Enhancing International Cooperation in the Fight Against the Financing of Terrorism

CONCEPCION VERDUGO-YEPES

This paper contributes to the enhancement of the international cooperation in the fight against the financing of terrorism, by offering an in-depth analysis of the level of implementation of the international standards (Anti Money-Laundering and the Combating of Terrorist Financing) at a domestic level. First, this evaluation serves to identify the most relevant failures hampering international cooperation in this field. Second, it suggests priority actions to be taken into account at an international and domestic level in order to persuade governments, financial institutions and transgovernmental regulatory networks to adopt cooperative stances. The most relevant contribution of this work is that it makes very clear what kind of failures and tensions should be overcome to improve the exchange of confidential information and mutual legal assistance. Both are a great necessity to eventual prevent the misuse of the global financial system by criminal / terrorist networks.

Counterterrorism and Intelligence Cooperation

DEREK S. REVERON

When the Bush administration declared a global war on terrorism (GWOT) after the September 11 attacks, it was criticized for labeling a tactic as the enemy. But evoking the image of a “global war” highlights the transnational nature of the enemy, and the necessity of international cooperation to combat it. Fundamental to this effort is enhancing bilateral and multilateral intelligence-sharing. This paper explores how the globalization of combating terrorism has broadened the intelligence community.

Inside a Wave of Terrorism: The Dynamic Relation Between Terrorism and the Factors Leading to Terrorism

MARTIN HARROW

That terrorism is not evenly distributed across space and time, but rather occurs in waves, is a well known and generally overlooked piece in the puzzle of understanding why terrorism happens. This article proposes that terrorism, rather than being the extremist version of an ideology, is the contingent result of the availability of a number of factors. The reason why terrorism occurs in waves is that a number of these factors are reproduced by terrorist activities. Terrorism, thus, becomes a system where a terrorist act, through positive feedback mechanisms, reproduces terrorism. In this article I attempt to untangle how the availability of some factors contribute to terrorism and how the positive and negative feedback mechanisms (in some situations) bring about the emergence of waves of terrorism (and in some situations does not). On the basis of these feedback mechanisms, I construct a dynamic model of the system of terrorism.

Networked Security Governance: Reflections on the E.U.’s Counterterrorism Approach

ARTUR GRUSZCZAK

One of the objectives of the European Union has been to secure its territory and provide its citizens with personal safety. In the global war on terror the challenge of global threats must be met as effectively as possible. The E.U. had been developing its counterterrorist policy within an intergovernmental formula. In the aftermath of Sepember 11 it had to look for new supranational arrangements. The politics of insecurity strengthened by the effects of terrorist attacks on the European soil (Madrid 2004 and London 2005) inspired the E.U.’s institutions as well as the member states to establish a networked form of security governance based on information sharing, border control and virtual fencing as well as digital identification and management of identity through biometrics.

Governing Global Security in the Departure Lounge

KENNETH MCDONAGH

While the concept of governance has gained ground in the comparative and development literature it remains under examined in security studies with some notable exceptions. This paper aims to draw out the implications of taking a global governance perspective for our understanding of the less studied aspects of the War on Terror. It develops a theoretical framework based on the governance literature and applies it to the intersection of national and international, private and public control of security at Airports in the EU and US. The goal is to trace the multi-lateral and multi-level strategies that operate above, below and between the State in this aspect of the quiet ‘War on Terror’.

The Global Jihad Network: Why and How al–Qaeda Uses Computer Technology to Wage Jihad

SAMUEL S. SALTMAN