By focusing on four specific hotbeds of instability-Somalia, Chechnya, Afghanistan, and Iraq-Richard H. Shultz Jr. and Andrea J. Dew carefully analyze tribal culture and clan associations, examine why "traditional" or "tribal" warriors fight, identify how these groups recruit, and where they find sanctuary, and dissect the reasoning behind their strategy. Their new introduction evaluates recent developments in Iraq and Afghanistan, the growing prevalence of Shultz and Dew's conception of irregular warfare, and the Obama Defense Department's approach to fighting insurgents, terrorists, and militias. War in the post-Cold War era cannot be waged through traditional Western methods of combat, especially when friendly states and outside organizations like al-Qaeda serve as powerful allies to the enemy. Bridging two centuries and several continents, Shultz and Dew recommend how conventional militaries can defeat these irregular yet highly effective organizations.

This new book provides a framework for understanding the international relations of armed groups, including terrorist organizations, insurgencies and warlords, which play an increasingly important role in the international system. Specifically, the book argues that such groups can be understood as taking part in the balance of power with states and other armed groups, as they are empirically sovereign non-state actors that are motivated by the pursuit of power and exist as part of an anarchic, self-help system. This radically new approach offers a renewed conceptualization of Neorealism, and provides new insights into debates about sovereignty, non-state actors, new wars, counterterrorism, and counterinsurgency. The approach is illustrated through case studies on Somali warlords, the security complex between the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), Sudan and Uganda, as well as Al Qaeda. The book provides insights into such issues as how non-state actors can be integrated into structural theories of international relations, and also offers pragmatic methodologies for the foreign policy or military practitioner, such as how to best deter terrorists.

This book describes militias as significant and prevalent actors in today’s international security environment. To separate them from other types of violent non-state groups, such as terrorists, guerrillas and insurgents, the author describes militias as local guardians that use violence to fill a variety of political, social and security gaps, which have created vulnerabilities for their particular constituencies. Although militias are local in orientation, their effects are not contained to particular countries and have only added to the instability in the international system. This book explores how militias contribute to international security issues by furthering state fragility, undermining human rights and democratization, enabling illicit trafficking, prolonging internal conflicts and fostering proxy wars.

This in-depth, historical analysis of terrorism investigates the major funding streams of terrorists, insurgents, guerrillas, warlords, militias, and criminal organizations throughout the world as well as the efforts of the international community to thwart their efforts. Terrorist financing is an ongoing game of creating, concealing, and surreptitiously utilizing funds. This intriguing book considers every facet of guerrilla funding—from how activities are financed, to what insurgents do with the revenue they generate, to the range of countermeasures in place for deterring their moneymaking activities. Case studies prompt an analysis of past government responses and inform recommendations for countering irregular warfare worldwide. Author Colin P. Clarke presents the business side of terrorism, taking a look at the cash-producing ventures he labels "gray activities" such as diaspora support, charities, fraudulent businesses, front companies, and money laundering as well as "dark activities" including kidnapping for ransom, robbery, smuggling, trafficking, and extortion. He considers the transnational efforts to stop terrorist activities—from wiretaps and electronic surveillance to financial sanctions and the freezing of funds and accounts—and points to the emergence of interagency task forces for detaining and destroying the operations of major criminal organizations across the globe.

Examines the deleterious effects of the U.S. failure to focus on protecting the Iraqi population for most of the military campaign in Iraq and analyzes the failure of a technologically driven counterinsurgency (COIN) approach. It outlines strategic considerations relative to COIN; presents an overview of the conflict in Iraq; describes implications for future operations; and offers recommendations to improve the U.S. capability to conduct COIN.

The Oxford Handbook of Terrorism systematically integrates the substantial body of scholarship on terrorism and counterterrorism before and after 9/11. In doing so, it introduces scholars and practitioners to state of the art approaches, methods, and issues in studying and teaching these vital phenomena. This Handbook goes further than most existing collections by giving structure and direction to the fast-growing but somewhat disjointed field of terrorism studies. The volume locates terrorism within the wider spectrum of political violence instead of engaging in the widespread tendency towards treating terrorism as an exceptional act. Moreover, the volume makes a case for studying terrorism within its socio-historical context. Finally, the volume addresses the critique that the study of terrorism suffers from lack of theory by reviewing and extending the theoretical insights contributed by several fields - including political science, political economy, history, sociology, anthropology, criminology, law, geography, and psychology. In doing so, the volume showcases the analytical advancements and reflects on the challenges that remain since the emergence of the field in the early 1970s.

The author identifies the roots of organized crime in Ba'athist Iraq and reports on major criminal activities including the theft, diversion, and smuggling of oil, the kidnapping of both Iraqis and foreigners, extortion, car theft, and the theft and smuggling of antiquities. The author also reports on how al-Qaeda in Iraq, Jaish-al-Mahdi, and the Sunni tribes used criminal activities to fund their campaigns of political violence.