Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 199-206).

Thesis (M.S.S. (Political Science))--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. / Countries sponsoring and supporting terrorism impede the efforts of the United States and the international community to fight terrorism. Until states that support terrorism cease such sponsorship, they remain a critical foundation for terrorist groups and their operations. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the U.S. military's role in coercing states to cease their sponsorship of terrorism. Using game theory, this thesis analyzes the utility of military force against state-sponsored terrorism. It explains why past military responses did not pose a credible threat and were thus, an ineffective instrument of national power. It then examines how military force is employed in the current war on terrorism. The findings of this thesis suggest that the limited military strikes employed against states for their role in terrorist attacks prior to September 11, 2001, preconditioned the leaders of supportive states to believe U.S. leadership lacked commitment in its strategy to end statesponsored terrorism. The findings also suggest the dramatic change in the United States' method of employing its military forces against state sponsors of terrorism after September 11, 2001, created the credible, coercive military threat required to accomplish the U.S. national objective of ending state-sponsored terrorism. / Major, United States Air Force

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2004. / Adviser: Harold Troper.

Honors Project--Smith College, Northampton, Mass., 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 96-104).

Thesis (M.S. in Defense Analysis)--Naval Postgraduate School, Sept. 2004. / Thesis advisor(s): David C. Tucker, Frank R. Giordano. Includes bibliographical references (p. 73-76). Also available online.

States that sponsor terrorism pose one of the greatest policy and security challenges of the 21st century. Over the past decade, the United States and coalition allies have invested over a trillion dollars in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, both waged, in part, to end their support for terrorism. Iran's support for Hezbollah and Hamas makes negotiations over its nuclear program tremendously difficult and the prospect of an Iranian nuclear umbrella, under which these groups could operate, especially concerning. Likewise, Qaddafi's overthrow and the siege on Assad's regime in Syria have both been justified in the context of their historic support for terrorists, as well as the more recent normative concern for the repression of their people. This paper moves beyond a simple explanation of state sponsorship as covert war or way to persuade target states to concede policy objectives. Rather, it models state sponsored terrorism as a leader survival strategy that leaders choose when facing simultaneous internal and external threats. By investing a portion of the state's military power outside the control of the military and into terrorist groups and the security services that arm and train them, the leader is able to signal competency to other elites in his coalition and insulate himself from existing threats of coup d'état from the military while avoiding defeat in external conflict. Using a newly constructed dataset on state sponsorship that uses the leader-year (1968-2001) as the unit of analysis (N=5139), this study finds that many existing explanations for state sponsorship do not withstand empirical testing and that the combined level of high external threat and elevated threat of coup d'état are key determinants of a leader's decision to sponsor terrorist groups. This work has tremendous implications for US security policy as current practices, such as regime-targeted sanctions, may have the unintended effect of increasing the level of threat that the leader experiences and thus the likelihood of state sponsorship. These insights highlight a major reason why military strikes and economic sanctions are less successful than regime change for ending state sponsorship. Furthermore, it suggests that carefully reducing the external and internal levels of threat the leader faces may be the most effective method to end state sponsorship of terrorism. / text

This thesis examines the testimonies of victims related to the use of torture during the Pinochet dictatorship. It contends that the existence of a broad testimonial archive on torture, significantly produced by the victims themselves, points to a collective 'speech' by which victims have attempted to splinter the silence of the dictatorial state and, in the aftermath of the repression, to contest the 'official history' of the transitional state. The testimonies of torture victims, it will be argued, signify a specific mode of action, a 'doing' of memory, whereby the experience of torture is re-membered in an effort to bring accountability for the crimes committed and this, from the first days of the dictatorship up to today. This speech of victims moreover is seen to constitute the unifying link between the testimonies of torture victims that have emerged during the dictatorship itself and those that continue to emerge today.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2006. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on April 29, 2009) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 199-206).