New Books in Terrorism and Organized Crime

Samantha NewberyView on AmazonInterrogation, Intelligence and Security: Controversial British Techniques (Manchester University Press, 2015) by Samantha Newbery examines issues of history, efficacy, and policy in her thorough examination of British authorities' use of the "Five Techniques" in Aden, Northern Ireland, and Iraq. Dr. Newbery carefully scrutinizes the historical record, and offers a balanced perspective on controversial interrogation activities throughout the monograph. I look forward to reading her most recent publication, Why Spy?, co-authored with the late, highly decorated former British intelligence officer Brian Stewart.

John Durham PetersView on Amazon[Cross-posted from the NBN Seminar] John Durham Peters' wonderful new book is a brilliant and beautifully-written consideration of natural environments as subjects for media studies. Accessible and informative for a broad readership. The Marvelous Clouds: Toward a Philosophy of Elemental Media (University of Chicago Press, 2015) is structured as a series of meditations on and explorations of water, fire, air, earth, and ether media. After a chapter that sets out some of the foundational ideas shaping the book and charts an intellectual landscape for rethinking media, each of the following chapters offers a carefully curated series of studies of particulars – dolphin jaws, candles, towers, watches, clouds, feet, bells, weathermen, Google, and more – as a means of examining the significance of infrastructure, forgetting, technicity, and other modes of understanding media. Peters asks us to come with a fresh perspective to notions that we otherwise take for granted, and the result is a thoughtful and inspiring account that brings together media studies, theology, philosophy, and the natural sciences in thoroughly compelling ways. Among other things, the book is a call for a "greener media studies" that "appreciates our long natural history of shaping and being shaped by our habitats as a process of mediation." What if, Peters asks, we took nature instead of the mind as the "epitome of meaning"? What are the stakes of doing so? The result is among the most exciting and enjoyable books that I've read in some time.

Phil GurskiView on AmazonPhil Gurski's The Threat From Within: Recognizing Al Qaeda-Inspired Radicalization and Terrorism in the West (Rowman and Littlefield, 2015) offers a valuable perspective on extremism, informed by a lifetime of work in the Canadian security services. Gurski's first book is very accessible, and intentionally so, given that it's intended audience is who Gurski calls the "first responders" to the threat of radicalization: teachers, parents, law enforcement, religious figures, and ordinary citizens. Rather than tackling the fraught, and perhaps overly well-trodden, question of "why radicalization?", Gurski addresses more practical concerns of "how" and "what". By reviewing important Canadian cases of terrorism and identifying key indicators — although he is careful to stress that his indicators are no "checklist" — Gurski offers a perspective that is at once uniquely Canadian, and very welcome in a field that is often dominated by the scholarly perspective. I look forward to reading more from this author in future, as I expect he has a good deal more of value to share on the topic.

Leonard CassutoView on AmazonThe discontented graduate student is something of a cultural fixture in the U.S. Indeed theirs is a sorry lot. They work very hard, earn very little, and have very poor prospects. Nearly all of them want to become professors, but most of them won't. Indeed a disturbingly large minority of them won't even finish their degrees. It's little wonder graduate students are, as a group, somewhat depressed. In his thought-provoking book The Graduate School Mess: What Caused It and How We Can Fix It (Harvard University Press, 2015), Leonard Cassuto tries to figure out why graduate education in the U.S. is in such a sad state. More importantly, he offers a host of fascinating proposals to "fix" American graduate schools. Listen in.

View on Amazon[Cross-posted in New Books in National Security] Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn's An Enemy We Created: The Myth of the Taliban/Al Qaeda Merger in Afghanistan, 1970-2010 (Oxford University Press, reprint edition 2014) offers what is in many ways is an untold, insider's account of the birth of the Taliban and Al Qaeda during the anti-Soviet jihad, and their subsequent cooperation (or indeed lack thereof) in the pre- and post-9/11 world. By living first in Kabul, and then Kandahar, Afghanistan, the authors gained more privileged access to individuals involved with Afghan history in the 1980s-2000s than perhaps anyone outside of Western intelligence agencies. By speaking with Taliban officials — indeed Van Linschoten and Kuehn's previous project was editing the memoirs of Taliban senior official Abdul Salam Zaeef – and former "Afghan Arabs", the authors enriched their research immensely. The result shows in the final product: a nuanced, deeply layered, and meticulously investigative look at a fascinating subject. An Enemy We Created should be seen as paradigmatic for future research on militant organizations, and offers up an immense challenge to those experts who would seek to write on such topics from the comfort of Western armchairs."

