Thesis (Ph.D.)--Georgetown University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

Thesis (M.S. in Defense Analysis)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2008. / Thesis Advisor(s): Freeman, Michael. "June 2008." Description based on title screen as viewed on August 26, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 55-59). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.S. in Information Warfare Systems Engineering)--Naval Postgraduate School, December 2008. / Thesis Advisor(s): Nissen, Mark E. ; Jansen, Erik. "December 2008." Description based on title screen as viewed on January 29, 2009. Includes bibliographical references (p. 55-59). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.S. in Defense Analysis)--Naval Postgraduate School, Sept. 2004. / Thesis advisor(s): Anna Simons. Includes bibliographical references (p. 53-58). Also available online.

Thesis (M.A.)--Duquesne University, 2009. / Title from document title page. Abstract included in electronic submission form. Includes bibliographical references (p. 67-70) and index.

Thesis (PH.D.)--Michigan State University. Criminal Justice, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Aug. 11, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 284-301). Also issued in print.

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. / Religious terrorism, as most recently highlighted by the horrendous 9/11 attacks, is not a new phenomenon. It is not restricted to any one particular religion or belief system, nor is it reserved as a weapon against foreign lands. Domestic religious terrorism is just as prevalent throughout history and is brought about by certain converging factors at particularly susceptible times within the society, such as economic difficulties, new or modified technologies, and social uncertainties. Under these conditions, a charismatic leader with an appealing ideology and access to sufficient resources may become a very powerful threat to society, pitting the secular against the divine. This type of convergence may result in altogether new religious movements, or the unexpected growth of fringe groups that, until they act, are not even identified. Examining the historical convergences of the Reformation, First and Second Great Awakenings, and the trends of modern domestic society, we find that the threads which hold these movements together remain consistent throughout history. Enabled by the rapid growth of technology, these groups have unprecedented potential power. A group that decides to become offensive or use weapons of mass destruction, such as Japan's Aum Shinrikyo, may pose an unacceptable risk to our country. / Major, United States Air Force

This study on terrorism training follows the logic that terrorism is a "wicked problem" and there are various strategies to cope with it. Systems thinking is one of the coping strategies to address "wicked problems." A system is a whole composed of complex organized elements (subsystems) interacting with each other and with their environment. The stability of a system depends on its components' alignment. Misaligning one of its components, will destabilize, or even disrupt the whole system. In this regard, the study defines terrorism and terrorist organizations in systems terms, explains their components and interrelations, and concludes that the most important component of a terrorist system is the training subsystem. Thus it is important to understand how the subsystem functions in order to disrupt the whole system. The study reviews the types of terrorist training, how the terrorists and their organizations learn (process), what the terrorists learn (content), where the terrorists learn (location) and concludes that the internet is the new safe haven for terrorist training. It also demonstrates the adaptive capability of terrorist system moving from land-based to internet-based training. Almost every terrorist organization on the US Sate Department's designated terrorist organizations list exists on the Net. One example is the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) terrorist network. Its website network is analyzed by content and network structure using social network analysis software UCINET. The goal is to develop strategies to eliminate the web presence of the terrorist training subsystem.

The attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, the subway and bus bombings in London, and the suicide bombings in Casablanca are only a few of the examples in which in recent years, terrorists have opted to attack multiple targets at once. Often, their strong determination to attack makes it impossible to completely deter terrorists from attacking altogether, and instead, counterterrorist units must consider how to defend targets effectively to minimize damages. We attempt to model a version of this scenario by presenting a two target sequential game where two players try to attack and defend the targets respectively. The probability of successfully destroying a target is a function of resource allocations from both players, who are also subject to budget constraints. We attempt to find the defender’s strategy that will minimize expected damages by first exploring the attacker’s optimal strategy. We show that the attacker’s decision to attack only one or both targets is dependent on the size of the attacker’s allowed budget relative to other game parameters, and use that information to evaluate the defender’s strategy. We also numerically determine the optimal defender security investment, as well its sensitivity to other game parameters. We conjecture that as the damage and expected reward at a target increases, the defender’s allocation towards that target tends to increase, while an increase in the punishment results in the opposite effect. Such conjectures allow for the creation of a flexible defense policy in the more applicable bigger picture.