Global War on Terror Research Papers (original) (raw)

This article reckons with the figure of Blackness in the US military prison at Guantánamo Bay, from captives who are racialized as both Muslim and Black to the invocations of racism and slavery in discourses incited by the prison. Broad continuities between the War on Terror and various forms of anti-Black state violence have long been observed by critical commentators, but this article aims to theorize these relationships with greater precision through the analytic of captivity. As a modality of racialization, captivity entails mobility across contexts as well as encounters of captivation through public narrative. This approach offers a distinctive vantage point on how the War on Terror's racialization of Muslims cross-cuts diverse geographies of Blackness, including in Muslim-majority societies. This essay follows the memoirs of Mohamedou Ould Slahi (Mauritania) and Walid Muhammad al-Hajj (Sudan) and is informed by the author's experiences as an attorney and activist working to close the prison.

- by Robert Rowland
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- Global War on Terror, Communication and media Studies

In this paper I examine whether the War on Terror and Economic issues are pulling the nations together or pushing them apart

The treatment of war wounds is an ancient art, constantly refined to reflect improvements in weapons technology, transportation, antiseptic practices, and surgical techniques. Throughout most of the history of warfare, more soldiers died from disease than combat wounds, and misconceptions regarding the best timing and mode of treatment for injuries often resulted in more harm than good. Since the 19th century, mortality from war wounds steadily decreased as surgeons on all sides of conflicts developed systems for rapidly moving the wounded from the battlefield to frontline hospitals where surgical care is delivered. We review the most important trends in US and Western military trauma management over two centuries, including the shift from primary to delayed closure in wound management, refinement of amputation techniques, advances in evacuation philosophy and technology, the development of antiseptic practices, and the use of antibiotics. We also discuss how the lessons of history are reflected in contemporary US practices in Iraq and Afghanistan.

- by M. Manring
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- Ancient History, Military History, Military Medicine, Medieval History

Afghanistan's future will continue to be defined substantially by Islamabad's mischief. Unless Pakistan is compelled by the international community to end its support to the Taliban and other extremist formations in Afghanistan, the... more

- by Dr. Ajit K Singh
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- International Relations, Humanities, Peace and Conflict Studies, Social Sciences

Sayer NA, Chiros CE, Sigford B, Scott S, Clothier B, Pickett T, Lew HL. Characteristics and rehabilitation outcomes among patients with blast and other injuries sustained during the Global War on Terror. Arch Phys Med Rehabil... more

- by Barbara Clothier
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- Terrorism, Rehabilitation, Health Care, Afghanistan
- by Pınar Kemerli
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- Sovereignty, Bosnia, Political Violence, Empire

Jane Mayer, an experienced writer on national security matters, does indeed set out to tell how the US war on terror became a war on American ideals.
The main title of the book is based on a quote from Vice President Cheney at a moment when the coals of the Twin Towers were still hot.
Cheney set out to impose his vision of Doomsday values on the Administration by isolating the President from alternative sources of advice and by preventing any person not approved by Cheney from having input into policy.
Thus torture was approved by official legal opinions and rebranded as enhanced interrogation techniques. Black sites were established around the world and suspects, at least one of whom was a complete case of mistaken identity, were secretly rendered in CIA jets to foreign intelligence agencies to be tortured.
The Dark Side shows the reader Cheney's villains up close but also documents the heroes, both in and out of the Administration, who battled to bring back the light of legal oversight to the black holes created by Cheney's minions.
On re-reading this review over five years after reading the book and writing the review, I found The Dark Side even more relevant as another Administration nears its end and the debate in another set of primary elections focusses on triviality.

- by Stephen Keim
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- American Literature, American Studies, Human Rights Law, Human Rights
- by Deirdre Barrett
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- Military History, Political Sociology, Social Movements, Psychology

States need to benefit from some persuasion techniques especially at wars. Besides on military superiority, it is important to control both rivals and allies psychology and way of thinking. Thanks to developments in communication technologies, states reach their actions and desires to public more effectively and more rapidly; however, these improvements are not unilateral process, while states' potential to permeation public sphere improves, people's capabilities to access diversified sources increase correspondingly. United States of America, which defines itself as a defender of liberal and democratic world, takes advantage of psychological means of war either. These means had shown itself especially at Vietnam War, First Gulf War and eventually, Iraq War in 2003. Iraq War counted as a turning point regarding usage of media, because during that war, while technological equipments increased ways of journalist

