During the Vietnam conflict the United States along with the South Vietnam government were able to convince 194,000 enemy personnel to change sides. The majority of these individuals were then exploited for intelligence, propaganda, and other...
After ten years of global conflict with al Qaeda, the time has come to reassess the threat and determine the parameters within which it operates. Questions regarding its continued validity as a threat, its capability to employ synchronized tactical...
On September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda and affiliated jihadist organizations declared war on the United States. Since that day, the U.S. government has initiated a series of policies, legislation and actions to confront the new threat. Seven years into...
While all warfare is an expression of politics, none is more pervasively so than irregular conflict. The irregular side, most probably employing a mixture of guerilla tactics and terrorism, will seek favorable political effect from several courses...
Al Qaeda is a significant threat to the national security of the United States and its allies. This makes it important for individuals in these countries, both military and civilian, to understand the evolution of this threat. This thesis analyzes...
The United States is now in the eighth year of the Global War on Terror (GWOT). For America, the war began with the surprise attacks against targets in Washington D.C. and New York City on September 11, 2001. For al Qaeda, the war began centuries...
Osama bin Laden and Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri enticed tens of thousands of Muslims from around the world to travel to Afghanistan, swear allegiance to bin Laden and the cause of Al Qaeda, fight and even die for that cause. Bin Laden united faithful...
With the attacks of September 11th, by a transnational, global, terrorist network, the full danger of this new security threat was revealed. The initial response of the United States Government to this threat resulted in the birth of the Global War...
Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the Bush administration chose to pursue a broad, offensive, and preemptive campaign against terrorists and their purported state sponsors, versus executing a focused response against Osama bin...
With the rise of Al Qaeda and like-minded militant groups, there have been many discussions and misrepresentations of the term Islamic way of warfare. It is important to understand that anything, to be qualified as Islamic, has to have a reference...
America's strategy to combat terrorism, resulting from Al-Qaeda's 2001 attacks, falls short of its intent to defeat transnational terrorism. While the tenets of the current counterterrorism strategy were written broadly to enable global employment,...
Suicide terrorism is re-emerging as the dominant tactic in asymmetric warfare. Al Qaeda in association with affiliates in the greater Salafi-jihadi movement conduct suicide terror or martyrdom campaigns against strategic and operational targets....
The Army's fielding of military intelligence companies to the modular brigade combat teams (BCTs) as part of the Army Transformation has created a loss of intelligence capability for the modular division commander. Furthermore, the global design of...
This monograph analyzes recent (post-1980) suicide bombings and determines the probability of the same in the Continental United States (CONUS). Analysis includes a brief history of modern suicide bombing and an examination of the strategic,...
The premise of this monograph is that the Elements of Operational Design are incapable of linking the tactical employment of forces to strategic objectives and that Systemic Operational Design is a viable alternative. This monograph introduces the...
In 742, a predominantly Turko-Mongolian steppe nomadic tribe known today as the Uyghurs migrated eastward from eastern Turkey towards the oases of modern-day Xinjiang province of China; they have remained there for the last 1,268 years. Throughout...
This study examines modern transnational terrorism from the 1960s to the present day, with special emphasis on the adaptation Al Qaeda and other nonstate actors have taken in response to the actions of the United States and its allies. This work...
The problems in Afghanistan are not simple and there is no single solution. Indeed, the problems in Afghanistan are not limited to Afghanistan. Instead, the problems extend to all of Afghanistan's immediate neighbors as well as, among others, the...
The construction of a US-Mexico border fence has proved an increasingly divisive method for securing the southern US border since its initial construction as the San Diego Fence in 1990. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 the...
The War on Terror (WOT) is actually a war against extremist insurgents comprised of numerous and varied organizations scattered across the globe. They are spurred to action by an extremist ideology that is nurtured, demonstrated, and led by al...