Author: Christopher C. Harmon
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Spain’s ETA Terrorist Group is Dying
Originally published at Orbis Orbis Volume 56, Issue 4, Autumn 2012, Pages 588-607 The armed organization “Basque Fatherland & Liberty” undertook a struggle for an independent homeland vis-à-vis Spanish central government over half a century ago. But today, the author argues, the ETA appears doomed for three reasons. First, Spanish statesmen of the late 1970s…
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On Strategic Thinking: Patterns in Modern History
Originally published on Classics of Strategy Strategy is the organization and application of power—especially military power—to achieve national policy objectives. Because it is not an exact science, strategy has a “history” only in inexact ways: there has been continual change but little that resembles true development in strategy. Strategy is part art as well as…
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Anarchism & Fire in London: A Centenary
“Anarchism & Fire in London: A Centenary” In London, one hundred years ago, on the weekday morning of 3 January, citizens awoke amidst “The Siege of Sidney Street.” Well-armed Anarchists tried to rob a jeweler, murdered police who responded, and then disappeared within the city. Located in an apartment building after two weeks, they were…
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Illustrations of Discrete Uses of Force in Counterterrorism
Read the full article here In 1901, an insurrection in the Philippines Islands brought prominence to a talented but relatively inexperienced general of U.S. Army volunteers, Frederick Funston. He demonstrated that good intelligence and deception were still as valuable as when the Chinese commander Sun Tzu called them the very essence of war some 2400…
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Propaganda at pistol point: The use and abuse of education by leftist terrorists
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10584609.1992.9962931 The common tendency to speak and write of terrorists as “mindless,” and to either dismiss or dread them accordingly, is inappropriate. Many leftist extremists are deadly serious about their ideas. Most group leaders of the last three decades have been college‐educated at a minimum; many have professional backgrounds as teachers, college professors, writers, lawyers,…
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Public diplomacy’s next challenge
Connections Vol. 7, No. 1 (Spring 2008), pp. 141-153 (13 pages) https://www.jstor.org/stable/26323324?seq=1 Despite seven years of experiments, U.S. public diplomacy against international terrorism has largely failed. What is most needed is a strong infusion of fresh ideas. The rhetorical branch of the offensive against terror has been utterly neglected. U.S. spokesmen should re-open the argument…
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Vulnerabilities of Terrorists
Christopher Harmon talked about his article, “The Myth of the Invincible Terrorist,” in Policy Review, published by the Hudson Institute. He contends that experience gained by fighting terrorist groups over the last four or five decades has offered general lessons in the vulnerabilities of terrorists. The guest also responded to telephone calls and electronic mail.
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How al-Qaeda may end: History shows us how to win
How do terrorist groups end? This question is well worth considering in this third year of war with al-Qaeda and the larger “militant Moslem international.” Read the full article at The Heritage Foundation
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Work in Common: Democracies and Opposition to Terrorism
Work in Common: Democracies and Opposition to Terrorism One of the finest of the world’s declarations, in the wake of 11 September, came from Minister M. Shameem Ahsan, speaking for Bangladesh in the United Nations General Assembly. He treated this tragedy with sensitivity and intelligence. He looked to UN principles to give “global legitimacy” to…
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‘Are We Beasts’ Churchill And The Moral Question Of World War II ‘Area Bombing’
Read the full article This historical reassessment of the World War II British bombing campaign notes that though in 1940 Churchill declared that he was waging “a military and not a civilian war” to destroy “military objectives” and not “women and children,” within eighteen months both types of targets would be struck by Bomber Command.…