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The paper analyses the impact of European Union (EU) funds on corruption in the EU ex-communist countries by following a panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach. The panel includes 10 former EU communist countries, over 2007–2019. The key findings reveal that an improvement in the EU funds paid and their rate of absorption can reduce the level of corruption in the long-run in the recipient EU ex-communist countries. This is due to better monitoring of EU funds paid compared with national resources, and a more efficient and fairer channel of EU funds absorption. In parallel with the EU funds, corruption can be controlled in certain conditions by the degree of economic development, size of government, level of democratisation and religiosity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses attitudes around the projection of the EU among Latin American elites, namely the determinants of support for a Free Trade Agreement between the two regions and the trustworthiness of the EU government. We take as data elite surveys conducted in 15 Latin American countries (2014–2019) and consider sociodemographics, ideology, support for democracy, views of foreign powers, exports to the EU, and electoral democracy. Results show that ideology and support for democracy are key determinants of support for an interregional FTA, and that the trustworthiness of governments in the US, China, and Spain covary with attitudes toward the EU. The latter (trust in the government in Spain) proves to be the main driver and, furthermore, its impact is conditional on the economic strength (observed as exports) of the EU: wherever the EU is not a strong economic actor in Latin America, trust in the Spanish government does nothing but improve the image of the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Which factors influence bilateral counterterrorism (CT) cooperation between EU Member States? Although scholars have studied European CT, the question still needs to be answered. This paper addresses the issue by introducing a new theoretical framework that combines CT and Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) literature. As citizens' threat perception increases, governments are pressed to act. Overall, centrist cabinets tend to rely more on cooperation agreements; likewise, pushed by threat perception, left-wing executives also recourse to international cooperation. I tested this framework on a newly collected dataset, which comprehends bilateral CT agreements signed among EU Members from 2002 to 2017. As such, this paper fosters studies on EU CT, focusing on a less debated issue: bilateral cooperation between EU Member States. The results support the initial hypotheses, disclosing a robust influence of threat perception and cabinet ideology on the number of bilateral CT agreements signed. Furthermore, they show that the perception of the threat is more influential on cooperation than the actual impact of terrorism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on Euroscepticism tends to portray parties opposing European integration or criticising the European Union (EU) as a family of Eurosceptic parties (either hard or soft). Recent literature, however, offers empirical evidence on the ambivalence and diversity of the EU critique. What is still unclear are the reasons behind the chameleonic nature of Euroscepticism and the implications that this may have for the EU critique and the changes proposed about EU policy or institutions. The present article addresses this question exploring the role of EU crises to capture the changing nature of Euroscepticism and suggests that it is related to contextual pressures on the political debate around the EU. The paper develops this argument and illustrates it through the analysis of the Alternative für Deutschland in Germany, covering the EU crises of the last decade, including the recent period of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine invasion. Drawing on a corpus of party manifestos and speeches between 2013 and 2022, this study shows that there are three main frames used by the party to criticise the EU. It also concludes that these frames involve distinct political implications for the EU critique and the alternative proposals presented by the party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), despite being regarded as the most developed integration project in the post-Soviet area, has faced different hurdles in acquiring international recognition. Especially, the EU, the EAEU's Significant Other, has been reluctant to formally recognize it, in spite of close ties with EAEU member states as well as of its own self-image as a supporter of regional integrations. This paper focuses on this puzzle and examines how the EU has been discursively explaining its non-recognition of the EAEU at the institutional level. Based on the analysis of EU-articulated narratives since 2010, the paper reveals three dominant representations of the EAEU in the EU discourse: (1) Russia's geopolitical project; (2) a protectionist union; and (3) a dysfunctional union. These narratives have been used by Brussels to create the EAEU's image as a threatening Other, thus justifying why the EU cannot formally recognize the EAEU and officially engage with it. The paper also identifies five different stages of the EU's discursive representation of the EAEU since 2010, when its tone and content varied. The paper concludes that such non-recognition from the Significant Other still limits the EAEU's international agency despite its increasing interest in cooperation with non-Western actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In parts of the world, there is a