Urban Security and Counterterrorism: An Approach to Proportionality

As cities and crowded areas increasingly become targets of terrorist plots and attacks, there is ample demand for risk assessment tools that consider proportional measures that reduce the threat, vulnerability, and possible impacts, whilst providing ‘security returns’ for those investments. There is a risk in this process of over- or under-fortifying places based on practitioners’ subjective biases, experiences, dead reckoning and conflicting agendas. Currently, risk assessments rely on qualitative tools that do not consider proportionality that removes these inherent biases. Critiquing well-known urban design strategies and national risk assessments, this article therefore seeks to develop a supplementary assessment tool – an equation for proportionality – that is more objective and is created to help practitioners make good choices, in particular on: (1) reducing the threat, (2) vulnerability, (3) impact, (4) accepting risk, and (5) measuring a security measure’s ability to deter, delay or stop an attack. It concludes that while no assessment is truly objective, the equation works to remove as much subjectivity as possible when assessing proportional urban security.

Testing the Power Transition Theory with Relative Military Power

This article tests the power transition theory using relative military power within a dyad pair. The author hypothesizes that when a dyad pair achieves relative military power parity, the two states are likely to initiate war. Furthermore, when a dyad pair no longer maintains relative military power parity, the probability of war between the two states decreases. Although the sample population used to test this hypothesis is small (n=3), the mixed-method analysis indicates support to the power transition theory. Furthermore, results are more substantial when using military expenditure and surplus domestic when compared to results using military personnel and surplus domestic product. No statistically significant difference exists (p=.99) when comparing military expenditure and surplus domestic product with a combination of military expenditure, military personnel, and surplus domestic product. These results indicate that relative military power possesses the potential to provide researchers an additional quantitative measure to test the power transition theory. Although these initial results are promising, further research is required to test a larger sample population of dyads.

Networks of Threats: Interconnection, Interaction, Intermediation

The rapidly changing global security environment requires to constantly adapt our understanding of threats. The findings of this paper confirm that threats interact with each other on three levels. Security, conflict, war, and strategic studies converge to build a new qualitative theoretical framework for threat analysis. Shaping the global security environment, threats communicate on three levels. Firstly, the interconnection of agents with similar ideological and/or strategic motivations connects threats. Secondly, interaction exacerbates incidental threats through cooperation, competition, and convergence. Thirdly, intermediation occurs between antagonistic threats trying to achieve common intermediary objectives. These networks are driven by agents maximizing their impact and reveals the autonomization and socialization of threats. Tackling these networks requires a global approach and the mobilization of collective security.

Past Attacks, Future Risks: Where Are We 20-years After 9/11?

his year, 2021, marks the 20th anniversary since 9/11, recorded as the ‘day that changed the world.’ Security remains an area where governments and airlines are continuously struggling to stay ahead, but since 9/11 there have been other challenges to the air transport industry – not least Covid-19. This research primarily critically reviews the actions taken in the aftermath of 9/11 from the US and EU perspective, before consideration is given to the current/present situation, the new, and emerging challenges being faced. The research is undertaken through a legal/policy perspective. The findings are that internationally and regionally, society is not prepared for another attack and that there remain a number of challenges that stand to impact aviation; ultimately, more collective action is needed to mitigate for such risks going forward.

The Validity of the Assessment and Treatment of Radicalization Scale: A Psychometric Instrument for Measuring Severity of Extremist Muslim Beliefs

The Assessment and Treatment of Radicalization Scale (ATRS) is designed to quantitatively measure Muslim extremists’ ideologies regarding risk areas that are reported in the literature. Utilizing the scale, in this study, using a convenience sample of 1769 from 10 countries (Australia, Canada, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Spain, and South Africa) responded to the ATRS. Results supported previous findings about the reliability and validity of the Assessment and Treatment of Radicalization Scale (ATRS, formerly known as Belief Diversity Scale BDS, Loza, 2007) for assessing Muslim extremists. Suggested cut off scores to use for identifying possible extremists are provided.

Shrinking Civic Space for Human Rights Defenders in Afghanistan Following the U.S. Military Drawdown in 2014

Civic space, an imperative to a democratic society where citizens can exercise their basic rights, is now under attack in Afghanistan. The fall of the Islamic Emirate in 2001 by a coalition of the U.S.-led military intervention grounded the rise of a vibrant environment for civil society and human rights defenders (HRDs). Promoting and safeguarding democratic values, mainly freedom of speech, assembly, and association, enshrined within a progressive constitutional framework, had turned to the topic of the day. The heavy presence of foreign troops with the money influx put strong support behind the nascent Afghan CSOs, HRDs, and democracy advocates to speak up for the many repressed Afghans. However, the drawdown of foreign troops proceeded by protracted political infighting between Afghan leaders over power-sharing, shaped a grim milestone for civic space and human rights in 2014. The Afghan security forces had learned but not enough to take full security responsibility. Meanwhile, the Afghan leaders were wrestling over power in Kabul while an emboldened Taliban was threatening civic space by making more territorial gains in provinces. Consequently, the security situation deteriorated dramatically, triggering widespread public protests. To respond, the government resorted to the use of force against protesters, and democratic advocates and introduced legal restrictions to prevent any prospective unrest. Finally, the U.S. military withdrawal has doubled concerns over the loss of the rights under civic space. Therefore, the United States should stay, not forever, but until the Afghan peace negotiations succeed.