The turbulent events of the Arab Awakening in the Middle East and North Africa in 2011 2012 have unleashed significant socio-political transformations in the region, ranging from the ...Read more >

The CGA Turkey Scenarios workshop, conducted on May 21, 2010, was the fifth in a series of events at CGA designed to reduce surprise and expand U.S. foreign policy options. Previous events focused on Iraq, Iran, China, and ...Read more >

For 34 days in the summer of 2006, the world’s attention was once again riveted on the Eastern shores of the Mediterranean. There, in Lebanon, a lovely country of cedar trees and sectarian strife, a bloody war erupted between Hezbollah and ...Read more >

The defeat of al Qaeda and the global network of Islamic terrorist organizations often appear no more certain today than it did two years ago. Since 9/11 the world has witnessed terrorist attacks against US interests and its allies in seven different countries. Al Qaeda may have lost Afghanistan as a safe haven, but it has gained a new front by conducting operations against US and coalition forces in Iraq. Despite US military successes, al Qaeda retains a demonstrated ability to recruit and ...Read more >

This paper examines Americas struggle to wing hearts and minds in the Muslim World. The US may win the military fight on terrorism but thus far is losing the public opinion fight in Muslim countries.Although the US may be able to eradicate many of todays terrorists, many in fact welcome the chance to die for their cause and there are thousands ready to fill the ranks of the fallen. The US must find a way to build bridges to Muslims while simultaneously discrediting and then isolating bin Laden ...Read more >

As we near the second anniversary of 9/11, the U.S. war on terrorism has scored some impressive successes. After denying Afghanistan as a base of operations to Al Qaeda in the fall of 2001, the United States has been able to neutralize a number of its high-ranking operatives and disrupt its operations. The removal of the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein in Operation Iraqi Freedom has precluded that rogue regime from developing and using weapons of mass destruction or supplying them to ...Read more >

Saudi Arabia has been under more U.S. scrutiny since the events of September 11, 2001 (9/11), than ever before. Both Saudis and Americans were shaken by the fact that 15 of the 19 jihadists who committed the crimes of 9/11 were Saudis. Had Saudi Arabia’s pan Islamic policies, its global mission (da`wa) to foster Islam and Islamic knowledge, charities and causes, licensed or nurtured Tanzim alqa’ida fi jazirat al arab (al-Qa’ida on the Arabian Peninsula) and the subsequent hydra-like emergence ...Read more >

Muslim communities vary from one country to the next. In France, for instance,most Muslims are of Algerian descent and as you know Algeria was a French colony for more than 130 years. In 1962, Algerian communities were established in France and the number of Algerians grew as more came to Europe to find jobs and a better life.After a few years, in the seventies, the French government authorized the regroupement familial (the reunion of families) and so hundreds of thousands of new immigrants ...Read more >

Wahhabism is a puritanical form of Sunni Islam and is practiced in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, although it is much less rigidly enforced in the latter. The word Wahhabi is derived from the name of a Muslim scholar, Muhammad bin Abd al Wahhab (1703-1791). Frustrated by the moral decline of his society, Abd al-Wahhab denounced many popular beliefs and practices as idolatrous. Ultimately, he encouraged a return to the pure and orthodox practice of the fundamentals of Islam, as embodied in the Quran ...Read more >

Why do Islamic radicals including the partisans of al Qaeda and other followers of Osama bin Laden enjoy so much sympathy in the Middle East and wider Muslim world. Obviously,understanding such a phenomenon is a necessary (but not sufficient)condition for crafting a strategy to cope with the murderous violence of September 11, 2001. Some nalysts including this one believe that explaining this or any other large scale social movement requires a nuanced, complex historical analysis of social, ...Read more >

Although listed among the U.S. allies in the war on terrorism,Pakistan cannot easily be characterized as either friend or foe. Indeed, Pakistan has become a major center of radical Islamist ideas and groups, largely because of its past policies toward India and Afghanistan. Pakistan supported Islamist militants fighting Indian rule in the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir and backed the Taliban in its pursuit of a client regime in Afghanistan. Since the September 11 attacks, however, ...Read more >

With the removal of cold war restraints,the world is entering a new round of insurgency and revolution. Current US counterinsurgency doctrine is codified in joint pub 3-07,Doctrine for Joint operations in low intensity conflict. This doctrine grew out of lessons learned in Viet Nam,where the communist opposition generally followed a moist pattern of revolution.Many of the new insurgencies, however,may be Islamic Fundamentalist in Character.Based on examination fo the Iranian Revolution and the ...Read more >

Relatively little has been done to adapt the concept of JIHAD to the modern revolutionary context. JIHAD may be viewed as a theological-Juridical construct that includes Holy War and Just War Concepts. Holy Wars are fought with religious purposes in mind; just wars are limited by the criteria for declaring them as well as the conduct of combat operations and combatants. This study seeks to develop a model for the ethical analysis of Islamic insurgencies in both senses of JIHAD and to apply it ...Read more >

The rise of global jihadist movements in Europe is alarming, not only because of the threat such movements pose to our European allies but because Europe has served as a launching pad for terrorist operatives plotting attacks elsewhere. As the 9/11 trial just begun in Spain highlights, the 9/11 hijackers and their logistical and financial collaborators plotted and planned their operations in Europe. Similarly, Richard Reid’s failed shoe-bombing of a U.S. airliner was plotted and launched from ...Read more >

Islamic rules of warfare are complex, appear to be contradictory and require careful analysis. The simplistic visions of paradise for suicide bombers preached by militant jihadist clerics defy over 1,400 years of Islamic history and wisdom. Yet those like Osama Bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi are not ignorant of Islamic law and use it selectively to pursue their agenda of mass murder and hatred. This monograph will introduce readers to Islamic principles of warfare and its ...Read more >