growing confluence between terrorist threats and great power conflict. Nowhere has this been clearer than in Africa, where a growing Russian presence under the auspices of counter terrorism is steadily pushing out western forces in an ever-expanding space. The danger for the longer term is that as counter terrorism becomes a proxy for conflict between great powers, attention on such security threats slips under the radar, leaving space for them to grow and multiply further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays terrorism is one of the most dangerous, domestic and international security threat in the world. There are national, regional and global efforts in the field of counter-terrorism which are codified in international, regional and national criminal codes, treaties. Unfortunately and despite the seriousness of this threat there is no internationally accepted common definition of terrorism in the "global" international criminal law. At the level of regional and national treaties, in some parts of the criminal codes some types of terrorism are defined. Academic research and its results could be used at the legislation process, but this research has struggled to identify a widely accepted definition of terrorism. Hence we can find several definitions and typology of terrorism which could prove problematic for the legislators. This lack of common definition proves to be one of the main hurdles of effective cooperation among states and criminal authorities also having a negative impact on the effectiveness of counter-terrorism measures. My paper demonstrates in three chapters this definitional problem with regard to criminal law. In the conclusion I outline some proposals and probable directions of a new regulatory method in order to mitigate this problem through reaching an accepted common definition in legislations and criminal law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent scholarship has fruitfully investigated the effect of international organization (IO) approval on public support for military intervention. Following Jentleson and Britton [Bruce W. Jentleson and Rebecca L. Britton, "Still Pretty Prudent: Post-Cold War American Public Opinion on the Use of Military Force," Journal of Conflict Resolution 42, no. 4 (1998): 395–417], scholars argue that IO approval does not increase already high public support for "foreign policy restraint" (FPR) operations intended to coerce "aggressively threatening" opponents, including terrorists. We challenge this argument, focusing on public support for contributing to military coalitions. The public may wonder whether leaders are sincere when they frame a coalition military operation as having FPR objectives; this may lead the public to put a premium on multilateral validation. We also question the common argument that UN Security Council approval necessarily has a greater positive effect on public support for intervention than approval from regional IOs. Approval from broad-based regional IOs, such as the African Union (AU), may be just as consequential. Data from survey experiments that we conducted in three countries confirm our principal hypotheses: (1) IO approval consistently increases public support for contributing to military coalitions even in counterterrorism cases and (2) the UN and AU approval effects are of comparable magnitude. These findings expand our theoretical understanding of the conditions under which IO approval can increase public support for military intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The overlapping of a series of events in the region has brought the Sahel under the spotlight of many European countries. It has been argued that the peculiar transnational nature of many terrorist groups of the area represents a concrete threat to European security. France, specifically, has led and encouraged a series of European initiatives, which aim to stabilize the region, calling for different degrees of counterterrorism cooperation with its European allies. Many European countries, such as Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, or Italy, have indeed increased their engagement in the area. Yet, not only a variety of new actors are now involved in the response to terrorism, but European cooperation among key actors is also developing along political-strategic, organizational, and procedural dimensions largely unexplored by the existing literature. This paper specifically accounts for the different multilevel configurations of European counterterrorism cooperation in the Sahel between 2012 and 2018. More specifically, the aim of this contribution is twofold. First, theoretically, through the concept of "patchwork" the paper proposes a conceptual framework able to investigate and analyze the apparently confusing multidimensional and multi-actor European cooperation in counterterrorism. Second, it empirically researches and analyzes the types of cooperation and the actors that fulfil key strategic positions in the patchwork. Overall, this paper provides a first complete account of the universe of European actors involved in the region and the types of cooperative patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The post–Cold War environment has ushered in an era of threats from terrorism, organized crime, and their intersections giving rise to the growing literature on the so-called crime–terror nexus. This article takes stock of this literature, assesses its accomplishments and limitations, and considers ways to deepen it conceptually, theoretically, and empirically. To challenge assumptions informing the crime–terror studies and suggest avenues for future research, the article draws on ideas from the scholarship on political economies of violence. These insights