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World of Warcraft (WoW) is the most successful massively multi-player role-playing game (MMO). It currently consists of over ten million players world-wide. This study focuses on how American players use the game to play with the meanings of individuality and community. This tension between individualism and community is one of the key elements of American culture. Too much individualism leads to a loss of community. The same occurs in WoW. Player-run guilds, which operate as a community of memory, begin to suffer from players who operate on individualistic terms. Ultimately, players play WoW because they get the chance to experience what a strong community commitment can be like. / Department of Anthropology

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Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited / This thesis examines what it means to be a rogue state in a world in which the international order is increasingly becoming interdependent. The last two U.S. administrations as well as the other major powers The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has been labeled by as a pariah state exhibiting rogue behavior. This thesis analyzes the varied and competing views of the international order and measures how North Korea does or does not fit the parameters of what it means to be a normal state. Since its creation in 1948, North Korea has pursued policies of limited engagement heavily influenced by an ideology that markedly contradicts the commonly accepted values and principles of the majority of the states in the international system. After the Cold War, the DPRK has further alienated the other players in the system with continued proliferation attempts as well as brinkmanship negotiating behavior. In order for the current Six Party Talks to be successful, the major powers involved need to understand the perspective with which north Korea views the international order. / First Lieutenant, United States Air Force

Hizb ut-Tahrir is a transnational Islamic fundamentalist group that operates in more than forty countries with main emphasis in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. The group claims to be a political party that proceeds with non-violent means and its ideology being Islam. Its objectives are strictly political, and its main goal is to topple an existing regime to resurrect the caliphate with structures and conditions similar to the ones of early seventh-century (C.E.) Islam. The proposed Islamic state will be responsible for transforming societies in a united Ummah, and for spreading the word of Islam throughout the world. Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) rejects the modern, secular state structures and democracy as something "man-made," humanly derived and "un-Islamic," and therefore, does not participate in any secular electoral process. However, HT does not reject modern technology and its advantages. This research will focus on Hizb ut-Tahrir, its objectives, and its preferences as the group adjust its strategies according to the political environment in which it is embedded. The thesis will investigate how HT often uses a legal framework to spread its Islamist ideology and how this multifaceted phenomenon is context specific. The conclusion will address policy recommendations that reflect area- and context-related specifics with a special focus on the group's major threat--its ideology. / German Navy author.

The most recent wave of Islamic revivalism began in the second half of the twentieth century as a nonviolent movement of expressing ideological differences and discontent with the political, economic, and social condition among Muslims and inspired a reformation of the Muslim identity. Today, contemporary radical Islam, with militancy and terrorist tactics as its cornerstone, has all but overshadowed the call for a nonviolent struggle and has permeated several internal conflicts across the globe. The Muslim separatist movement in the southern Philippines is one such conflict. Following decades of discontent and sporadic violence, armed conflict broke out in late 1972 when the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) launched coordinated attacks against the government. Following a failed peace agreement in 1976, divisions began to form within the MNLF and in 1984 the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) was established. The MILF, as the name indicates, placed more emphasis on Islam. In 1991, the radical Abu Sayyaf group (ASG) broke off from the MNLF claiming as its main purpose the establishment of an Islamic state. By the mid-1990s, what had originated as a nationalistic struggle advocating the concept of the â Moroâ identity, had evolved and produced two increasingly radical groups. After conducting a diachronic comparative analysis, this thesis concludes contemporary radical Islam in the southern Philippines is a fusion of both traditionalism and globalization. Furthermore, the causal factors evolved with respect to each groupâ s ideology, objectives, and tactics. Whereas the MILF was more representative of the legacy of traditional Islam, the ASG was much more a product of globalization.

M.A. (History) / The USA became formally involved in the second World War in December, 1941, after the Japanese attack on the American Naval Base of Pearl Harbour. Franklin D. Roosevelt was so obsessed with the idea of defeating Germany that he failed to set clear guidelines for the post-war era as regards Germany. He commenced from the erroneous supposition that wartime co-operation with Britain and the Soviet Union would be continued after the war and that the Great Three Would decide on, Germany's future in the postwar era. As a result the USA's German policy of 1944-45 was marked by ambiquities. As a consequence of Roosevelt's indecision, Britain took the initiative in partitioning Germany into occupation zones. This division gave the Soviet Union an advantage as well as planting the seed for the partition of Germany in 1949. The Western Powers obtained no guarantees from the ~oviet Union for their free passage into Berlin. Consequently the Soviet Union could blockade Berlin in June 1948. In April 1945, directive JCS-1067 was issued setting out the basis for the USA'S German policy. In the punitive clauses of JCS-1067 Henry Morgenthau's influence on President Roosevelt is clearly apparent. The majority of punitive clauses of JCS-1067 were taken up verbatim in the Potsdam Agreement of July-August 1945. The Potsdam Agreement stipulated that Germany was to be handled as an economic entity. However, France and the Soviet Union thwarted economic co-operation between the Occupation Forces. This led to a change in the USA's German Policy from early 1946...