Strategic Landpower

Author(s):  
Joel Hillison

While Clausewitz would suggest that the nature of war never changes, the nature of landpower has changed over time. Deviant globalization and the empowerment of non-state actors have increased the challenges in the application of landpower. Non-state actors, such as the Taliban, the Islamic State, Al Qa'ida, and Transnational Criminal Networks (TCN) are just a few examples. Since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, landpower has been employed to address a much broader range of traditional and non-traditional threats. While the United States has a strong record of accomplishment in successfully employing landpower at the tactical and operational levels, its ability to achieve desired political outcomes with the application of landpower is less stellar. By examining the diffusion of power and its impact on non-state actors, senior military leaders will be better equipped to employ landpower in pursuit of US interests. Leaders seeking to employ strategic landpower must improve their ability to link tactical and operational success to strategic victory.

Author(s):  
Thomas Steinfatt ◽  
Dana Janbek

This chapter focuses on the use of propaganda during times of war, prejudice, and political unrest. Part one distinguishes between persuasion and one of its forms, propaganda. The meaning-in-use of the term ‘propaganda' is essential to understanding its use over time. Part two presents relevant examples of propaganda from the past several centuries in the United States and Europe. These examples include episodes from World War I and II, among others. Propaganda is not a new tool of persuasion, and learning about its use in the past provides a comparison that helps in understanding its use in the present and future. Part three looks at recent examples of how propaganda occurs in actual use in online terrorist mediums by Al-Qaeda and by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).


2021 ◽  
pp. 143-166
Author(s):  
Payam Ghalehdar

This chapter serves as an introduction to the second part of the book’s empirical analysis by sketching the evolution of US attitudes toward the Middle East. It shows how the United States relied on the British military to safeguard US interests in the region until the end of the 1960s and then on regional proxies after the British military withdrawal from the region. Even after the end of the Cold War, successive US administrations eschewed hegemonic expectations toward the region until the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The chapter concludes by briefly illustrating how the lack of both hegemonic pretensions and perceptions of anti-American hatred in Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait foreclosed US regime change in the 1991 Gulf War.


Hypatia ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 197-203
Author(s):  
Constance L. Mui ◽  
Julien S. Murphy

Events surrounding the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States raise compelling moral questions about the effects of war and globalization on children in many parts of the world. This paper adopts Sartre's notion of freedom, particularly its connection with materiality and intersubjectivity, to assess the moral responsibility that we have as a global community toward our most vulnerable members. We conclude by examining important first steps that should be taken to address the plight of children.


Author(s):  
Zachary R. Lewis ◽  
Kathryn L. Schwaeble ◽  
Thomas A. Birkland

The September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States were a focusing event that greatly increased attention to particularly large acts of terrorism as a threat to the United States and to particular interests. One of these interests is the aviation industry. The September 11 attacks exploited features of the aviation industry that made it prone to attack and that made an attack on this industry particularly vivid and attention-grabbing. The September 11 attacks led to policy changes in the United States and around the world with respect to aviation security, but those changes were not made in a vacuum. The changes that followed the September 11 attacks were made possible by efforts to learn from the range of aviation security incidents and challenges that have faced commercial aviation throughout its history. While the September 11 attacks were shocking and seemed novel, prior experience with aviation security crises provided those working in the aviation security policy realm with potential responses. The responses were drawn from a set of politically feasible responses that addressed the lapses in security demonstrated by terrorist attacks. The history of policy changes related to terrorism in aviation parallel the changes to policies that were made across the board in response to the elevation of terrorism on the agenda.


Author(s):  
Ben Saul

Calls to legally define “terrorism” arose in the context of the extradition of political offenders from the 1930s onwards, with many unsuccessful efforts since then to define, criminalize, and depoliticize a common global concept of “terrorism.” It was only after the terrorist attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001 that many states began enacting national “terrorism” offences, spurred on by new obligations imposed by the United Nations Security Council. National laws remain nonetheless very diverse. At the international level, an elementary legal consensus has emerged that terrorism is criminal violence intended to intimidate a population or coerce a government or an international organization; some national laws add an ulterior intention to pursue a political, religious, or ideological cause. There remain intense disagreements amongst states, however, on whether there should be exceptions for certain “just” causes and, as a result, the conceptual impasse continues, even if it has narrowed.


Subject Assessment of the 'Khorasan Group' Significance The US-led coalition's airstrikes in Syria since 2014 have focused on the Islamic State group (ISG). However, they have also struck the 'Khorasan Group' -- a collection of veteran al-Qaida operatives that allegedly plots terrorist attacks abroad, and that operates on the edges of Syria's al-Qaida affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra (JaN). Beginning in late 2014, Washington warned repeatedly that the Khorasan Group was plotting attacks in Europe and the United States, and that it was recruiting holders of Western passports who would be able to enter and transit Western countries more easily. Impacts Al-Qaida outside Syria will likely pursue terrorist attacks that punish the West for its policies in the Muslim world. ISG will also carry out terrorist attacks in an effort to assert its leadership over the global jihadist movement. Without an imminent threat from the Khorasan Group, the West will have difficulty making a case for targeting JaN. JaN will retain a base of Syrian opposition support so long as it does not invite international retaliation by supporting an attack abroad.


2018 ◽  
Vol 112 ◽  
pp. 259-263
Author(s):  
Veronica L. Taylor

As we meet in 2018, it is nearly thirty years since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989; seventeen years have passed since the terrorist attacks in the United States of September 11, 2001; and it is nearly fifteen years since the United Nations promulgated its definition of rule of law in 2004.


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