are used to probe the (1) non-state actors that form the crime–terror nexus, (2) conditions under which the nexus is likely to emerge, and (3) varied effects of criminal–terrorist intersections. The article emphasizes the ties of criminal and terrorist groups to local politics, society, and economy, and relationships of competition, rather than cooperation, which often characterize these ties. The conditions under which these groups operate cannot be understood without considering the role of the state in criminal–terrorist constellations. The structure of resource economies influences both the preferences of terrorist groups for crime and the consequences of terrorist–criminal convergence, which are also mediated by state participation in crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The consistently low credit-taking rates, 16 percent in 2016 (Global Terrorism Database), continue to challenge the understanding of terrorism as "propaganda of the deed" twenty years after researchers initially pointed out the conundrum. While providing an overview and evaluation of the limited existing literature on credit-taking, this paper draws attention to three core problems in the current literature on terrorist credit-taking, which may have led the low credit-taking rates to appear more puzzling than is due. First, the available explanations struggle to find corroboration when empirically tested and many also show theoretical shortcomings with strong unspoken assumptions and unclear predictions of credit-taking behavior. Second, data structure and data availability unnecessarily narrow our academic understanding of credit-taking. Finally, theories focused on group characteristics such as religious motivation or state sponsorship suffer from severe issues of sample bias due to unintended selection on the dependent variable. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research less prone to the problematic issues identified in the article. A re-orientation toward a less restrictive and more fine-grained understanding of credit-taking is advised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, the author argues that cyber war does not pose the existential threat to humanity that nuclear weapons do. Still, some experts have called for cyber arms control negotiations and formal treaties. Differences in cultural norms and verification difficulties make such treaties hard to negotiate. International talks and cooperation might, however, develop rough rules of the road—analogous to those developed for nuclear weapons early in the Cold War—that can limit cyber conflict. The most promising early areas for international cyber cooperation are probably not bilateral conflicts but problems posed by third parties such as criminals and terrorists. It is likely, the author contends, that major governments will eventually give higher priority to cooperation that works against the insecurity created by non-state actors with cyber weaponry. But the world is far from such a response at this stage of cyber development, just as the major powers did not begin such cooperation on nuclear weapons until the third decade of the nuclear era. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The massive expansion and evolution of United States security cooperation under the auspices of the 'war on terror' remains overlooked in the counterterrorism and interventions literature. The Sahel provides a useful region in which to explore the constitutive effects of such cooperation and its evolution because the US has always pursued an 'economy of force' mission there. In this article, I focus mainly on the constitutive effects of US indirect military intervention in the Sahel after 9/11, and subsequent more direct military intervention following the outbreak of civil war in Mali. The indirect intervention by the United States to build the capacity of local forces in Mali, where jihadists were based, failed because of the dissonant relationship between the two countries. This led the United States to intervene more directly in the region, including through its cooperation with and support for French and Nigerien forces. The nature of this more direct military intervention was also informed by evolving US experiences working by, with and through partner forces in other parts of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the Russian intervention in the Libyan and Syrian conflicts which is characterized by series of successes but has trapped Russia in the messy politics of civil-war-torn nations. Topics discussed include a background of the Russian and Iranian involvement in the Syrian conflict, Russia's rapprochement with the U.S. under the banner of anti-terrorism, and limits of Russian engagement in Syria and Libya.

This article discusses the state of U.S. international security strategy given the 2003 Iraq war, globalization, and international law. The impacts of globalization and increasingly protracted conflicts such as the Iraq War on the U.S. military's strategic reliance on technologically established overwhelming force are described. Legal issues surrounding counterterrorist actions and the use of space technology in military interventions are noted. Nuclear security and the lack of transparency in accounting for nuclear weapons around the world are noted.

The article discusses how U.S. President Donald Trump administration's reset the national security balance back toward emerging peers or near-peers that is perhaps a reflection of how the world has shifted from the immediate terrorist attacks of September 2001 terrorist attack view. Topics discussed include review and reform of American national security; and provisions of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (IRTPA).

