COUNTERTERRORISM IN AFRICAN FAILED STATES: CHALLENGES AND POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS

by Thomas Dempsey

Overview

Failed states—states in which government authority has
collapsed, violence has become endemic, and functional governance
has ceased—have emerged in the period since the end of the
Cold War as one of the most difficult challenges confronting the
international community, especially in the region of Sub-Saharan
Africa. Transnational terrorist groups use the chaos of failed states
to shield themselves from effective counterterrorism efforts by the
international community. The potential nexus of failed state-based
terrorism and terrorists’ access to Weapons of Mass Destruction
(WMD), especially nuclear WMD, escalates the risk that such groups
pose to the United States and to its allies in the Global War on
Terror.
In this monograph, the author finds that current counterterrorism
strategies have yielded limited results in addressing the threat posed
by terrorist groups operating in and from failed states. He argues
that the uniquely challenging conditions in such states require a new
approach to counterterrorism. By integrating the law enforcement and
military instruments of power, U.S. strategists can craft an approach
to counterterrorism that leverages the core competencies of both the
military and law enforcement communities. The author concludes
that the synergies available from an integrated approach promise to
be more effective in locating, apprehending, and bringing to justice
terrorists and suspected terrorists in failed states than either the
military or law enforcement communities operating independently.
The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to offer this monograph
as part of the ongoing debate on global and regional security and
stability.
DOUGLAS

Product Details

BN ID:	2940148490012
Publisher:	ReadCycle
Publication date:	09/25/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	193 KB

About the Author

THOMAS DEMPSEY is the Director of African Studies in the
Department of National Security and Strategy at the U.S. Army
War College. Colonel Dempsey is an Infantry officer who has
held command and staff positions in the 25th Infantry Division
and the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), and is a veteran of
Operations DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM. He has served
as a strategic intelligence analyst for Africa at the John F. Kennedy
Special Warfare Center, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and as Chief of
Africa Branch for the Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington,
DC. Prior to his assignment to the U.S. Army War College, Colonel
Dempsey was the U.S. Defense Attache for Liberia and Sierra Leone,
stationed in Monrovia, Liberia. He has published articles in Infantry
and Armor Magazine, as well as in Brassey’s Defense Analysis. Colonel
Dempsey has a B.A. in History from Wichita State University, an
M.A. in African Area Studies from the University of California at Los
Angeles, and an M.M.A.S. in Theater Operations from the School
of Advanced Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He is
currently a Doctoral Candidate in Public Administration at Penn
State Harrisburg.