- by Gizem Ayşe Erdeniz
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- American Studies, Media Studies, Media and Cultural Studies, Terrorism

The Quran: A New Translation I s lam ,T e r r o r is m and Jihad (18 A ug 2014 Ne w A g e I s lam .C o m )

- by Sanchita Bhattacharya, Ph.D.
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- Religion, Political Sociology, Sociology of Religion, Area Studies
- by Juan Cole
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- Islamic Studies, American Muslims, Islamophobia, George W Bush adminstration

Many have noted how the Bush administration’s linking of Iraq to the war on terror lent a certain degree of legitimacy to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Few scholars who have noted this linkage, however, have theorised about the specific discursive mechanisms that allowed Iraq to be incorporated and normalised within the war on terror. This article utilises the theoretical framework of Ernesto Laclau to analyse how ‘Iraq’ was (re)constructed as a threat through the war on terror. The productive power of the discourses constructing ‘Iraq’ is examined in the wording of poll questions as sites of reproduction and naturalisation of the dominant understandings of Iraq and the war on terror. Rather than tools used to measure public opinion that exists independently of them, this article argues that polls are better viewed as vehicles through which foreign policy and security discourses are stabilised and naturalised.

This study delves into the foundations of sectarian rifts in Iraq, attempting to show a direct connection between the treatment of Shi’ite, Sunni and Kurdish people during Saddam Hussein’s regime and subsequent introduction of the United States and enactment of certain policy platforms as the primary catalyst for sectarian violence in Iraq in 2003 onwards The study aims to highlight the activities of Saddam’s regime, investigating its practices of corruption, deprivation of basic services, targeting, surveillance, violence, and coercion. The study also aims to highlight the missteps taken by the US in attempting to bolster peace in the region. The study will show the consequences of these activities resulting in lengthy Sunni and Shi’ite conflicts.

In order to enter symmetrical relations of force in a war, the two opposing sides need to have some balance in technology (and overall power). When such balance is not there in a war, e.g. like the Gulf War in the early 1990s, it transforms into, what Jean Baudrillard calls, a non-war. In other words, he questions the occurrence or reality of a non-war. Along the lines of Baudrillard's critique of the Gulf War, we register critique of the ongoing drone war on the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderland. We argue that the technological imbalance is even worse in this drone war. Accordingly, there is higher level of asymmetry in the relations of force, which has transfigured the nature/reality of this war. We apply and test a set of Baudrillard's concepts to explain this transfigured nature of the drone war.

- by syed sami raza
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- War Studies, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Cyber Warfare

During Cold War era, the US supported the armed groups in Afghanistan in terms of training and ammunition against the Soviet Union by fuelling Islamic jihadism. After failed invasion of Soviet Union, the US withdrew completely leaving the armed groups from the region and it created a threat to the whole world. The US became one of the biggest targets and victims of its own policy with 9/11 attacks, Afghanistan was one of the countries the US occupied in order to fight against terrorist organizations and to bring democracy to countries that feed and support terrorism within the framework of the Bush Doctrine. The US did not carry out this invasion alone and for the first time in its history, NATO took action within the scope of Article 5 and engaged in a collective intervention. The point reached at the end of the 20-year invasion, where humanitarian loss and economic costs are too heavy to be overcome, the US, who sat at the table with the Taliban, quickly retreated from the region by leaving everything else-once again-just as how it was while disappointing its NATO allies.

- by Zuhal KARAKOC DORA
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- Afghanistan, History of Afghanistan, Taliban, Afghanistan's history

The use of drones and other forms of targeted killings are being increasingly criticized at the international and domestic level. Before the backdrop of the most recent news that the United Nations has launched an inquiry into the overall legality of such a method of warfare and counter-terrorism and its associated loss of civilian life, this article aims to give an overview on targeted killings as a means of warfare. The article asks what constitutes targeted killing and what distinguishes it from assassinations. It reflects on the safeguards, which are necessary to ensure the legality of the targeting process. This article further introduces the reader to an updated account of the use of Unmanned Combat Aircraft Systems, or ‘drones’, in targeted killings, employed as a means of warfare by the US in its ‘War on Terror’. The US drone campaign in Pakistan also raises questions in respect to State Sovereignty and potential violations of this central tenet of International Law. The article will also touch upon another field of global security, so called ‘Hybrid Threats’, where the use of targeted killing may have an operational military benefit as part of a holistic counterstrategy. It concludes with a sobering warning that while targeted killing operations may be an effective means of achieving short term tactical goals within the scope of a wider operational objective, the unregulated and increased use of targeting killings by the US in the ‘War on Terror’ would be both immoral as well as illegal in the long run.

