities and allocate scarce enforcement resources? In general, DHS’s answer to this question is organized around risk management, a process that involves risk assessment and the allocation of resources based on a cost-benefit analysis. This report focuses on the first part of this process by identifying border threats and describing a framework for understanding risks at U.S. borders. DHS employs models to classify threats as relatively high- or low-risk for certain planning and budgeting exercises and to implement certain border security programs. Members of Congress may wish to use similar models to evaluate the costs and benefits of potential border security policies and to allocate border enforcement resources. This report discusses some of the issues involved in modeling border-related threats

Transnational Terrorism as a Spillover of Domestic Disputes in Other Countries

conflict, terrorism, civil war

Conceptualizing al-Qaeda and US Grand Strategy

The US debate about the nature of al-Qaeda and the associated threat does not occur in a political or ideological vacuum. In fact, given its on-going political salience, questions such as what al-Qaeda is, how it can be conceptualized and defeated provide a large number of access points for those trying to shape broader US policies and underlying discourses. In the context of Middle East politics, for example, the perception of an on-going terrorist threat allowed some to argue for US policies that take into account Palestinian demands, whilst others stressed the need to uphold a close relationship with the Israeli government and to vigorously pursue the ‘national interest’.1 More recently, the answer to the question of whether al-Qaeda can still be thought of as having a coherent core or whether it simply serves as a brand for essentially local, bottom-up radicalization processes has direct implications for the question of whether the US-led military presence in Afghanistan and the aggressive pursuit of the Taliban should be at the heart of US counterterrorism efforts. Ultimately, the US debate about al-Qaeda is inextricably linked to specific ontologies of international politics and long-held convictions about the global role which the United States should and can play. That is why the present analysis follows in the footsteps of those who have called for closer attention to be paid to individual perceptions and convictions as the intervening variable between international incentives and policy outcomes

Breaking the Mexican Cartels: A Key Homeland Security Challenge for the Next Four Years

Although accurate statistics are hard to come by, it is quite possible that 60,000 people have died in the last six-plus years as a result of armed conflict between the Mexican cartels and the Mexican government, amongst cartels fighting each other, and as a result of cartels targeting citizens. And this figure does not even include the nearly 40,000 Americans who die each year from using illegal drugs, much of which is trafficked through the U.S.-Mexican border. The death toll is only part of the story. The rest includes the terrorist tactics used by cartels to intimidate the Mexican people and government, an emerging point of view that the cartels resemble an insurgency, the threat—both feared and realized—of danger to Americans, and the understated policy approach currently employed by the U.S. government. This short article only scratches the surface by identifying the Mexican Situation as a pressing U.S. homeland security issue requiring a renewed strategic effort by the United States over the next four years. Involving a complex web of foreign policy, law enforcement, intelligence, military, border security, drug consumption and public policy considerations, breaking the Mexican cartels is no easy feat. But it is a necessary one to secure our southern border, eliminate the presence of dangerous cartels in our cities, reduce Americans’ contribution to the drug trade and resulting violence, and play our role in restoring the Mexican citizenry to a society free from daily terror

The end of the ‘new world order’? security governance and US imperialism after 9/11

The concept of global governance has emerged as a key theoretical approach since the 1990s. Applied to the transformation of international security, it has suggested a shift from the state-dominated bipolar system of the Cold War era to a new multipolar and multilateral security architecture in which state, non-state and international actors collaborate in the making and implementation of security policies. Then came September 11, 2001 and the war in Iraq. Today we appear to be more likely to discuss the nature of American hegemony and the stability of a unipolar international system. Observing the clash between these two competing perspectives of international security, the aims of this paper are threefold. First, this paper seeks to examine the respective theoretical assumptions underlying the concepts of hegemony and governance. Second, it examines the competing hypotheses proposed by these two theories with regard to international security. Third, it discusses in how far the empirical evidence since September 11, can be taken as indication of either a hegemonic strategy by the United States and balancing or bandwagoning behaviour by other major powers, or the continuation of security governance