In September 2016, militants who were allegedly backed by Pakistan attacked an Indian Army camp in Uri. The government in New Delhi was facing important regional elections. It faced intense public pressure to muster a military response. Such a response, however, ran the risk of triggering a nuclear exchange. Ten days after the Uri attack, India reported that it had carried out 'surgical strikes' on terrorist training camps in Pakistan-controlled territory. The paper examines this specific episode in India–Pakistan deterrence dynamics, focusing on the nomenclature 'surgical strikes'. The paper argues that the choice of the term itself is new and worthy of investigation. Using qualitative content analysis of the official announcement of the operation, it identifies specific rhetorical moves by the Indian government that framed the response as a surgical strike. The paper also considers other statements in the media by high-ranking political and military leaders regarding the strikes, and the reception of these statements by the Indian audience, by Pakistan, and by the international community. The concluding section sounds a note of caution about future iterations of so-called surgical strikes. While the term 'surgical strike' can be useful in some circumstances, it produces destabilising outcomes in others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India and Pakistan have tempered their rivalry over the years by negotiating many bilateral confidence-building measures (CBMs), but the current patchwork of agreements cannot prevent an act of cross-border terrorism from triggering a major militarised crisis. To help mitigate this shortfall, this article advocates a new conceptual approach towards confidence building that identifies two categories of agreements – negative and positive. Negative CBMs oblige inaction; they can be defined as promises to eschew provocative behaviour, so as to prevent miscalculation and accidental war. Most prominent Indo-Pakistani CBMs fall under this category – examples include agreements on non-attack of nuclear facilities and non-violation of airspace. Positive CBMs, by contrast, oblige action; they entail tangible engagement and cooperation in the military, diplomatic, or economic domains. Examples might include counter-piracy cooperation and the expansion of people-to-people contacts. This article argues that positive CBMs invite reciprocity and are a plausible tool for promoting bilateral goodwill, reducing mistrust, and insulating Indo-Pakistani relations from shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Before leaving his post in 2018, the outgoing UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein, made a series of critical remarks, both publicly and internally, regarding what he considered weakening of the integrity and effectiveness of the UN in its human rights mandate. Zeid's comments highlighted retrogressive tendencies making the task of a strong and independent High Commissioner exceedingly difficult. The post of High Commissioner, established in 1994 following decades of advocacy, to give a high level voice to human rights promotion and protection as well as to manage a secretariat for most UN human rights functions, has enjoyed mostly robust and effective leadership by its post-holders. Any High Commissioner faces challenge inherent to the job in balancing the functions of diplomat, human rights advocate for "the voiceless", and agency manager working with an insufficient and patently unfair budgetary allotment. The new High Commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, will have her work cut out, as she faces an apparent retreat from prioritizing human rights, particularly by some States that previously championed them; ambivalence by a wider UN bureaucracy; and a wave of authoritarian populist leaders and movements around the globes that take a hostile view to the human rights paradigm. The new High Commissioner would do well to keep her energies squarely focused on independently tackling urgent substantive and possibly existential human rights challenges, rather than any project of administrative restructuring of the OHCHR, even as she may pursue a working methodology that is distinct from the approach of her predecessors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This lecture explores the place of justice, accountability and remedies in the global agenda against terror, illustrated by a case study on Iraq and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL.) The two international regimes traditionally applicable to the acts of armed groups, including "terrorist groups", are international criminal law and international humanitarian law. The lecture argues that they carry each strong limitations, such as those related to the "armed conflict" nexus requirement. This lecture shows that a third regime, international counter-terrorism, has developed over the last two decades and become the de facto legal regime for armed non-State actors. This regime has displaced and weakened international humanitarian and criminal law while further eroding victims' protection and accountability. The lecture further suggests that all three legal frameworks fail to capture the nature of control exercised by armed groups such as ISIL, and the extent of their functions, including those amounting to governance. The lecture argues that such functions can best be apprehended through international human rights law (IHRL). Tracing armed groups' human rights obligations and legal personality to treaty and customary law, the lecture concludes with proposals to hold armed groups accountable under IHRL as well as possible approaches to strengthen accountability for crimes committed by ISIL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Terrorism is on the rise in the Sahel zone. It is the effect of a multitude of factors partly stemming from global influences and partly home-made. Burkina Faso is a contemporary case of how efforts to pacify a developing region through an emergency program are undertaken both by African nations and the international community, focusing mainly on economic and military dimensions; and how a more multidimensional and transdisciplinary strategy is needed to succeed in stabilizing conflict areas such the Sahel under the sign of transition and change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technological development throughout the past fifty years has created a world in which information can be communicated across the globe in no time at all. International law enforcement tools like mutual legal assistance (MLA), on the other hand, have not changed with nearly the same pace. Unfortunately, criminal activity rarely stops at international borders, necessitating international cooperation for any sort of effective enforcement. As this Note will discuss, the problems attendant in the current mutual legal assistance scheme, such as extensive delay and incompatibility with electronic data, have led to global tension over extraterritorial action and conflict between regulatory bodies. These developments are most stark in the context of international financial crime, particularly that which is used to finance terrorist organizations. In order to keep pace with these organizations, the process needs to be streamlined and adjusted to handle large amounts of personal and financial data. Such reform to the mutual legal assistance system is an essential component of combatting money laundering and disrupting global terrorist networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quality of social science inquiry examining terrorism, insurgency, and nonviolent civil resistance has progressed rapidly in recent years. One reason for this advancement is the emergence of new datasets and the subsequent application of quantitative methods to the analysis of asymmetric political conflict between states and nonstate actors. Despite rapid development within the research paradigm, the use of new data has coincided with several methodological and conceptual challenges. This inquiry employs insights from qualitative social science methodology and organizational sociology to highlight