- by Professor Sascha-Dominik Dov Bachmann
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- Criminology, Ethics, Philosophy Of Religion, Terrorism

A fghanistan faces a serious crisis of political stability, threatening its modest development gains, the survival of its government, and the interests of the West and the international community. In order to meet these challenges, the country will need broad social unity and should therefore avoid alienating important bodies of opinion wherever possible. Integrating religious leadership into the political mainstream is essential to the viability and stability of the country's continued transition into a free and democratic political order. Equally important is to give religious practice an outlet in other aspects of public life, such as education.

- by Prakhar Sharma and +1
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- Religion, Afghanistan, Radicalization, Islam

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate information about the causes and costs of wars in Africa. This work is divided into five topics; First, Introduction which provides basic knowledge about peace and history of Africa; Second, Typology of wars in Africa which explains the types of wars that exists or once was in Africa, Causes and Costs; Third topic is about Africa and War on Terror this provides a deep down knowledge about the terrorism and how Africa got involved into the war on terrorism; the fourth topic is about the Political economy and cultural ecology of war in Africa; and the final topic is about conclusion, lastly there is a reference on the bottom of the paper.

After ten years of precarious military, intelligence and other security
cooperation between Pakistan and the United States, the two countries
could not be more at odds. Worse, as much as they despise each other,
they both know that their security depends in varying degrees upon the
other. However, at the time of writing, the way forward is far from this
obvious.
This chapter will first briefly summarize the enduring challenges that
Pakistan presents. It will then examine how the peculiar and suboptimal
impasse has come about. The author argues that the looming 2014 date,
when the United States will begin scaling back kinetic activities in Afghanistan, may present new opportunities for the United States to re-optimize
its position in the region.

- by Christine Fair
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- Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Pakistan Studies

Myanmar's recent ethnic cleansing of its Rohingya people, in which more than 600,000 people have been forced into Bangladesh, has shocked the world. This guest editorial considers some potential root causes driving the violence, principally the combination of economic precarity felt by average Burmese people, affective and participatory deficits within Burma's current democratic experience, ethno-nationalist mobilizations, and Islamophobia. These factors are combining to produce the Rohingya not only as foreign - not a part of the fabric of the Myanmar nation - but as a threat to that nation worthy of expulsion.

- by Elliott Prasse-Freeman
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- Buddhist Studies, Burma Studies, Ethnic Conflict and Civil War, Myanmar

The Iraqi War in 2003, made a historical triumph for American conventional warfare strategy, which also referred to as assurance for incoming American century or so-called 'Pax-Americana' (American Peace) that will rule the anarchical world. These hypotheses, however, were shortcomings of the people with short memories. After America's endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or in another name 'Global War On Terror' make American peace is not ongoing. This led us to a situation of so-called 'Cold War Version 2' where Russia and China evolve as main challengers of the US conventional power. As a mentality of a Cold War type arms race, those countries want and planning to challenge American power in unconventional means simply on terms of the Fourth Industrial Revolution that based on artificial intelligence, information technologies, and robotics. This article will evaluate the challenges that these new kinds of unconventional strategies of Russia and China posed against American conventional warfare. This will push us to a position where technological advancements can create a fog of technology where conventional forces can face 'technological curse'.

- by Alan J Hawk
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- Military History, Military Medicine, History of Military Medicine, Iraq War
- by Sanchita Bhattacharya, Ph.D.
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- Religion, Comparative Religion, Sociology, Cultural Studies

The post-Soviet Central Asian nations are gravely concerned about the Taliban's rapid offensive in non-Pashtun northern provinces of Afghanistan seizing border crossings with Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. The region, which is considered Russia's backyard, is not ready to cope on its own with the aftermath of the Afghan conflict after the US withdrawal on August 31 and to confront new challenges posed by the jihadist

- by Uran Botobekov
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- Russian Studies, International Relations, Russian Foreign Policy, Central Asia

There is a central premise in the popular rationale inspiring the "global" war on terrorism, according to which failed states play a major role in nurturing international terrorism, thus requiring external intervention and subjection to enforced democratization. This rationale is based on two interrelated axioms-First: there is a direct link between failed states and international terrorism; Second: democratic governance reduces the use of terrorism. This study assumes that there is no causal relationship between failed states and international terrorism, and that the assertion of democratic governance's ability to reduce the frequency of terrorism is exaggerated, if not completely inaccurate.

