Teaching Terrorism

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Teaching Terrorism
CJEANYS 19 October 2006
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CTC Education on Terrorism and Homeland Security

• Courses
• Terrorism Counterterrorism
• Advanced Terrorism Studies
• Homeland Security Seminar
• Intelligence and Terrorism
• Information Warfare
• Forthcoming, Fall 2007 Terrorism and Weapons of
  Mass Destruction
• Minor in Terrorism Studies
• JTTF Seminars
• FBI Academic CT Curriculum

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CTC Education on Terrorism and Homeland Security

• Central Course Topics
• Visions Enabling Environments
• Critical, strategic thinking about threats and
  response

• Core Course Lessons
• Definitions and History of Terrorism
• Understanding Contemporary, Networked Terror
  Organizations
• Ideologies and Strategies Religious and
  Non-Religious
• Means and Methods (Crime, Finance, Internet,
  Suicide Bombings, etc.)
• U.S. and Al Qaeda Pre-9/11 and Post-9/11
• Organizing to Fight Terrorism (Strategy, Legal
  Issues, etc.)
• Future of Terrorism (Potential for Weapons of
  Mass Destruction, etc.)

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CTC Seminars for Joint Terrorism Task Forces

• Day 1
• Islam and the Evolution of Militant Islamic
  Ideologies
• Beginnings of Sunni Extremism
• Global Terrorism and the rise of Al-Qaeda
• Al Qaeda, From 9/11 to Now
• Day 2
• Virtual Caliphate Jihadi use of the Internet
• Hizballah
• Hamas
• Iraq and Bleed out from the Levant 
• North African Terror Organizations
• How do you win? Building a framework for
  investigation

• Day 3
• Terror Financing
• Security and Control The weaknesses of AQ
• Tools for investigators/Survey

New FBI Academy Curriculum 60 hours of CT
instruction, with case studies of terrorism and
CT, WMD issues, interagency cooperation emphasis,
etc.
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SAMPLE LESSONRoot Causes, Facilitators and
Underlying Conditions of Terrorism
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Agenda
Root Causes, Facilitators and Underlying
Conditions of Terrorism

• Goal Brief overview of the spectrum of topics
  addressed in the academic literature on root
  causes, facilitators and underlying conditions of
  terrorism
• Underlying Conditions Local
• Underlying Conditions Global
• Facilitating Ideologies of Violence
• Summary
• What to Do?

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Underlying Conditions Local

• Could include political, economic and social
  conditions, before terrorism
• Unemployment
• Socio-demographic pressures
• Authoritarian/repressive regimes
• Ethnic fissures (Tamils, Chechens)
• Chaos capacity
• Weak/failing states
• These conditions exist in numerous places without
  history of terrorism
• Think globally, act locally? (e.g., London,
  Madrid)

Expectations
Opportunities
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Underlying Conditions Global

• Could include global animosities
• e.g., Sunni vs. Shia
• Could foreign policies
• U.S. relations with Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia,
  Iran
• Democracy mandate?
• Perceptions (bias/hypocrisy)
• State-sponsored terror
• Energy dependence facilitates funding streams for
  violent groups as well as vulnerabilities for
  industrialized nations

Demands/Grievances
Power to enact change
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Other Global Conditions Facilitators

• Global weapons proliferation (especially in
  weak/failing states)
• Technology
• Communication and transportation shrinks time and
  space enable networked forms of terrorism
  (including fundraising aspects)
• Weapons invention of dynamite helped launch
  capabilities
• Global criminal networks
• Profit motive
• Money laundering
• Trafficking in drugs, humans, explosives, other
  bad stuff
• Ideologies fuel both local and global perceptions
  of injustices and need for action/retribution

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Facilitating Ideologies of Violence

• Nationalist (e.g., Anti-colonial groups)
• Left-wing (e.g., radical Communists
  revolutionaries)
• Right Wing (often target race and ethnicity)
• Anarchist
• Religious (e.g., militias, jihadists, etc.-
  attack on Islam)
• Others (e.g., apocalyptic, charismatic cults,
  philosophies of Man is evil - Hobbes, et al.)
• Overall These all reflect the importance of
  perceptions, emotions, strategic influence,
  information warfare The Vision Thing

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Summary

• Economic opportunities (lack thereof)
• Political conditions (distribution of power)
• Chaos capacity (weak/failing states)
• Think global, act local?
• Global animosities
• Foreign policies (incl. state sponsorship)
• Energy dependence
• Weapons proliferation
• Technology
• Criminal Networks
• Ideologies for Action (Retribution?)
• Other grievances . . .

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What to do?

• Economic and political dimensions
• Create economic political opportunities to meet
  aspirations
• Consider foreign policy dimensions (state
  sponsorship, bias)
• Chaos capacity
• Law enforcement, border security containment
• Weapons proliferation criminal networks
• Pressure states and private companies to prevent
• Energy dependence
• Alternatives to fossil fuels
• The battleground of ideologies is particularly
  important for attacking the motivation and morale
  of terrorists in Iraq
• Exploit ideological vulnerabilities

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• You have to be lucky everyday We only have to
  be lucky once - IRA Bomber

Questions?