A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, in 33% fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Management (in the field of Security) 23 March 2016 / The manifestation of terrorism on the African continent has increasingly become a major emerging and evolving security concern. Based on the number of incidents happening on the continent, it is evident that the approach in addressing this phenomenon needs to be rethought, restrategised and redesigned in order to maximise the effect of current counter interventions by different organisations. At the centre of terrorism is the financing thereof. The bulk of this study will focus on the financing of terrorism and how the United Nations Security Council respond to it focussing on North, West and East Africa. Results should not just address the challenges of the current environment, but should be able to stand the test of time and ensure that these horrific activities do not re-occur. In order to reach this stage, it is critical that all role-players, stakeholders and organisations work together to ensure that the crisis is addressed in the most effective way, but also, critically, managed under the umbrella of an organisation that has the capability, resources, capacity and leadership to intervene in these situations successfully. The United Nations Security Council is the one organisation that can fulfil this role. / MB2016

This study will examine the European Union and its politics towards terrorism between the years of 2015-2017. To help with this, this study uses the theory realism to investigate to what extent the European Union and its politics match with realism. This study shows that the politics from the EU towards terrorism has some realistic elements and, in some areas, it is very clear that the politics from the EU towards terrorism is realistic. However, in some areas the politics do not match with realism and one example of this is the European unions will to prevent and cooperate rather than using military means. To get result this study looked at the politics that was made by the European Union between the years of 2015-2017 and was then able to compare this to the theory of realism. The time period was chosen because of the number of terrorist attacks and because the bigger threats. It is then interesting to examine how the EU:s politics towards terrorism changed because of the threats and attacks.

Terrorism is a multi-dimensional phenomenon that encompasses elements of politics, economics, social, and ideology, driving people to commit violent acts and become involved in such activity. As of today, the existence and latent threat of Islamist terrorism still inflict global society with formidable challenges, and one way to overcome such challenges is by leveraging our knowledge on the multi-dimensional, determining factors/elements that lead people to commit terrorist attacks and other radical-related activities. In other words, as our struggle against terrorism is a global endeavour that may last a generation or more, leveraging our knowledge on such multi-dimensional, determining factors/elements will increase our understanding of the underlying causes and patterns that continue to inspire jihadist terrorism. However, it is wrong to equate the religion of Islam with terrorism. Perhaps most importantly, the Islamic tradition is all-encompassing, combining religious and secular life and law. This surely complicates attempts to understand the Islamist ideology and counter-measures to it solely through the lens of traditional Western political science. Therefore, a distinction must be made between the religion of Islam and a set of often-conflicting political ideologies known as Islamism, where many forms of them are non-radical, reformists or gradualists. That is why, Islamist extremists who advocate acts of terrorism may be properly termed Islamist terrorists, who seek to cloth their acts in the trappings of the Islamic religion. In this case, they use their own religious-based arguments to justify their violent acts. This Ph.D. thesis examines the multi-dimensional factors that lead to the existence and latent threat of Islamist terrorism in Indonesia by focusing on the individuals who committed series of deadly terrorist attacks from 2002 – 2009 and some other radical-related activities in Indonesia until 2017. Such factors encompass at least the economic grievances, social grievances, political grievances, radical ideology, social network, state repression (“stick”), and government incentive (“carrot”), all which are the key variables in determining the existence and latent threat of Islamist terrorism. Through a systematic, multi-dimensional analysis using qualitative and quantitative research methodologies (including the social network analysis), this Ph.D. thesis will specifically examine what factors drove people with the association to Jemaah Islamiya (JI) and radical-Islamist movements to commit and become involved in terrorist attacks? and why and how might such factors/elements influence these people to commit terrorist attacks in the future? The combined qualitative, quantitative, and social network analysis in this Ph.D. thesis has proven and confirmed the main hypothesis, where the existence and latent threat of Islamist terrorism in Indonesia are indeed caused by the intertwining interaction of these multi-dimensional factors instead of being otherwise. The ideological-related variables followed by the social network-related ones are proven as the two most significant factors in the pattern of Islamist terrorism in Indonesia. In other words, the set of economic, social, and political grievances will not cause Islamist terrorism in Indonesia to occur if there are no intervening variables: the social network and radical ideology being involved in the equation. Subsequently, the other two moderating variables also play its own role, namely the state repression and the government incentive. According to various examinations of multivariate statistical analysis in this Ph.D. thesis, these two variables on their own will not cause the Islamist terrorism to occur in Indonesia, but when combined with the existence of social network and radical ideology, these two variables are proven as the moderating variables to exacerbate the occurrence of Islamist terrorism in Indonesia. In conclusion, by looking at this current pattern, it could be predicted that Indonesia herself is still likely to become both the producer and battlefield of global-Islamist terrorism in near future. Therefore, the Indonesian national counterterrorism policy and strategy need to be updated and well integrated with the Indonesian national policy and grand strategy to better address the existence and latent threat of Islamist terrorism in the archipelago.