- by Mohammed Hemchi
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- Failed States, Global War on Terror
- by Rashmi Singh
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- Terrorism, Methodology, Metrics, Databases

There are many similarities between Malala Yousafzai (the young Pakistani woman shot by the Taliban), and Nabila Rehman (the young Pakistani woman who suffered injuries from and lost her grandmother in a US drone strike). Both are similar not only in their age, gender, ethnicity, religion and nationality, but also in how they have been victims of violence by different actors in the Global War on Terror. In spite of the comparable message evident in their narratives, the mainstream Western media has covered the victimhood of Malala and Nabila in two radically different ways. Through a content and critical discourse analysis, I demonstrate how the Western media has celebrated the victimhood of Malala but suppressed the victimhood of Nabila. By drawing on concepts and insights from Edward Said’s Orientalism, anthropology, gender studies, media studies and International Relations, I argue that the Western media’s framing of Muslim women’s victimhood has been selective. In particular, victims of the ‘Islamic’ adversary have been recognised for their suffering, while victims of Western imperial violence remain ignored and suppressed.

- by Sunniya Wajahat
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- Gender Studies, Anthropology, International Relations, Media Studies
- by Dr. Diana Murtaugh Coleman
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- Islam, Prisons, Global War on Terror, Guantanamo Bay

This essay reads Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s Guantánamo Diary (2015) as an exemplary occasion to stage the dilemmas of postcolonial reading in the present, especially in relation to the global War on Terror declared by the United States after the 9/11 attacks. Reading Guantánamo Diary in relation to a genre it clearly seems to echo—the African American slave narrative—the essay argues that the analogy to slavery enables a deeper sense of the multiple and overlapping histories of race and empire but also obscures the transnational geography of detention signaled by Slahi as well as his damning comment on the failed project of postcolonial sovereignty. Showing how attention to questions of genre and their circulation across the globe illuminates the politics of terror and detention, the essay elaborates the possible ethics and aesthetics of postcolonial reading in the present.

- by Yogita Goyal
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- Postcolonial Studies, Genre, Slave Narratives, Global War on Terror

'Clean War, Invisible War, Liberal War: The Clean and Dirty Politics of Guantánamo' argues that the Global War on Terror (GWoT) now ranks as one of the costliest and most extensive wars of the last hundred years and is certainly one of the largest counter-terrorism operations in history. A war of this scale, however, ‘could not be initiated and sustained without widespread public consent or at least acquiescence … without beliefs and forms of knowledge [in this case] about the nature of terrorism and counter-terrorism’. And whilst there is an extensive literature exploring the GWoT in connection with the ‘Just War’ tradition and its interpretation, this chapter’s aim is to explore the ways in which ideas about what is ‘just’ are communicated, in this case to explore the interconnections between ‘just’, ‘humane’, and ‘clean’. As is argued here, Guantánamo in particular became a central plank in the US Administration’s efforts to produce constructions of the GWoT as a ‘clean war’ and maintain an image of the USA as a champion of human rights. To make this case, this chapter examines several of the ways in which Guantánamo served to physically embody the overall discourse of the USA as engaged in a ‘clean’ form of warfare. It did so through a construction of Guantánamo as precise, proportionate, legal, and ordered through practices of concealment, redefinition, and redirection, which are each addressed in turn. But it did so in the light of resistance to these practices, which are considered in the final section.

- by Elspeth Van Veeren
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- Critical Theory, American Politics, Media Studies, Human Rights

It has now been more than three years since the summary of the US Senate report on CIA abuses (the ‘Torture Report’) reminded the world that after September 11, 2001, the CIA, through its ‘Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation’ (RDI) program, kidnapped, held in secret prisons, and systematically tortured people worldwide. This paper argues that is it important to have accountability and redress for the torture perpetrated by US officials and their foreign counterparts because: (1) it is required by international and US law; (2) impunity for such crimes will encourage their future perpetration; and (3) the victims deserve redress. Although the optimal venue to prosecute these crimes would be US courts, such prosecutions are unlikely to happen. Many legal scholars have called for invoking universal jurisdiction as a legal basis for international prosecutions; however, this paper argues that because of UJ’s weaknesses, it should be used only as a last resort. Traditional jurisdiction holds more promise for successful prosecutions and litigation. Since the RDI program involved 54 countries, there are many States that could prosecute, and many have already shown their willingness to do so. The paper concludes with clear prescriptions about which bases of traditional jurisdiction hold the most promise for obtaining redress for the victims and accountability for the perpetrators of the CIA's torture program.

