Abstenerse del terror: la paradoja de la no violencia en el Sáhara Occidental

En el Sáhara Occidental, antigua colonia española ocupada por Marruecos desde 1975, no ha habido prácticamente ninguna resistencia violenta por parte del pueblo indígena saharaui desde el final de la guerra de 1975-1991 entre Marruecos y el Frente Polisario. La ausencia de violencia sorprende por varios factores: amplio apoyo de la población a la independencia, disparidades sociales y económicas entre marroquíes y saharauis, así como una brutal represión de Marruecos de la cultura, la resistencia y las manifestaciones del sentimiento independentista saharaui. Este artículo analiza la lógica de la violencia –y de su ausencia–, así como la resistencia, y extrae lecciones del Sáhara Occidental. Además de avanzar en el desarrollo teórico, se realiza un aporte metodológico al estudio de la resistencia y una mejor comprensión del conflicto del Sáhara Occidental mediante un trabajo de campo que incluyó unas 60 entrevistas con activistas saharauis realizadas durante el verano de 2014

New opportunities in common security and defence policy: Joining PESCO

Responding to concerns about burden-sharing and aiming to improve internal defence cooperation, act more quickly and harness resource synergies, the European Union (EU) initiated the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) in 2017. PESCO, however, is controversial. On the one hand, the United States (US) wants greater burden-sharing by European allies whilst concerned about greater European military autarky that would undermine US influence over NATO, Europe/EU and EU member states. Onthe other hand, at least one European NATO ally wants to leverage PESCO precisely as an instrument to shore up European “strategic autonomy”. This tension over competing European defence futures leaves participation by third countries in limbo. Arguably, third-country participation would hinder greater European defence autarky. The article makes the case for the mutual benefits of third-country participation, focusing on Canada. Canada has a major stake in the outcome. NATO is Canada’s most important multilateral institution and Europe is Canada’s second-most important strategic partner, after the US. Canada’s unequivocal strategic interests in Europe have long informed its expeditionary priorities -- from the two world wars, when Canada coming to Europe’s defence long before the USproved existential for both parties, to nowadays. Since the 1970s, Canada and Europe have worked consistently together bilaterally beyond NATO to advance regional stability and mutual security interests. Canada’s and Europe’s defence futures are thus interdependent. Excluding third countries from participating in PESCO would have detrimental consequences for Canadian, European and transatlantic defence interests. In contrast, with third country participation, PESCO will be instrumental to effective transatlantic and transeuropean defence integration

Wars Without Beginning or End: Violent Political Organizations and Irregular Warfare in the Sahel-Sahara

This article examines the structure and spatial patterns of violent political organizations in the Sahel-Sahara, a region characterized by growing political instability over the last 20 years. Drawing on a public collection of disaggregated data, the article uses network science to represent alliances and conflicts of 179 organizations that were involved in violent events between 1997 and 2014. To this end, we combine two spectral embedding techniques that have previously been considered separately: one for directed graphs (relationships are asymmetric), and one for signed graphs (relationships are positive or negative). Our result show that groups that are net attackers are indistinguishable at the level of their individual behavior, but clearly separate into pro- and anti-political violence based on the groups to which they are close. The second part of the article maps a series of 389 events related to nine Trans-Saharan Islamist groups between 2004 and 2014. Spatial analysis suggests that cross-border movement has intensified following the establishment of military bases by AQIM in Mali but reveals no evidence of a border sanctuary. Owing to the transnational nature of conflict, the article shows that national management strategies and foreign military interventions have profoundly affected the movement of Islamist groups

Tracking Transnational Terrorist Resourcing Nodes and Networks

In light of persistent terrorist attacks in Europe and elsewhere, the study of terrorist resourcing and financing has attracted renewed attention. How are terrorists\u27 networks financed? Who raises the financial resources, and how do they transfer them across borders? How does the global financial industry facilitate or impede these transfers? Answers to these and other questions can help law enforcement investigate, disrupt, and neutralize cross-border terrorist resourcing. Evidence and data on this phenomenon is scarce, of questionable quality, irreplicable, and can be difficult to come by. This study is the first comprehensive effort to collect, code, analyze, and compare available open-source case law data on transnational terrorist resourcing networks. Under the study\u27s methodology, the conventional yet strict focus on financing is broadened to resources, which includes forms other than cash, including trade-based fraud and online social networks. The analysis reveals common crossborder resourcing patterns and usage of financial intermediaries such as banks. It thus contributes to the ongoing optimization of anti-terrorist resourcing laws, policies, and risk-management practices

