EU counterterrorism strategy: value added or chimera?

Europe did not wake up to terrorism on 9/11; terrorism is solidly entrenched in Europe's past. The historical characteristics of Europe's counterterrorism approach have been first, to treat terrorism as a crime to be tackled through criminal law, and second, to emphasize the need for understanding the 'root causes' of terrorism in order to be able to prevent terrorist acts. The 9/11 attacks undoubtedly brought the EU into uncharted territory, boosting existing cooperation and furthering political integration-in particular in the field of justice and home affairs, where most of Europe's counterterrorism endeavours are situated-to a degree few would have imagined some years earlier. This development towards European counterterrorism arrangements was undoubtedly event-driven and periods of inertia and confusion alternated with moments of significant organizational breakthroughs. The 2005 London attacks contributed to a major shift of emphasis in European counterterrorism thinking. Instead of an external threat, terrorism now became a home-grown phenomenon. The London bombings firmly anchored deradicalization at the heart of EU counterterrorism endeavours

Break it Down: An Alternative Approach to Measuring Effectiveness in Counterterrorism

This paper will review the ways in which the effectiveness of counterterrorism measures and policies has been assessed and argue that they suffer largely from the same difficulties. For many of the chosen indicators it is not clear whether they represent what they are supposed to represent and whether shifts in the scores can be attributed to counterterrorism. After having discussed these problems, a different way of measuring counterterrorism effectiveness is outlined. It rests on the assumption that counterterrorism should be broken down into separate components that should all be evaluated separately. For all components, a causal chain from cause (measure) to effect (shift in indicator) should be formulated to solve the meaning and attribution problems.

Disrupt, Deny, Dismantle: A Special Operations Forces (SOF) Model for Combatting New Terrorism

Terrorism in the new millennium has morphed drastically since the 1970s. The terrorist organizations of today are a hybrid between the insurgent group models of the 1960s and modern terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda. This hybrid model has created what has become a transnational insurgency recruited, trained, and led by major terrorist networks such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Even smaller regional groups such as Boko Haram have surpassed merely conducting terrorist attacks. These smaller groups are also focused on controlling territory. Tan (2008) refers to this change as “New Terrorism”. To combat New Terrorism, a combination of counterinsurgency tactics and counterterrorism tactics must be employed. This study will examine the need to define roles and responsibilities for various organization and various echelons through the introduction of a new Special Operations Forces model; Disrupt, Deny, Dismantle. The acronym to be used for this model is D3. This model recommends different tactics, techniques, and procedures for forces not specifically assigned the counterterrorism mission. As new terrorism continues to change, only counterterrorism forces should be tasked with the Find Fix Finish, Exploit, Analyze, and Disseminate (F3EAD) model of targeting (Counterterrorism 2014). All other military and law enforcement elements should disrupt and deny the enemy in support of the counterterrorism effort. This study is based on extensive research and the author’s 23 years of experience serving in U.S. Army Special Forces. Throughout his career, the author interacted with people from various social, economic, and professional backgrounds throughout the Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans

Ordering terror, terrorizing order:Governmentality, counterterrorism and the European Community/European Union, 1972-2016

This dissertation focuses on the counterterrorism efforts by the European Community (EC) and later the European Union (EU) between 1972 and 2016. For this purpose it draws on a poststructuralist perspective within the discipline of International Relations. The research specifically uses Michel Foucault’s notion of governmentality in order to investigate the ways in which responses to terrorism were and are enacted. This means that counterterrorism is not regarded as a self-evident and logical response to a phenomenon defined as terrorism. To the contrary, counterterrorism is regarded as a contingent category, a specific and historically situated (set of) response(s) that emerged in relation to the events it defined as problematic and in need of intervention. The analysis of the distinct forms of government associated with counterterrorism at the EC and later EU level translates into a focus on three interrelated aspects: the key problematizations around which the institutionalization of counterterrorism took place, the practices and devices through which counterterrorism was and is conducted, and the issue of who can legitimately speak and practice counterterrorism. This research is neither an inquiry into the effectiveness of counterterrorism nor into its normative directions, but into how counterterrorism has become and is being practiced as a category of government

Corporate governance in Central and Eastern Europe : lessons from advanced market economies

Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Private Participation in Infrastructure,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Small Scale Enterprise,Economic Theory&Research

Country Portfolios

Capital flows to developing countries are small and take mostly the form of loans rather than direct foreign investment. We build a simple model of North-South capital flows that highlights the interplay between diminishing returns, production risk and sovereign risk. This model generates a set of country portfolios and a world distribution of capital stocks that resemble those in the data.Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Environmental Economics&Policies,Financial Intermediation

U.S. Attitudes toward Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Report to the Resilient Systems Division, Science and Technology Directorate, U.S Department of Homeland Security

Existing survey data do not provide comprehensive baseline information about U.S. beliefs and attitudes on terrorism and counterterrorism. Improved understanding of public attitudes can inform programs and tools related to managing public risk perception, increasing effectiveness of pre- and post-event communication by Federal, state, and local officials, and building and supporting more resilient social networks within and across communities.In this project, systematic survey data was collected from a sample of Americans in response to a range of newly developed survey questions. The survey was developed by two leading survey methodologists, following consultations with a research team of experts who study the dynamics of terrorism, counterterrorism, and community resilience, as well as with practitioners and officials from throughout the homeland security community. The questions were administered to members of a web panel by the on-line survey firm Knowledge Networks, and a second wave of the survey will be issued approximately six months after the first wave to allow for analysis of attitudes over time.The first wave of the questionnaire was completed, from September 28, 2012 to October 12, 2012, by 1,576 individuals 18 years of age and older. The first section of the questionnaire assessed the salience of terrorism by asking respondents whether they had thought about terrorism in the preceding week, how likely they thought a terrorist attack in the United States was in the next year, and whether they had done anything differently in the past year because of the possibility of such an attack. The second section of the questionnaire posed questions about how likely respondents would be to call the police in response to various actions potentially related to terrorism and how concerned respondents felt the government should be about these actions. Respondents who said they had thought about a terrorist attack in the last week were more likely than other respondents to say they were likely to call the police in response to the various situations described to them. The survey then assessed respondents' awareness and evaluation of government efforts related to terrorism in the United States. A large majority of the respondents said that the U.S. government has been very effective (33 percent) or somewhat effective (54 percent) at preventing terrorism; less than 13 percent characterized the government as not too effective or not effective at all.In a final section of the survey, we asked respondents about two specific programs focused on increasing communication between members of the public and the government on topics related to terrorism