National Security

“Jus Post Bellum: Reflections on the Right Way to End a War” by Richard O’Meara

Note: This paper appeared in the 6th Volume of the Journal on Terrorism and Security Analysis in Spring 2011.

Excerpt
There can be no Justice in war if there are not, ultimately, responsible men and women.

If you break it you own it.

Peace is not sought in order to provoke war, but war is waged in order to attain peace. Be a peacemaker, then, even by fighting, so that through your victory you might bring those whom you defeat to the advantages of peace.

War is tough stuff. It is, at the very least, the organized projection of death and mayhem by some group against another, generally for purposes of governance.4 Its justifications are myriad, running the gamut from self-defense, to humanitarian intervention, to national aggrandizement to whim and revenge. And yet, ironically, it is not the most heinous of human activities. As R. J. Rummel has noted in his discussion of democide, the murder of civilians by government agents acting authoritatively:

[I]n total, during the first eighty-eight years of this century [20th century], almost 170 million men, women, and children have been shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, frozen, crushed, or worked to death; buried alive, drowned, hung, bombed, or killed in any other of the myriad ways governments have inflicted death on unarmed, helpless citizens and foreigners. The dead could conceivably be nearly 360 million people. It is as though our species has been devastated by a modern Black Plague. And indeed it has, but a plague of Power, not germs.

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About the author
Richard M. O’Meara is a retired Brigadier General (USA) and trial attorney who teaches human rights, security issues, and international law in the Division of Global Affairs, Rutgers University. His is also developing a program of study leading to an Associate’s Degree in Homeland Security Studies at Ocean County College, NJ. He has served as a resident fellow at the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership, US Naval Academy and has taught governance and rule of law issues in such diverse locations as Cambodia, Rwanda, Chad, Philippines, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Moldova, Ukraine, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Peru, El Salvador and Iraq. He served as an EMT for the Red Cross in following the 9/11 attack at the World Trade Center.

“Cyber-terrorism” by Jack Jarmon

Note: This paper appeared in the 6th Volume of the Journal on Terrorism and Security Analysis in Spring 2011.

Excerpt
The Internet is a critical infrastructure necessary to the functioning of commerce government and personal communication and national security. The system is not secure. – Intelligence and National Security Alliance report, November 2009

In a 2002 report prepared by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Jim Lewis, a former official with the Department of State and the Department of Commerce wrote:

The idea that hackers are going to bring the nation to its knees is too far-fetched a scenario to be taken seriously. Nations are more robust than the early analysts of cyberterrorism and cyber warfare gave them credit for. Infrastructure systems [are] more flexible and responsive in restoring service than the early analysts realized, in part because they have to deal with failure on a routine basis.

Six years later, in its 2008 report, Securing Cyberspace for the 44th Presidency, the same CSIS concluded:

Interestingly, the project director for the 2008 report was, again, Jim Lewis. The contrast of analysis is not only striking for its reversal of positions, but also in its tone. The 2008 report called for a profound reorganization of our national defenses that embraces a spirit of partnership between the US Government, its allies, and the private sector. It also urges a break with the past on issues of de-regulation, security classification, and the call for leadership in order to drive forward a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy. The authors also concede that the information age has forced us to re-think how federal government operates across boundaries within and outside itself.

How such previous attitudes could have been overturned so radically in a relatively brief span of time reveals more about the dynamic of the information- communication technology (ICT) revolution rather than it does about errors in a particular expert’s analysis. Not only the pace of technology but also the rate of growth and expansion of critical infrastructures, such as government, finance, energy, etc., have intensified our society’s use and dependency upon ICT.
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About the author
Jack Jarmon is the Associate Director of the Command Control and Interoperability Center for Advance Data Analysis at Rutgers University, an adjunct Professor at Seton Hall University and the Chief Research Officer at the New Era Associates. From 2008-2009 he was a lecturer at University of Pennsylvania. He was a technical advisor to USAID in the South Russian Privatization Center. Jarmon got his BA from Rutgers University, an MA from Fordham University and a PhD from Rutgers University. His published piece is one chapter from an upcoming textbook on security studies and international relations.

“Cross-Spectrum Similarities Between Violent Non-State Actors” by Sean Atkins

Note: This paper appeared in the 6th Volume of the Journal on Terrorism and Security Analysis in Spring 2011.

