"A serious and effective effort to meet the challenges of illicit power in the 21st century will require technology, global partnership, and an integrated, comprehensive campaign driven by international commitment and broad political will. Of the many important lessons that emerge from these essays the most important is to be skeptical of concepts that divorce conflict from its political and human nature, particularly those that promise fast, cheap victories through technology while ignoring the need to confront illicit power in war and transition"--Publisher's web site.

From the Foreword by General H.R. McMaster: Strategies that weaken illicit power structures and strengthen legitimate state authority are vital to national and international security. As Dr. Henry Kissinger observed, we may be "facing a period in which forces beyond the restraints of any order determine the future." Because threats to security emanate from disorder in areas where governance and rule of law are weak, defeating terrorist, insurgent, and criminal organizations requires integrated efforts not only to attack enemy organizations, but also to strengthen institutions essential to sustainable security. Successful outcomes in armed conflict require confronting illicit networks. A failure to do so effectively frustrated efforts to consolidate gains in Afghanistan and Iraq, and after more than a decade of war and development, the international community and the governments of those countries, continue to contend with the violence and instability that are the result. In Afghanistan, corruption and organized crime networks perpetuate state weakness and undermine the state's ability to cope with the regenerative capacity of the Taliban. The failure to counter militias and Iranian proxies that infiltrated the government and security forces in Iraq led to a return of large scale communal violence and set conditions (along with the Syrian Civil War) for the rise of a terrorist proto-state and a humanitarian catastrophe that has adversely impacted the entire Middle East. These and other cases illustrate how governments and international actors struggle to establish security and rule of law, and reveal incomplete plans and fragmented efforts that fail to address the causes of violence and state weakness. While challenging, success in confronting illicit power structures is not impossible. While still works in progress, successful efforts, such as those in Colombia and Sierra Leone, are the result of integrated diplomatic, military, economic, development, informational, intelligence, and law enforcement efforts directed toward well-defined political outcomes. The case studies and analyses in this volume make clear that understanding the dynamics associated with illicit power and state weakness is essential to preventing or resolving armed conflict. These case studies also point out that confronting illicit power requires coping with political and human dynamics in complex, uncertain environments. People fight today for the same fundamental reasons the Greek historian Thucydides identified nearly 2,500 years ago: fear, honor and interests. They further remind us that that illicit power structures often depend on the perpetuation of violence and the conflict economy. Crafting effective strategies to address the challenge of weak states must begin with an understanding of the factors that drive violence, weaken state authority, and strengthen illicit actors and power structures. Terrorist, insurgent, and criminal networks exploit fear and anger over injustice, portraying themselves as patrons or protectors of a community in competition with others for power, resources, or survival. Thus military and law enforcement capabilities provide only one component of what must be comprehensive, civilian and military approach to confronting illicit power.

IMPUNITY Countering Illicit Power in War and Transition

A serious and effective effort to meet the challenges of illicit power in the 21st century will require technology, global partnership, and an integrated, comprehensive campaign driven by international commitment and broad political will. Of the many important lessons that emerge from these essays the most important is to be skeptical of concepts that divorce conflict from its political and human nature, particularly those that promise fast, cheap victories through technology while ignoring the need to confront illicit power in war and transition.

This volume of case studies examines the rise in violent extremism, terrorism and insurgency in South and South East Asia, and subsequent state responses. The South and South East of Asia has experienced various forms of extremism and violence for years, with a growing demand for academic or policy-relevant work that will enhance understanding of the reasons behind this. The violent challenges in this area have taken a variety of forms and are often exacerbated by lack of governance, tie-ins to existing regional criminal networks, colonial legacies and a presence of international terrorist movements. Written by experts with field experience, this volume analyzes the key element of successful response as the appropriate application of doctrine following nuanced assessment of threat. In practice, this often means counterinsurgency doctrine. The essays also analyze the need for irregular war practitioners to systematically examine the changing character of intrastate violent irregular challenges. The volume fills a gap in the understanding of patterns, drivers, organizations and ideologies of various insurgent and terrorist groups, and state responses. It also provides a set of recommendations for addressing the unfolding situation. This book will be of much interest to students of terrorism and political violence, counterinsurgency and counterterrorism, Asian politics and security studies in general.

No single nation, culture or religion can achieve peace and security at home while ignoring the terrorist threats posed to others globally. This book presents lectures and a keynote speech delivered as part of the NATO Advanced Training Course (ATC) Countering ISIS Radicalisation in the Region of South-East Europe (CIRACRESEE), held in Ohrid, Republic of Macedonia, in April 2017. The main objective of the five-day ATC was to provide participants from the integrated security sector with information and knowledge about global trends with regard to the uses of cyberspace by ISIS, as well as accentuating the importance of the resulting social and technological challenges. An in-depth analysis of how these trends are influencing the region was also performed. The course topic was addressed from strategic/political, legal and technical perspectives, and participants were engaged in creating future regional policy proposals to counter ISIS use of cyberspace by engaging political, strategic, legal and technical components. The 12 selected lectures presented here provide readers with a comprehensive analysis from a socio-cultural, organizational and technological perspective. Among the authors are well-known academics and security professionals with internationally proven expertise in their areas of work, and the book will be of interest to all those working in the field of counter-terrorism.

Despite attracting headlines and hype, insurgents rarely win. Even when they claim territory and threaten governmental writ, they typically face a military backlash too powerful to withstand. States struggle with addressing the political roots of such movements, and their military efforts mostly just "mow the grass," yet, for the insurgent, the grass is nonetheless mowed-and the armed project must start over. This is the insurgent's dilemma: the difficulty of asserting oneself, of violently challenging authority, and of establishing sustainable power. In the face of this dilemma, some insurgents are learning new ways to ply their trade. With subversion, spin and disinformation claiming centre stage, insurgency is being reinvented, to exploit the vulnerabilities of our times and gain new strategic salience for tomorrow. As the most promising approaches are refined and repurposed, what we think of as counterinsurgency will also need to change. The Insurgent's Dilemma explores three particularly adaptive strategies and their implications for response. These emerging strategies target the state where it is weak and sap its power, sometimes without it noticing. There are options for response, but fresh thinking is urgently needed-about society, legitimacy and political violence itself.