The international community faces a growing threat from nuclear terrorism. The complexity of the threats of nuclear terrorism, the variety of nuclear security measures that States can devote resources towards to address the threats, and the limited resources States have to invest in these nuclear security measures make it imperative that resources are applied in the most effective way possible. In this dissertation, we develop a quantitative, risk-based methodology that States can employ to gain a better understanding of the nuclear threat they face, assist them in determining what nuclear security measures they should invest in, and facilitate communication to stake-holders to request and justify investment in these measures. The risk-based methodology has been developed employing a combination of pathways analysis, game-theory, multiple-attribute utility analysis, decision theory and risk analysis. The methodology was designed to account for the wide variety of nuclear security measures that States can invest in, the range of possible consequences from different nuclear threats, and the severity of these consequences to the State. In addition, the methodology models the adversary's strategic decision making while accounting for the capabilities, motivations, and disincentives that may influence which nuclear threat a terrorist group will attempt. The methodology is introduced into a Visual Basic for Applications code, which we demonstrate through verification and qualitative validation tests. We then develop three State nuclear infrastructures with varying levels of complexity, meant to provide a realistic representation of real-world States. We then utilize the code to evaluate the risk of nuclear terrorism against terrorist threats that have different motivations for nuclear terrorism to demonstrate how different motivations for nuclear terrorism may affect both State-level risk and the State's optimal risk-reduction strategy. These risk analyses are then used to both evaluate various nuclear security strategies and determine which nuclear security measures will have the greatest risk-reduction value. Finally, we conduct a sensitivity analysis on capabilities of terrorist groups to understand how changes in these capabilities affect the State-level risk from nuclear terrorism.

No description available.

To expand the research base concerning terrorism this study connects terrorist incidents on a global scale with economic and noneconomic institutional factors. Whereas most terrorism studies use social disorganization theory or anomie theory as their theoretical bases, this study uses institutional anomie theory (IAT) to examine the influence of economic and noneconomic institutions on terrorist-incident counts in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. The research employs the following five sources that are linked together: The Global Terrorism Database (GTD), World Bank Database, data from the University of Texas Inequality Project (UTIP), the United Nations (UN), and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) Regression models examine the influence of inequality on counts of terrorist incidents for the decades of 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s net of controls. OLS models also examine the extent to which the influence of inequality on terrorist-incident counts is mediated by the strength of the noneconomic institutional structures of health care and the family. Results from ordinary least squares regression analyses show that for the time period of 1970 to 1979 there was a nonsignificant, negative association between inequality and terrorist-incident counts and neither health care nor number of divorces was a mediating factor. For the time period 1980 to 1989 a significant, positive association existed between inequality and terrorist incident counts, supporting the hypothesis that countries with higher levels of inequality will have higher counts of terrorist-incident counts. However, in the 1980s neither health care nor family mediated the effects of inequality on terrorist-incident counts. For the time period 1990 to 1997 a statistically significant, positive association was found between inequality and terrorist-incident counts as well as successful mediation by health care on the effects of inequality on terrorist-incident counts, which supports the hypothesis that the influence of inequality on terrorist-incident counts will be mediated by noneconomic institutional structures. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Thesis (M.A. in Security Studies (Homeland Security and Defense))--Naval Postgraduate School, December 2009. / Thesis Advisor(s): Knopf, Jeffrey. Second Reader: Davis, Zachary. "December 2009." Description based on title screen as viewed on February 1, 2010. Author(s) subject terms: Nuclear terrorism, nuclear forensics, attribution, deterrence, risk of nuclear terrorism, probability of nuclear terrorism, consequences of nuclear terrorism, post-detonation response. Includes bibliographical references (p. 83-95). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.A. in National Security Affairs)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2004. / Thesis advisor(s): Gaye Christoffersen, Vali Nasr. Includes bibliographical references (p. 133-139). Also available online.

No description available.

How are we to combat terrosrism? Is terrorism ever morally justified? When is it rational to become a terrorist? What is so terrorizing about terrorism? The answers to these important questions depend on the most fundamental one: what is terrorism? In this thesis I utilize a practice analysis to discover how we in the West think about war. From that analysis, a definition of terrorism, captured in military categories, is offered. This definition is then used to discover what makes terrorism so terrifying for us. Finally, the definition of terrorism argued for in this thesis is tested for its applicability to further analysis by using the definition to analyze the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Pentagon and World Trade Center attacks on events of September 11th, and nuclear deterrence. / vi, 86 leaves ; 29 cm.