Jacob N. ShapiroView on Amazon[Cross-posted from New Books in National Security] Jacob N. Shapiro's The Terrorist's Dilemma: Managing Violent Covert Organizations (Princeton University Press, 2013) is a welcome addition to a field that sometimes depicts terrorist activity as an unfamiliar, idiosyncratic phenomenon. Shapiro convincingly argues that, far from being alien to our everyday experience, many terrorist organizations must necessarily deal with the bureaucracy, infighting, and tradeoffs which permeate familiar government and corporate entities. The style of the book is direct and concise, clearly setting out its assumptions, hypotheses and conclusions throughout. The Terrorist's Dilemma is also rich in historical analysis of a variety of secular and religious militant groups, including diverse examples from Irish, Russian, Palestinian, and Iraqi history. By weaving together a narrative from terrorist memoirs, game theory, and seized militant documents, The Terrorist's Dilemma offers a uniquely valuable perspective on the mundane reality that extremist leaders and foot soldiers operate within. Moreover, Shapiro derives an extensive set of policy recommendations as a result of his research, which will make The Terrorist's Dilemma a welcome addition to policymakers' and intelligence practitioners' bookshelves. This monograph continues the promising trend, as demonstrated in other New Books in National Security features such as Fountainhead of Jihad and The Al-Qaeda Doctrine, of scholars dissecting large volumes of primary source material at both the micro and macro levels, adding a new dimension of rigour to this field of study."

View on Amazon[Cross-posted from New Books in National Security] Vahid Brown and Don Rassler's Fountainhead of Jihad: The Haqqani Nexus, 1973-2012 (Oxford University Press, 2013) is a meticulously researched and remarkably detailed exposition of the Haqqani network's growth and ongoing importance among Pakistani militant organizations. Beginning with an expansive history of the Haqqani family's background, and subsequent emergence as a critical lynchpin in the Pakistani – and by extension US – anti-Soviet efforts in Afghanistan, the book goes on to cover the Haqqanis' present operations, including its involvement in attacks on NATO, Indian, and government forces in Afghanistan. By shedding light on a group that, while sometimes mentioned in news media, is largely unknown to non-specialists, Fountainhead of Jihad is a major scholarly contribution to the subject of South Asian extremism. The book is in large part based on fascinating primary source material, much of it gleaned from seized documents contained in the US military's HARMONY database, and media produced by the Haqqanis and other militant actors. Those interested in Pakistani intelligence's relationship to extremism, the past and future of militancy in South Asia, and  terrorist modus operandi more generally, will all benefit from a close reading of Fountainhead of Jihad. After reading the book, I also believe that some familiarity with the Haqqani network is a prerequisite to understand the emergence and continued existence of Al-Qaeda and its affiliates. While insurgency rages on in Syria and Iraq, and attention on South Asian terrorism has waned somewhat, I have little doubt that the Haqqanis will continue to be a key actor in the "Great Game" between Afghanistan, Pakistan and India long after the demise of ISIL, Jabhat al-Nusrah, and other more recent additions to the Sunni militant scene. Among both scholars and practitioners, the counter-terrorism community would be well advised to have a thorough understanding of the Haqqanis, and I suspect there is no better source to acquire this understanding from than Fountainhead of Jihad.

James MartinView on AmazonI am old enough to realise that we have entered a science fiction world in which the old systems of the market place are being sidestepped by new technology. We who follow the tried and true methods are missing out of the brave new world. The changes are particularly true for the middle men whose services are no longer needed as the web allows customers to deal directly with producers. This also applies to the participants in organised crime. James Martin's terrific new book Drugs on the Dark Net: How Cryptomarkets are Transforming the Global Trade in Illicit Drugs (Palgrave, 2014) spells out how this is occurring in the drug trade as the Tor Network allows drug users to purchase their products from anywhere in the world. No longer are they tied to a street dealer or a friend for supply. No longer do they lack choice in quality or variety. Now they can peruse a range of products from the safety of their home. They have choice that would never be available without the internet. More importantly, as Martin points out, they are now valued customers with contracts, refund policies and providers of feedback on service quality. These websites provide all types of illicit goods but, surprisingly, many have ethical frameworks that limit their product ranges to restrict the sale of unacceptable goods and services such as child pornography or, in comes cases, firearms. This book is a mind expanding (pun intended) exploration of a high tech illicit market place that is essential reading for police, academics and the public at large.