- by Karen Hoffmann
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- International Criminal Law, Accountability, International Criminal Court, Torture
- by Ingar Solty
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- Social Movements, European Studies, Military Science, International Relations

This article provides very basic background and methodological pointers for teaching on the Global War on Terror, al-Qa'ida, and contemporary transnational jihad practices. It appeared in an edited volume intended to help high school and... more

- by Darryl Li
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- Middle East Studies, Middle East History, War on Terror, Salafi-jihadist groups

La relación entre la paz, la seguridad, y las políticas de desarrollo es una cuestión debatida y con importantes implicaciones para la cooperación internacional. En el escenario de la posguerra fría, esa relación se definió a través del concepto de Naciones Unidas de “seguridad humana”, y de las políticas de “construcción de la paz” (peace building) adoptadas para la prevención y resolución de los conflictos armados, así como para las políticas de reconstrucción post-conflicto de ese periodo. Los atentados del 11-S, sin embargo, han dado lugar a un periodo de “securitización” de las políticas de desarrollo en el que éstas se han subordinado a los imperativos del antiterrorismo y de las visiones tradicionales de la seguridad nacional.
Este volumen, coordinado por José Antonio Sanahuja (Instituto Complutense de Estudios Internacionales, ICEI ) aborda los conceptos, interpretaciones y actores relevantes en este debate, incluyendo estudios de caso de Afganistán, Angola, Palestina, Timor Leste o Latinoamérica, con aportaciones de Isaías Barreñada (Universidad Complutense de Madrid); Volker Boege, Anne Brown, Kevin Clements y Anna Nolan (Australian Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, ACPACS, Universidad de Queensland); Julia Schünemann y Luis Elizondo (Instituto Complutense de Estudios Internacionales, ICEI); Nils Petter Gleditsch (Peace Research Institute Oslo, PRIO); Dirk Kruijt (Universidad de Utrecht); Carmen Magallón (Seminario de Investigación para la Paz de Zaragoza); y Karlos Pérez de Armiño (Hegoa, Universidad del País Vasco).

We have argued before (1,2) that ever since Soviet Union's demise the primary objective of US' foreign policy is obtaining control over Russia's vast resources. In fact, the West's appetite for the Russian goodies dates since Lenin's revolution, and accounts for about a century of salivation engendered in anything from direct aggression, participation into the civil war ensuing after WWI, cold war, etc., etc. Russia's disaster a quarter of a century ago orchestrated by the quartet of irresponsible Nomenklaturchiks 1 , Gorbachev-Eltsin-Kravchuk-Shushkevich, brought about a change in US strategy. While in the country legitimate businesses tried to penetrate the newly born free market economy following the universally accepted rules of legal, financial and economic modalities, American apparatchiks of each and every sort, with or without formal disguise, worked hard to divert any and all potential -even if sometimes just presumedallies of Russia from their previous political course, regardless of their genuine national interests.

This article privileges the grounded geographies of the war on terror, focusing on those who grapple with its everyday policing powers. Informed by ethnographic research in the cities of Nairobi and Mombasa, I explore how Kenyan Muslim activists experience and make sense of the networked assemblages of police power that transform urban spaces into "gray zones" that fall within the ambiguous spectrum between war and peace. As UStrained Kenyan police employ military tactics of tracking and targeting potential terror suspects in quotidian urban spaces, they rely on "pop-up" interventions such as abductions, house raids, and makeshift checkpoints-flexible maneuvers designed to match the amorphousness of the so-called enemy. I introduce the term citizen-suspect to shed light on actually existing citizenship in the urban gray zone. Citizen-suspects contend not simply with the fear and paranoia that come with subjection to surveillance and suspicion but with the knowledge that is needed to navigate the shape-shifting geographies of transnational policing.