and propose solutions to three shortcomings found in recent quantitative analyses of asymmetric conflict. The first problem arises from scholars' proclivity to ask research questions based on easily accessible categories of data rather than on theoretically significant puzzles in the literature. The second pitfall concerns limitations and "conceptual stretching" associated with static, nominal variables constructed to enable statistical inference. Finally, the third class of research obstacles arises from selection bias caused by underreporting of data. Each of these methodological problems potentially undermines theoretical claims made in recent work on insurgent organizations, terrorism, civil war, and nonviolent resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental body accountable to the Finance Ministers from its member states, has been at the forefront of the war to counter terrorist financing (CTF). It has issued nine recommendations and "named and shamed" those who have failed to comply. While this strategy has convinced all states or countries, except North Korea, to cooperate, the effectiveness of the recommendations still remains unclear. This article seeks to answer the question: is compliance with the FATF recommendations associated with a) fewer terrorist attacks and b) a lower proportion of attacks using expensive weaponry? Through analysis of 138 countries' records of FATF compliance and terror attacks, this article finds neither a statistically significant relationship between compliance and the number of attacks nor between compliance and the cost of attacks. These results cast doubt upon the FATF recommendations' effectiveness recommendations and the global war on terrorist financing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the use of a model of counterterrorism of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) to fight the terrorist group al-Shabaab. The union is acknowledged for leading a role in combating the terrorist group, building the new Somali state's security forces, and facilitating humanitarian assistance. The complexity of the model is attributed to coordination and cooperation between several international organizations and other partners. Also identified are the limitations of the mission, including the struggle to establish a positive reputation among Somalis.

Since January 2003, the European Union (EU) has launched over 30 civilian and military crisis management missions under the Common Security and Defence Policy. These missions have involved the participation of both EU member states and third states. In order to help facilitate the participation of third states in these missions, the EU established the Framework Partnership Agreements on crisis management, setting out the legal framework for third-state participation. In April 2015, Australia became the seventeenth country to sign such an agreement with the EU. This agreement reflects both the common interest and values shared by Australia and the EU and the extent to which EU-Australia relations have evolved and deepened over the years. In addition, the increased engagement and socialisation of Australian military and civilian personnel with individual EU member states through their participation in such operations as the International Security Assistance Force operation in Afghanistan, led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the Combined Maritime Force have further facilitated opportunities for security cooperation at the EU level. Shared concerns and interests on counterterrorism, counter-piracy, instability and capacity-building have also opened up opportunities for increased cooperation between the EU and Australia. This article assesses the significance of the Framework Partnership Agreements on crisis management for EU-Australia relations within the area of security cooperation, and examines future prospects for cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines German and American responses to international terrorism from the end of the cold war to today. While terrorism was not a priority for much the 1990s, the 9/11 attacks generated a long list of domestic counterterrorism measures in both countries. In the international realm, the German government ended up participating in many US initiatives designed to hunt down al-Qaeda operatives and prevent them from launching another attack inside the United States. However, German support was often secret and cooperation in the context of the ‘war on terrorism’ was considered controversial at home. When comparing German and US counterterrorism approaches, the paper takes a unique approach by analysing how parliamentary and presidential government structures affected responses in terms of content and scope. The comparative analysis illustrates various similarities between German and US decision-making processes and argues that checks and balances continue to balance executive power gains in both countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims at analyzing, from a practitioner's perspective, security problems and patterns for South Eastern Europe, ranging from terrorism to Russian influences, as well as potential common solutions for them. It will review the variety of reasons for which this particular region is considered of great importance and interest from a strategic point of view, such as being an "unquiet frontier", a weak zone or "soft spot", and why the subject should be very high on the agenda of policy-makers, security analysts and practitioners alike, academics and various other institutions. I intent to case-study Romania's manner of dealing with security risks, which I consider significantly superior to those of some of its neighbours', the success of its historical and current security strategies, and the lessons which our country can provide for the region. In my opinion, the key for all SEE member states to achieve a safer status is capacity building. And capacity building cannot be obtained by individual efforts of the Eastern European countries alone, but rather through a solid system of support, encouragement, and help from regional and Western partners and allies. Current cooperation formats as well as potential ones, including NATO and EU enlargements, will also be reviewed, since they constitute the main security solutions for unstable and insecure countries in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks critically at the new global youth, peace and security agenda, that has been marked by the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2250 in December 2015. It argues that this agenda needs to be situated within the broader context of the securitisation of development, and that the increasing interest in youth as a security subject and actor is shaped by three overlapping sets of global security concerns: the concept of the youth bulge is a euphemism for the problem of growing surplus populations worldwide; the ideal of youth as peacebuilders is a model for eliciting youth support for the current global social and economic order; and the spectre of globally networked youth being radicalised by extremist groups has legitimated joint state and private sector projects that are taking an increasingly active role intervening in the online lives of young people around the world. The article draws on an analysis of a collection of core documents that form the heart of the global youth and security agenda; and it argues for the need for greater critical reflexivity in considering the growing attention being paid to youth as a social category in global development and policy discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on the state of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda and discusses if it will remain a long-term threat following a change in strategy and surviving international efforts to dismantle its operations. He discusses counterterrorism efforts that have effectively destroyed ISIS and explains how al-Qaeda can use that example to avoid eradication through a jihadist approach that does not kill Muslims, is more moderate in enforcing Shari'a law, and recognizes tribal leadership in the Middle East.