Why Terror Networks are Dissimilar: How Structure Relates to Function

Abstract Theories on international terrorist networks are wrought with contradiction. On the one hand, networks that support or facilitate politically motivated violent extremism are thought to pose a threat because they are centralized and hierarchical. On the other hand, the same networks are thought to pose a threat because they are decentralized and operate autonomously. Social networks analysis (SNA) makes it possible to resolve this apparent contradiction by controlling across countries for characteristics and structure of networks linked to the same terrorist organization relative to different functions that such networks perform. One terrorist organization for which sufficient open-source data exist to mount a systematic comparison is Al-Shabaab (AS). Comparing traits such as brokers, centrality characteristics of nodes, international linkages, and use of funds, the chapter compares AS networks as they relate to recruitment, fundraising and attacks across the United States and Australia with corroborating evidence from Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Denmark. Although networks differ markedly across these attributes, unrelated networks performing similar functions are consistent in their nature and structure. These findings suggest that networks are functionally differentiated insofar as they serve as strategic repertoires. This is a significant finding. Knowing how a network's function is related strategically to its structure means being able to infer a network's function if only its structure is known and, conversely, being able to infer a network's structure if only its function is known. Not only does SNA thereby facilitate detection and dismantling of networks, it also suggests that recruitment, fundraising and attack networks require differentiated approaches by defence and security agencies insofar as SNA shows them to be distinct phenomena

Diverse perspectives on interdisciplinarity from the Members of the College of the Royal Society of Canada

Various multiple-disciplinary terms and concepts (although most commonly “interdisciplinarity”, which is used herein) are used to frame education, scholarship, research, and interactions within and outside academia. In principle, the premise of interdisciplinarity may appear to have many strengths; yet, the extent to which interdisciplinarity is embraced by the current generation of academics, the benefits and risks for doing so, and the barriers and facilitators to achieving interdisciplinarity represent inherent challenges. Much has been written on the topic of interdisciplinarity, but to our knowledge there have been few attempts to consider and present diverse perspectives from scholars, artists, and scientists in a cohesive manner. As a team of 57 members from the Canadian College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada (the College) who self-identify as being engaged or interested in interdisciplinarity, we provide diverse intellectual, cultural, and social perspectives. The goal of this paper is to share our collective wisdom on this topic with the broader community and to stimulate discourse and debate on the merits and challenges associated with interdisciplinarity. Perhaps the clearest message emerging from this exercise is that working across established boundaries of scholarly communities is rewarding, necessary, and is more likely to result in impact. However, there are barriers that limit the ease with which this can occur (e.g., lack of institutional structures and funding to facilitate cross-disciplinary exploration). Occasionally, there can be significant risk associated with doing interdisciplinary work (e.g., lack of adequate measurement or recognition of work by disciplinary peers). Solving many of the world’s complex and pressing problems (e.g., climate change, sustainable agriculture, the burden of chronic disease, and aging populations) demand thinking and working across long-standing, but in some ways restrictive, academic boundaries. Academic institutions and key support structures, especially funding bodies, will play an important role in helping to realize what is readily apparent to all who contributed to this paper—that interdisciplinarity is essential for solving complex problems; it is the new norm. Failure to empower and encourage those doing this research will serve as a great impediment to training, knowledge, and addressing societal issues

International Security Strategy and Global Population Aging

To be successful, grand strategy requires objectives, concepts, and resources to be balanced appropriately with a view to defeating one’s enemy. The trouble is, of course, that Generals are always well prepared to fight the last war. In the words of Yogi Berra, predictions are always difficult, especially when they involve the future. Yet, grand strategy is all about the future. But how is one to strategize about a future that is inherently difficult to predict? One way to overcome this conundrum is to rely on independent variables that can be projected into the future with reasonable accuracy. Aside from environmental indicators, the most consistent of those is demography, specifically demographic change and difference. The demographic approach to international security leads to strategic conclusions about the integration of military, political, and economic means in pursuit of states’ ultimate objectives in the international system