Increasingly, contemporary operations take place in a complex environment involving a number of local actors. There have been numerous attempts to make sense of this environment. Influence operations, for example, tend to classify local forces as friendly, neutral, adversary, or enemy. Many field officers prefer a ‘traffic light’ model, according to which local actors are classified green, amber (or yellow), or red based on their place on a spectrum of friendliness to hostility. Still others use a system of green, blue, red, yellow, and white. These characterisations of actors within the human terrain of a given situation can be highly problematic and hinder operational effectiveness. Although they are an improvement on the simple binary of ‘friendly’ or ‘hostile’ that preceded them, they share the same fundamental flaw; a presupposition that actors relate to each other in a binary manner, occupying only one point on the spectrum. While these means of classification allow for complexity of issues and motivations, at a fundamental level, they still assume that there are those who are hostile and those who are friendly. In this way, they neglect the concept of aligned motivation. This paper employs historical cases to demonstrate the problems of this neglect and suggests the basis for a new system.

- by Jacob Stoil
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- History, Military History, Military Science, Doctrine (Military Science)

The word 'madrasa' do generate a lot of curiosity and negative propaganda among scholars of international community. In most of the instances it is considered to be an institution of preaching hatred and violence. Moreover, the madrasas existing in Pakistan are considered to be factories producing religious extremists. But, strangely enough, the basic reason behind the emergence of madrasa-to seek knowledge as enshrined in the principals of Islam are not known. Therefore, fundamental objective or purpose of the study is to understand the changing pattern of madrasa and the role of government in Pakistan to 'modernise' it. The paper is also trying to understand the socio-political context of Pakistan under which the madrasas are operating. The study has been based on the research experience of the writer who has extensively studied the Madrasa Literature of Pakistan while writing her Doctoral thesis. The few core findings of the paper are the fact that over a considerable period of time, madrasas have evolved from an all encompassing educational institution to a centre of religious knowledge; the society of Pakistan to some extent has been segmented into western educated 'modern and fortunate' people versus madrasa educated 'traditional and less-fortunate' mass. Moreover, post 9/11, Pakistani Government did try to 'reform' the madrasa system but could not achieve much success due to shallow approach and non-compliance of various madrasa establishments.

- by Sanchita Bhattacharya, Ph.D.
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- Religion, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Political Sociology

- by Alan J Hawk
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- Military History, Military Medicine, History of Medicine, Napoleonic Wars
- by Joshua Snider
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- Middle East, Global War on Terror, Theses

This paper explores why, despite the chequered history of aerial bombing in small wars, unmanned aerial drones have become the weapon of choice for U.S. administrations during the Global War on Terror (GWOT). Relying on theoretical and secondary data analysis and interviews with experts, its three chapters assess how the use of drones has been counterproductive against insurgencies that also use the tactic of terrorism. Using critical discourse analysis to contextualise its emergence, Chapter one demonstrates how drone warfare is manifested as a by-product of military, political and media discourses surrounding the GWOT. The paper then posits three reasons why aerial bombing is antithetical to counterinsurgency: 1) that collateral damage increases radicalisation and insurgent recruitment, creating ‘accidental guerrillas’ and dissuading information transfer from noncombatants to counterinsurgents; 2) that decapitation is ineffective and often counterproductive against religiously-inspired, decentralized insurgent groups; and 3) that studies suggest positive correlations between aerial bombing and insurgent violence. Chapter three supports these propositions by examining the effects of drone strikes in Pakistan’s Federally Administrated Tribal Areas, finding that drones are ineffective and counterproductive in facilitating counterinsurgency’s population-centric goals. The paper concludes by suggesting that the Obama administration may have increased its use of drones, despite the evidence of their inefficacy, not because of self-deception, intellectual or physical weakness or a lack of strategy, but in order to realign the aims of the GWOT to match the administrations political will. In so doing it has sought to move from resource-intensive counterinsurgency towards a cost-effective method to manage and contain insurgent-based terrorism, rather than to eliminate it. Although, against this metric, drones may be ‘successful’, the paper concludes by suggesting that, on a normative level, their real cost may be the destruction of the distinction between war and peace.

- by Richard Steyne
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- Global War on Terror, Pakistan drone attacks policy, Drone Warfare

The internet poses acute challenges to historians. Blogging and other forms of internet communication have outstripped the reach of more conventional forms of academic publications. They also provide new types of sources that would otherwise be impossible for historians to access, not least in areas of conflict. These new forms of communication must be embraced by contemporary historians as they seek to speak truth to power. They allow contemporary historians to engage with public and political debate in critical new ways. Blogging will not replace the monograph or the peer-reviewed journal article, nor will it replace archival research. In affecting public debates and political outcomes, and in obtaining new sources, blogging is a form of communication contemporary historians ignore at their peril.

- by Juan Cole
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- Contemporary History, African History, George W Bush adminstration, Cold War history