This is the first such study of Operation Banner: taking three Battalions as case studies, drawing upon extensive interviews with former soldiers, primary archival sources including unpublished diaries, this thesis closely examines soldiers' behaviour at the small infantry-unit level (Battalion downwards), including the leadership, cohesion, orientation and motivation that sustained, restrained and occasionally obstructed soldiers in Northern Ireland. It contends that there are aspects of wider scholarly literatures - from sociology, anthropology, criminology, and psychology - that can throw new light on our understanding of the British Army in Northern Ireland. The thesis will also contribute fresh insights and analysis of important events during the early years of Operation Banner, including the murders of two men in County Fermanagh, Michael Naan and Andrew Murray, and that of Warrenpoint hotel owner Edmund Woolsey in South Armagh in the autumn of 1972. The central argument of this thesis is that British Army small infantry units enjoyed considerable autonomy during the early years of Operation Banner and could behave in a vengeful, highly aggressive or benign and conciliatory way as their local commanders saw fit. The strain of civil-military relations at a senior level was replicated operationally – as soldiers came to resent the limitations of waging war in the UK. The unwillingness of the Army's senior leadership to thoroughly investigate and punish serious transgressions of standard operating procedures in Northern Ireland created uncertainty among soldiers over expected behaviour and desired outcomes. Mid-ranking officers and NCOs often played important roles in restraining soldiers in Northern Ireland. The degree of violence used in Northern was much less that that seen in the colonial wars fought since the end of World War II. But overly aggressive groups of soldiers could also be mistaken for high-functioning units – with negative consequences for the Army's overall strategy in Northern Ireland.

The rise of the 21st Century Islamic extremist movement, which was mobilised by the al-Qaeda attacks of and responses to September 11, 2001, heralds a new period in the history of terrorism. The increased frequency and intensity of this type of terrorism affects every nation in the world, not least Australia. Rising to meet the challenges posed by terrorism is the field of terrorism studies, the field which aims at understanding, explaining, and countering terrorism. Despite the importance of the field, it has been beleaguered with criticisms since its inception as a response to the rise of international terrorism. These criticisms specifically aim at the field's lack of objectivity, abstraction, levels of research, and levels of analysis. These criticisms were the impetus behind the adoption of the methodology of this thesis, which offers the distinct ability to understand, explain, and forecast the way in which terrorists interact within covert cells. Through social network analysis, this thesis examines four terrorist cells that have operated in or against Australia. These cells are from the groups Hrvatsko Revolucionarno Bratstvo (Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood), Aum Shinrikyo (Supreme Truth), Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure), and Jemaah Islamiyah (Islamic Community) and operated between 1963 and 2003. Essentially, this methodology attempts to discover, map, and analyse the interaction within the cells during the covert stage of their respective operations. Following this, the results are analysed through the traditional social network analysis frameworks to discover the internal dynamics of the cell and identify the critical nodes (leaders) within the cells. Destabilisation techniques are subsequently employed, targeting these critical nodes to establish the most effective disruption techniques from a counter-terrorism point of view. The major findings of this thesis are: (1) that cells with a focus on efficiency rather than covertness were more successful in completing their objectives (contrary to popular belief); and (2) betweenness centrality (control over the flow of communication) is a critical factor in identifying leaders within terrorist cells. The analysis also offered significant insight into how a Jemaah Islamiyah cell might operate effectively in Australia, as well as the importance of local contacts to terrorist operations and the significance of international counter-terrorism cooperation and coordination.

Canada’s experience in the war against terrorism goes back to the seventies, and continues to develop nowadays, with the last direct terrorist activity in 2017. The Canadian Government reacted to these terrorist attacks by enacting a number of statutes that reflect a changing international paradigm in relation to the fight against terrorism. Fundamental rights and liberties such as the freedom of expression, the right to private life and to personal freedom have been curtailed by these legislative measures. The practical consequences of these measures are analyzed via a comparative examination of the Inter-American System of Human Rights. In general terms, the war against terrorism produces significant impacts over the human rights. / La experiencia de Canadá en la lucha contra el terrorismo se remonta a inicios de la década de los setenta y se desarrolla hasta la época actual (los acontecimientos más recientes han tenido lugar en el año 2017). Las medidas legislativas fueron la vía adoptada por parte de Canadá para contrarrestar los ataques y reflejar el cambio de paradigma político en la esfera internacional con relación al fenómeno del terrorismo. Derechos fundamentales como el derecho a la libre expresión, a la vida privada y a la libertad personal se encuentran particularmente afectados por estas medidas. Un análisis comparativo del sistema canadiense y el sistema interamericano permite identificar las consecuencias de estas medidas. En términos más amplios, la lucha contra el terrorismo genera impactos significativos sobre los derechos humanos en general.