Suchergebnisse

The occupation of the city of Marawi in the southern Philippines and a series of terrorist attacks in Indonesia which followed it demonstrate that terrorism is a persistent and enduring threat to Southeast Asian security, despite the governments' concerted efforts on countering terrorism since 9/11 and the Bali Bombings in 2002 and 2005. Security specialists and defence officials in the region believe that ASEAN has to intensify its cooperation to address the challenge of terrorism through the use of military forces. This article, however, claims that the militarised counterterrorism has no institutional, normative and practical basis within ASEAN's main security structure, the APSC. This is followed by dual implications for the broader security agendas, affecting democratisation and sharpening mistrust among ASEAN states which challenges ASEAN centrality in regional security affairs.

The aim of the article is to apply an economic model -- the theory of contests -- to al-Qaeda's operating procedures, in order to account for two of its distinct features: the rise of self-starters and their inclination to mass killing. According to the model, al-Qaeda can be considered as a firm rewarding a prize -- namely, official membership. Since al-Qaeda's goal is to spread terror, the efforts of a candidate member can be assessed by proxy observing the number of casualties. As a result, the argument is that groups that wish to join the network compete to get the price, and their performance is measured in terms of mass murdering. This model is also tested on an empirical case: the July 2005 London bombings, which displays many features of a contest. Policy implications for counter-terrorism are then discussed: following the insights of the model, action should be undertaken in order to falsify or at least confuse al-Qaeda's internal communication. Second, since al-Qaeda's reward is as ideological as economics, efforts should be dedicated to tracking down, and possibly halt, financial flows. Finally, the article suggests further lines of research. Adapted from the source document.

The global war on terror has raised debates between liberals and realists on the position of ethics in intelligence operations. On the one hand, liberal ethicists insist that the conduct of intelligence gathering to counter terrorism must not violate the security rights of citizens. On the other hand, proponents of realism consider national security to be of greater importance than ethical principles governing individual freedom. This article tries to present an alternative point of view by examining the consequence of ethical criticisms of intelligence activities on the Indonesian government's counterterrorism measures. It proposes two approaches to understanding the connection between ethics and intelligence: examining the nature of the terror threat, and looking at the sociopolitical situations which affect the role of the state's security agencies. Arguably, securitizing intelligence by enforcing an ethical reconceptualization of intelligence roles increases the challenges facing Indonesia's intelligence operatives and damages the effectiveness of the government's counterterrorism policy.