NCJ Number
223592
Journal
Studies in Conflict and Terrorism Volume: 31 Issue: 6 Dated: June 2008 Pages: 572-580
Date Published
June 2008
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This article reviews two research studies which consider the threat posed to the security of the West by the emergence of al Qaeda and its strategy of asymmetrical warfare.
Abstract
Scholarship today has moved from the transformation of the norms of the international order to “critical terrorism studies.” Two recent works, Paul Rogers’ 2008 Global Security and the War on Terror and Paul Wilkinson’s 2007 edited volume on Homeland Security in the UK: Future Preparedness for Terrorist Attack since 9/11 afford an opportunity to evaluate the current British understanding of the subject of terrorism. Analysis of the Rogers’ variety is over-determined by a radical pacifist agenda devoted to the transformation of the planet into a Green utopia that presents al Qaeda as a symptom of a larger paradigm of Western design and an apparently legitimate, or at least understandable, response to global injustice. On the other, there is a public policy view of terrorism that, while recognizing the threat posed by al Qaeda, refuses to take its ideology seriously and embarks on descriptive, divergent, and inadequately theorized analyses of capabilities, targets, and counter-terror responses. Neither of these works can be considered templates for understanding Islamist-inspired violence either in its global or local manifestations. 10 notes