To what extent does the “war” on terror challenge traditional understandings of warfare? (original) (raw)
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Terror, Terrorism and Asymmetric Warfare
Ege 12th International Conference on Social Scieces
This study examines the concepts of terror, terrorism, and asymmetric warfare and their impact on the evolution of international relations since the end of the Cold War. Three pivotal shifts in the global system with the end of the Cold War: were the end of bipolarity, the emergence of new states, and the increase in intra-state conflicts. This context provides the framework for an examination of the biological, psychological, and social foundations of the phenomenon of violence. Additionally, it permits an investigation of the transformation of violence and evolving structure of the concept of war within the context of contemporary classification, including “old-new war”, “hybrid war”, “fourth-generation war” and asymmetrical war”. Furthermore, the study employs an ontological and epistemological approach to examine the historical origins and contemporary usage of the concept of terrorism. Furthermore, the evolving agenda and objectives of terrorism, particularly in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, are examined in depth. The ways in which these phenomena are shaped in diverse contexts through categories such as insurgent, liberation, separatists, and global terrorism are also explored. This study examines the dynamics of modern warfare and terrorism from historical and theoretical perspectives and offers perspectives on key concepts such as international security, globalization, violence, and political targets.
The New Wars: Terrorism and “Asymmetric” Warfare
Vojenské rozhledy, 2021
The term “new wars” is often used to describe how terrorist groups achieve objectives in addition to the “classic” means of intervention by states. Terrorist organizations use asymmetric methods of warfare to target the weaknesses of Western states. Consequently, conventional wars have also changed into hybrid wars. The legal status of terrorist organizations is a major problem for the rule of law. In responding to terrorist attacks, the distinction between crime and terrorism is difficult. The “war on terror” is governed by different rules and principles and is extremely difficult to wage. Conflicts last a long time and victory against terrorism is rarely possible due to the networked structure of terrorist organizations and the way they intermingle with the population. In addition to an alliance-wide approach, there is a national solution to answer these new threats in form of the comprehensive national defense in Austria.
Tartu University Institute of Philosophy and Semiotics, 2017
This MA thesis aims at achieving working definitions of terrorism and violence and to review the actions and political and legal considerations that the United States has made with the intention of arguing that there are few, if any, features that legitimize the conflict as a just war under philosophical and ethical considerations of the term, and is instead a series of deliberate acts of state terrorism and human rights abuses. Then lastly to apply post-colonial theory to the history and development of militarized action by the natives occupying the Middle East region. In short, concentration is on the broader circumstance of the War on Terror.
Eurasian Geography and Economics, 2009
Two North American political geographers situate contemporary terrorism in the world within broad historical trends and geopolitical structures. They employ Rapoport's "four waves of terrorism" to illustrate the changing geography of terrorism (from an intrastate to an international phenomenon) and place it within the context of broad historical shifts in modes of warfare that envisages terrorism as a form of war stemming from imperialism and state-building. The authors broaden the structural setting of terrorism to include geoeconomics and the concept of relative deprivation, using empirical analysis to argue that contemporary terrorism is primarily a feature of the semi-periphery of the world-economy (middle-income countries). Specific characteristics of the Global War on Terror are interpreted by relating processes of imperialism and state-building to a situation in which the U.S. is facing geopolitical challenges and a possible decline in global-power status.
The 'war on terror' as political violence
“While it is pardonable for the colonizer to have his little arsenals, the discovery of even a rusty weapon among the colonized is cause for immediate punishment.” Albert Memmi One of the oddities of the ‘War on Terror’ is that there remains no clear, universally agreed-upon definition of its key referent, terrorism. Notwithstanding such indeterminacy, the term operates doubly in a descriptive and prescriptive capacity. Terrorism both describes a form of (illegitimate) political violence and a primary justification for (legitimate) political violence. In the context of the ‘War on Terror’, connotations of epic and indiscriminate violence accrue to that political violence branded terrorism, while its purported opposite is held to be limited by the humane values of states united in opposition to terrorism. Violence against troops in occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, though permissible under international law, is routinely described as terrorism. The violence of the US and its allies is rationalised, while anti-occupation violence is pre-emptively pathologised, its motives ascribed to an anti-modern and illiberal reflux. The caste of Euro-American states permitted the full range of kinetic force, are opposed to a subterranean and disarticulated network of non-state actors with whom there can be no negotiations and whose means of violence are criminalised. This binary stratification of global violence advises against what Robert Vitalis refers to as the “norm against noticing” the impact of race and caste on contemporary international politics. Political violence in the ‘War on Terror’ has been coded in the tropes of (magnanimous, rational, humane) empire versus (illiberal, irrational, suspicious) ‘native fanaticism’. These tropes originate in an era in which white supremacy was the global norm, and their resuscitation reminds us that its effects remain potent.
A Different Type of War: Practices and War in Countering Terrorism
Air and Space Power Journal--AF
The author received a BA from the University of Georgia, an MA in security studies from Georgetown University, and an MA and a PhD in political science, specializing in international relations, from the University of Chicago. He has broad research interests in international relations theory and security studies, including the relationship between the concepts of war and sovereignty and its implications for the practice of political violence in contemporary international relations; US strategy in the war on terror; the likelihood of nuclear terrorism; and a book manuscript on how the concept of time informs international relations scholarship. His
Redefining Terrorism: An Offshoot of Military Strategy
IPRI Journal, 2020
Various terrorist outfits or Actors Other Than States (AOTSs) are not only functionally similar in their motivation/objectives but are also driven by strategy which includes the means, ends or tactical and operational manoeuvring. This makes terrorism an extension of military strategy. The article views terrorism through a prism of military tactics and strategy in the historical backdrop of various forms of warfare. Drawing upon comparative analysis of the striking similarities in leading strategies and tactics between military forces of nation states, it argues that AOTSs make a conscious and significant use of military strategy in the pursuit of terrorist objectives.
New Century, Old Problems: The Global Insurgency Within Islam and the Nature of the War on Terror
2003
he steps outlined in the National Security Strategy of the United States of America seem to cover several aspects of national ower and the application of that power across the spectrum of international interaction, but it fails to clearly identify an enemy. n fact, nowhere in any of the literature addressing global terrorism does identification of the enemy proceed any further or with ny greater specificity than the mention of Al-Qaeda and other known terrorist organizations. But the fact remains the U.S. has een unable, or unwilling, to adequately describe the enemy or the nature of the war currently being waged. The time has come or the U.S. to face the reality that has long been festering throughout the Middle East but has been wished away for over 80 ears, a reality that has manifested itself in a global Islamic insurgency embodied and led by Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. If he U.S. fails to identify the war on terror as essentially a counterinsurgency effort, then geographic combatant commanders will ever be able to accurately assess the proper ways, means, and ends necessary to determine a calculus for victory, nor will they be ble to properly identify the enemy's center of gravity to assist them in that calculation.