Donald HolbrookView on Amazon[Cross-posted from New Books in National Security] Donald Holbrook's The Al-Qaeda Doctrine: The Framing and Evolution of the Leadership's Public Discourse (Bloomsbury, 2014) represents a significant scholarly contribution to the study of Al-Qaeda and Islamic terrorism more broadly. Through a remarkably exhaustive, longitudinal study of over 260 public statements from Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden, Dr. Holbrook exposes Al-Qaeda's ideology, grievances, objectives, and inconsistencies. He brings a level of rigor to this subject which is frequently absent in "expert" studies on terrorism, having databased and coded Al-Qaeda communiqués for a variety of topics and characteristics. The Al-Qaeda Doctrine will likely become the definitive scholarly monograph on the subject for many years to come. Holbrook's work is indeed becoming more relevant every day, as ideological ruptures emerge in the jihadist community, most recently evidenced by the Al-Qaeda leadership's furious response to the Islamic State's newly declared caliphate. The book's assessment of Al-Qaeda's success – indeed its lack thereof – in propagating its message and inspiring a "vanguard" in the Muslim world is also notable; The Al-Qaeda Doctrine's sober analysis of this, and many other topics, is  a welcome refreshment from the sometimes sensationalist treatment which this topic is prone to. I highly recommend The Al-Qaeda Doctrine to students, scholars, and practitioners alike, all of whom will glean many valuable insights from Holbrook's unique work. I look forward to further publications by Holbrook, as well as fresh additions to Bloomsbury's New Directions in Terrorism Studies series.

Mark MazzettiView on AmazonThere are many movies about evil CIA agents assassinating supposed enemies of the US. Those who saw the latest Captain America movie will have witnessed the plan by Hydra (a fascist faction within a secret agency presumably within the CIA) build floating gunships that can identify and eliminate those who pose a threat to national security. We are not there yet, but Mark Mazzetti's book The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth (Penguin, 2013)  should give us some anxiety about the current technology used for "extra-judicial killings". Mazzetti gives us the history of the drone wars – a term hated by the Air Force who note that the drones are piloted aircraft  albeit from a remote location – and their ability to be used for the elimination of… well, enemies of the US and its allies. Having said that, this is not a diatribe of opposition but a balanced and careful examination of history and political process. At the core of the book is a discussion of how the CIA and the US military are running parallel drone operations with different criteria and standards of care and success. Mazzetti's book presents us with, what I found to be, a frightening insight into operations that are so common that they rarely rate a mention in the media. I highly recommend the book and suggest that anyone running a course on military ethics include it in their reading list. There is more than enough ethical controversy raised in the book to fill a semester of discussion.

Michael SalterView on Amazon[Cross-posted from New Book in Sociology] Sometimes it's hard to imagine how certain types of violence can occur, and organized multi-perpetrator abuse certainly fits into this category.  Ritual abuse, sadistic abuse and pedophilia rings are often things we see in episodes of "Law and Order," without having to think of the reality of the victims that actually experience this type of cruelty.  In Organised Sexual Abuse (Routledge, 2013), Michael Salter attempts to bring to light this often-hidden and seldom-believed type of crime.   He describes his own experience being the caretaker of someone who was continuously abused and harassed well into adulthood, including his attempts to reach out to law enforcement and hospital workers, most of whom had trouble believing that this kind of abuse was actually taking place.  He also describes the "false memory" movement started in the 1980s, in which perpetrators pushed the theory that childhood memories of abuse were often made up and suggested by psychologists and social workers (a theory since been proven false).   Salter also talks about the connection between views of hypermasculinity and abuse, and the ways in which violence is often a "collective masculine performance."  Through in-depth qualitative research, Salter takes us into a horrifying journey of a reality that we cannot afford to ignore.