We investigate how externalities and cooperation affect nations’ efforts to counter transnational terrorism activities. Our model captures three factors whose interplay determines counterterrorism (CT) efforts and terrorist activity: the size of the spillover effect, the degree of internalization of the externality, and whether nations’ CT efforts have an asymmetric or symmetric effect on the security of other nations. In our symmetric model, preemptive CT efforts and terrorist activities decrease with the size of the externality regardless of the degree of cooperation between nations. In our asymmetric model, as the externality of the “smaller” nation increases, the “larger” nations reduce their efforts, and the smaller nation reacts by increasing its own efforts. We also investigate coalition stability and show that (a) in the preemptive case, the full coalition is not stable and partial coalitions are stable for sufficiently small externalities; and (b) in the defensive, symmetric case, only the full coalition is stable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between the US and Pakistan is facing a serious crisis as the trust deficit between them has increased. Ties between the two are overwhelmingly dependent on Pakistan's ability to cooperate in ending the jihadist terrorism and helping the US stabilize the war-torn Afghanistan. The US continues to accuse Pakistan of not doing enough to counter various terrorist groups operating from its soil, while raising fundamental questions over Islamabad's commitment to countering Islamist extremism. On the other hand, Pakistan accuses the US of disregarding its huge sacrifices in the fight against terrorism, while maintaining that it has done more than enough. The paper tries to examine the nature and dimension of US-Pakistan relations since 2009 against the backdrop of the ongoing war against the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Terrorism is a huge public hazard of the international community. Alliances of terrorist organizations may cause more serious threat to national security and world peace. Understanding alliances between global terrorist organizations will facilitate more effective anti-terrorism collaboration between governments. Based on publicly available data, this study constructed a alliance network between terrorist organizations and analyzed the alliance relationships with link prediction. We proposed a novel index based on optimal weighted fusion of six similarity indices, in which the optimal weight is calculated by genetic algorithm. Our experimental results showed that this algorithm could achieve better results on the networks than other algorithms. Using this method, we successfully digged out 21 real terrorist organizations alliance from current data. Our experiment shows that this approach used for terrorist organizations alliance mining is effective and this study is expected to benefit the form of a more powerful anti-terrorism strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political geography has an established tradition of engaging with religiously-driven geopolitik . However, despite the remarkable growth in professed atheist beliefs in recent decades and the popular expression of an imagined geopolitical binary between secular/atheist and religious societies, the geopolitics of irreligion have received almost no attention among academic practitioners. This paper outlines the core tenets of ‘New Atheist’ philosophy, before addressing how its key representatives have taken positions on the ‘Global War on Terror.’ In particular, we critically interrogate the works of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens and identify a belligerent geopolitical imagination which posits a civilizational clash between an existentially-threatened secular, liberal West with responsibility to use extraordinary violence to protect itself and the world from a backwards oriental Islam. The paper concludes with four possible explanations for the paradox that the New Atheist critique of religion for being violent acts itself as a geopolitical incitement to violence. In so doing, we seek to navigate debates about the nature and purpose of critical geopolitical research given that the historical, intellectual and political contexts in which it was formed have changed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]