Excerpt
Understanding armed non-state organizations is one of the most pressing concerns in today’s security environment. Whether on the local, state, or international level, violent non-state actors as a whole represent one of the most troubling issues for national security practitioners, and the danger they pose is compounded by their nebulous and elusive natures. As John Robb, a theorist on the evolution of warfare and former special operations pilot, described in his testimony before the US Congress last year:

The threat the US faces today is as dire as the darkest days of the Cold War. In fact, this threat may be even more dangerous because it is so insidious. The threat we face is a combination of global systemic threats … and the rapid emergence of violent non-state groups …

It is also a problem that continues to grow in scope. Terror, insurgent, militia, and criminal groups, equipped with readily available communication and travel technology, have shifted from regional to major strategic challenges. They have increased their “organizational effectiveness, their lethality, and their ability to operate on a truly worldwide scale.”

Further complicating the matter, contemporary researchers have recognized a growing nexus between various types of groups (whether analyzing insurgent groups in Iraq, terrorist groups like Al Qaeda or street in gangs in South America) and increasing similarities in how they operate. These similarities and their increased threat potential urges us to examine the follow-on questions: do deeper similarities exist between these groups and, if so, can the way we deal with one set of groups provide any lessons in dealing with another? Continue reading (PDF)

About the author
Sean Atkins is an active duty officer in the United States Air Force. He has deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan, where some of the ideas presented in this article first took shape. He holds a BA with honors from the University of Southern California and an MA with distinction from King’s College London.

“Fire Down Below: How the Underwear Bomber Revealed the U.S. Counterterrorism Community As Hemmed in by the Seams of Legislative Ambiguity” by Braden Civins

Note: This paper appeared in the 6th Volume of the Journal on Terrorism and Security Analysis in Spring 2011.

Excerpt
On December 25, 2009 a 23-year old Nigerian national boarded Northwest Airlines Flight 253 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands bound for Detroit, Michigan. As the plane neared its final destination, passengers heard sharp popping noises, smelled something acrid, and saw smoke and flames emanating from seat 19A. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, his body covered by a blanket, had triggered an explosive device sewn into the hem of his underwear by mixing the chemical Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate (PETN) with Triacetone Triperoxide (TATP), using an acid-filled syringe. Quick-thinking passengers and crewmembers successfully put out the ensuing fire. None of the 289 people aboard Flight 253 sustained serious injuries. Abdulmutallab was detained immediately upon the flight’s arrival at Detroit Metropolitan Airport by federal authorities and indicted by a federal grand jury two weeks later.

A preliminary review of the events leading up to the Christmas Day attack conducted by the White House “highlight*ed+ human errors and a series of systemic breakdowns” that prevented the detection and disruption of the attack. The review identified several causes for the failure to interdict the plot to bring down Flight 253, but did not specify the degree to which each contributed to the ultimate outcome. Continue reading (PDF)

About the author
Braden Civins, a native Texan, is in his final year of study at The University of Texas, pursuing a J.D. from the School of Law and a Master of Global Policy Studies and specializing in Security Studies at the Lydon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. He is a member of the Texas International Law Journal and former participant in the National Security Clinic, where he co- authored a successful appellate brief on behalf of a Guantanamo Bay detainee. He works at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law. He spent recent summers working at the Criminal Prosecutions Division of the Texas Attorney General’s Office, the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, and the Department of State.

“Salient but Unappreciated: Issues in National and International Security and Defense Policy for the Next Decade” by Christain Geib

Note: This paper appeared in the 6th Volume of the Journal on Terrorism and Security Analysis in Spring 2011.

Excerpt
As much as scholars of all academic disciplines would like to think of their discipline as purely based on observation and analysis, undoubtedly they are subject to temporary fashion cycles which influence the debate beyond mere scientific findings and scientific reasoning.

Military strategy and defense policy are no exception to that. Throughout military history, military thinkers have been subject to such cycles with concerns to the question of what really was at the contemporary cutting edge nature of warfare and what the future of warfare would be like. Continue reading (PDF)

About the author
Christian Geib is pursuing a LLM at Stanford Law School. He earned his degree of Bachelor of Law – LL.B. (J.D. equivalent) in 2006 as part of a multilingual/multijurisdictional degree of the Hanse Law School Program between the Universities of Bremen, Oldenburg (Germany) and Groningen (The Netherlands). Prior to his law school studies, he studied political science at the University of Tübingen (Germany) and the Catholic University of Santiago de Chile. During his studies, he interned at the German Parliament, the international law department of the German Ministry of Defense, and in corporate investment banking of Deutsche Bank. Following his graduation, he worked with a large retail company and for a science and research policy project of the European Commission. Geib is a reserve officer with the German Armed Forces.