View on AmazonReading Peter Maguire and Mike Ritter's book Thai Stick: Surfers, Scammers and the Untold Story of the Marijuana Trade (Columbia Press, 2013) is the most fun I have had doing this podcast. Maguire makes a point during the interview that police officers preferred to arrest marijuana smugglers because they were so laid back and safe to handle. You get the same feeling reading his account of the members of the roaming hippy/surfer community who fund their lifestyle through 'scams', that is, smuggling marijuana into Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Canada. Maguire is a former pro-surfer and he communicates the culture of the surfer and their dedication to their past-time. Drug smuggling has a very utilitarian role. While the surfers smoke drugs and have the connections to buy them; a good smuggling run can fund many years on the international surfing trail. Thus they are not drug smugglers who surf but surfers who take advantage of the profit margin of smuggling. Reading the book made me think that they were almost outside the scope of the podcast; this is not organised crime but the occasional foray into crime. It is also the story of invincible young men taking on the impossible in an often amateurish manner and succeeding. However, as Maguire explains, the lure of money can change people and some of the people in the story reverse this equation. This is a story of a time that has passed. There was an innocence in the story during the 1960s and 70s that has been overtaken by the hard edge of the international drug trade. This is an important and overlooked story in the history of crime. The book provides an insight into how people can turn to crime in a manner that contradicts the strongly held theories of the life-course criminologists. I hope the book inspires others to study these marginal areas of crime. As you will hear in the interview, I have volunteered to do so myself.

Jarrod GilbertView on AmazonJarrod Gilbert is very lucky that he comes from a country the size of New Zealand. With only 4 million people he could carry out a project that would be beyond the abilities of someone from a large nation and beyond the scope of a single book, namely, the history of all the gangs in a country. Patched: The History of Gangs in New Zealand (Auckland UP, 2013) is, as you will hear in the interview, partly a history of society and politics in New Zealand. Gangs arise from influences of culture and demographics. People form and join gangs for reasons of security and belonging but once in them develop strong in-group behaviours and out-group prejudices. All of this is evident in this book. Jarrod traces the history from the 1950s when the locals copied the Hells Angels through to modern gangs where again the locals are copying American culture and creating imitations of the Bloods and the Crips. It is also interesting to see the responses of government and police in dealing with stereotypes and real criminal activity. I think anyone who reads this book will see familiar practices acted out by the gangs, the authorities and the community. This is a very human story and well worth the read.  

View on AmazonJoseph Albini and Jeffrey S. McIllwain, Deconstructing Organized Crime: An Historical and Theoretical Study (MacFarlane, 2012) is not, as some academics might think, a post-modern analysis of organized crime. It is however, an exercise of deconstructing by trying to look past the common assumptions and myths to explain the phenomenon we call organized crime. The book starts with a debunking of mythology around the American Mafia and its popular history. It then moves on to define organized crime and analyse what it means to organise crime. This is often overlooked in many books on the topic. How does organization assist criminals and what types of crime can be organized? The authors also present a good analysis of the illicit market place and the difficulties of running a free market without rules. So it's a sort of Libertarians meet Hobbes making for large profits but a potentially nasty, brutish and short life. The final chapters of the book look at the nature of the marketplace in a modern globalised society. I have read many, many books on this topic and I still found this book to be quite refreshing. It definitely meets its goal of jumping over the unanswered questions and myths and getting to the heart of organized crime. It would be an excellent text for undergraduate classes in the topic as it will sweep away the mainstream media typologies and make them think about the nature of the criminal world and its reason for existence.

View on Amazon[Cross-posted from New Books in History] In West Germany in September and October of 1977, a group of self-described urban guerrillas of the Red Army Faction (RAF) kidnapped industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer. In exchange for Schleyer, the RAF demanded the release of its imprisoned leaders, Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin. Those months in 1977 following the abduction of Schleyer are often referred to as the German Autumn, and they represent a crescendo of leftist political violence that had its origins, in some ways, almost a decade before. Terror prompted a crisis in the 70s for the West German government and German democracy. Of course, 1977 was not the first time in history that a German republic had been tested by a group of radicals intending to bring it down. That had already happened in the 1930s. But 1977 turned out very differently than 1933–when the Nazis "captured" power in a profoundly embattled and dysfunctional democracy. In fact, as Karrin Hanshew argues in her fascinating book, "West Germany's terrorist crisis helped to usher in the relatively stable civil society that still defines Germany today. Karrin Hanshew's new book Terror and Democracy in West Germany (Cambridge University Press, 2012) is, at once, a political history of the FRG, a history of democracy, a history of political theory in the abstract and in action, and a history of social movements, among many other things. I learned so much from it and I think that you will too.