Guerrillas In The Midst

The papers in this collection discuss how the dangerous offender has become a figure of collective anxiety for the citizens of rationalized Western societies, why sexual and violent offences seem so ubiquitous, and how we should protect ourselves.

Internal security crises, from environmental disaster, extreme poverty and deprivation, armed conflicts, or ethnic or religious conflict, provide sites of opportunity for those seeking to internationalize conflicts. Domestic conflicts in Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia have started as internal problems, but have taken on regional and international dimensions as parties to the conflict within the country and sympathetic external forces have joined forces with each other for mutual gain. This book examines the international dimension to internal conflicts and asks: under what conditions do domestic conflicts become opportunities for regional or global actors to become involved? Why have some countries been able to successfully deal with this problem while others have not? Who are the actors who seek to internationalize conflicts? Why and with what means do they become involved and how do their agendas get internalized/localized? Cases include: the separatist movements in the Philippines, Southern Thailand, Aceh (Indonesia); and the civil wars in Rwanda/Congo, and Sierra Leone/Liberia, Lebanon, and Iraq. This book finds that a combination of greater democratization internally, coupled with constructive outside mediation efforts, can produce conditions necessary to prevent conflicts from escalating or diffusing, and can facilitate peace-building. Several chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Asian Security.

This examination of the politics of ethnicity and nation-building in Africa stresses the trend towards subnationalist autonomy and away from a singular, state-centric system based on the Western model. Forrest ranges across the continent to explore a variety of subnational movements.

Fourteen years have passed since the original version of Guerrillas in the Mist was published. In that time, the number, scope, and intensity of wars involving guerrillas and terrorists have increased dramatically. And there's no end in sight. This isn't your standard military manual. Added to the original book are 10 new chapters on the narco-insurgency on the U.S-Mexican border, Hezbollah's American homeland insurgency, the role of politics and the media in guerrilla wars, how intelligence gets exploited for political ends, legal issues involved in fighting insurgents, the scourge of modern improvised explosive devices (IEDs), maritime piracy off Somalia and beyond, and in-depth analysis of the ongoing insurgencies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, Yemen, Somalia, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, India, and the Congo. Extensive new photography enhances the combat lessons. This expanded and updated version of Guerrillas in the Mist explores insurgency and counterinsurgency history, as well as tactics, operational art, and strategy. It contains practical detail and philosophy for the asymmetric battlefield, as well as examining what has and hasn't worked, and why, in the unconventional wars of yesterday and today.

A guide to greening cities -- with or without permission.

An indispensable introductory textbook that provides students with a genuinely comparative study of the different trajectories and experiences of independent African states. Paul Nugent explores a range of key concerns including the impact of HIV and AIDS, the contagion of warfare, and efforts at achieving national reconciliation both in the past and today. This is an ideal core text for modules on Modern African History, African Politics or Africa since Independence - or a supplementary text for broader modules on African History - which may be offered at the upper levels of an undergraduate History, Politics or African Studies degree. In addition it is a crucial resource for students who may be studying modern African history for the first time as part of a taught postgraduate degree in African History, African Politics or African Studies. New to this Edition: - Revised and updated throughout in light of the latest research - Reflects recent developments on issues such as AIDS, urbanization, the secession of South Sudan, questions of citizenship and the importance of transnational spaces - This second edition now features photographs

Flight lessons and military training weren't needed this time as twenty-five suburban movie theaters scattered throughout the Eastern United States mysteriously exploded in an apparent synchronized attack, killing hundreds of Americans.While the world struggles to understand how the United States with all of its technological superiority could again fall prey to domestic terror. Federal investigator, Jack Neil, of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force uncovers a link to a dead drug addict and wonders what it could mean. Kevin MacAfee knows; he is a recently released convict and unsuspecting pawn in the mass murder perpetrated by a group calling themselves UMYA, the United Muslim Youth Association, led by Mustapha Aziz the son of a high ranking Jordanian diplomat, and brother to Najla Aziz, Kevin MacAfee's beautiful, but naive girlfriend. It was Kevin MacAfee who revealed the discontentment among America's neglected and underprivileged citizenry, showing Najla and Mustapha first-hand how homeless, inner-city, drug-addicted vagabonds willingly sell their prized U.S. credentials often for as little as ten dollars. A seemingly insignificant action until Mustapha Aziz devises a clandestine plan enabling fifty of his UMYA operatives to anonymously sow terror on U.S. soil using the purchased identities. The movie theater bombings were just the prelude in the fall of the Great Satan as twenty-five teams comprised of two members each spread out along the east coast as part of phase two of UMYA's diabolical plan to simultaneously bomb twenty-five major hotels in twenty-five major eastern U.S. cities. Only two people in the World know the secret identities of the operatives; Kevin MacAfee is one of them. Agent Jack Neil of the JTTF wishes he was the other, and is frantically racing against time and hope itself to find and apprehend Mr. MacAfee in his effort to prevent the death of thousands of unsuspecting American citizens. UMYA's minions are searching for MacAfee too. He is the weak link that could undermine their bid to exploit America's newfound vulnerability in their quest to expose the myth that is American power.

David Kilcullen is one of the world's most influential experts on counterinsurgency and modern warfare, a ground-breaking theorist whose ideas "are revolutionizing military thinking throughout the west" (Washington Post). Indeed, his vision of modern warfare powerfully influenced America's decision to rethink its military strategy in Iraq and implement "the Surge," now recognized as a dramatic success. In The Accidental Guerrilla, Kilcullen provides a remarkably fresh perspective on the War on Terror. Kilcullen takes us "on the ground" to uncover the face of modern warfare, illuminating both the big global war (the "War on Terrorism") and its relation to the associated "small wars" across the globe: Iraq, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Thailand, the Pakistani tribal zones, East Timor and the horn of Africa. Kilcullen sees today's conflicts as a complex interweaving of contrasting trends--local insurgencies seeking autonomy caught up in a broader pan-Islamic campaign--small wars in the midst of a big one. He warns that America's actions in the war on terrorism have tended to conflate these trends, blurring the distinction between local and global struggles and thus enormously complicating our challenges. Indeed, the US had done a poor job of applying different tactics to these very different situations, continually misidentifying insurgents with limited aims and legitimate grievances--whom he calls "accidental guerrillas"--as part of a coordinated worldwide terror network. We must learn how to disentangle these strands, develop strategies that deal with global threats, avoid local conflicts where possible, and win them where necessary. Colored with gripping battlefield experiences that range from the jungles and highlands of Southeast Asia to the mountains of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to the dusty towns of the Middle East, The Accidental Guerrilla will, quite simply, change the way we think about war. This book is a must read for everyone concerned about the war on terror.