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experience in conflict, urban warfare, and dealing with terrorism. As an American journalist wrote: ‘everybody’s favourite soldier of fortune is an Israeli with military experience’ (Johnson 2010 : n.p.). To illustrate this phenomenon, I will start with an example. A security company owned by an Israeli in the United States (US) was asked to set up security checkpoints in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina
. Political Islam and post-bipolar security in the Middle East As a recent development, the politicization of religion is not restricted to Islam, insofar as it can be observed in other religions as well, be it Hinduism or Judaism – among others. 3 When it comes to Islam one cannot escape witnessing the Bin Laden and, earlier, the Iran connection of terrorism. 4 In Algeria the
possible unemployment facing border guards was a marginal issue in the EC context. A predominant concern of the member states, various MEPs, and the Commission, while willing to remove obstacles to facilitate flows across the EC, was how to address crime, drug trafficking, terrorism, and immigration in the absence of border controls (European Parliament 1985a : 234; European Parliament 1985b : 247, 249
) surfaced as a pan-European (and more generally Western) problematic. Presented as yet another in a panoply of security measures within the ever-increasing array of counter-terrorism policies, denaturalisation was emerging as the favoured response of European countries (among which France, Britain, and the Netherlands) and the United States (US) against citizens departing their host states to fight, for
networked global terrorism, from emergency management in the onslaught of tsunamis and hurricanes to oil wars in the Middle East’ (Hannam et al. 2006 : 1), a diverse range of concrete and abstract things have become highly global and mobile. While such movement is often considered part and parcel of modernity, it also brings about increased complexity that becomes enmeshed with conceptualisations of threat – ‘it is discourses
Peres campaigned in 1996 on the platform of ‘land for peace’, the Likud claimed ‘that you can have peace for nothing. Which is nonsense. Saying that you can have security before peace. Which again is nonsense’ ( Peres and Littell, 1998 : 89). ‘Mr. Netanyahu made a terrible mistake when he said he would provide security before peace. For peace you need a majority. For terrorism a tiny group of people can
the UK) began meeting as a threesome to discuss the ‘European’ response to international terrorism. This caucusing took place to the growing chagrin of the other members. An intended three-power dinner discussion convened by Tony Blair in November 2001 degenerated into near-farce. There was an outcry amongst the smaller EU members, which led Blair to backtrack and invite a number of their leaders along too. 11
East does not seek to ignore traditional military security issues, such as the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile technology, arms purchases, counter-terrorism, traditional balance of power calculations, interaction with external influences, borders and territorial disputes, and inter-state wars. However, a deepening of the subject matter would involve consideration of the
, especially the United States, unless immediately recognisable vital interests are at stake as is exemplified by the post-September 11 ‘war on terrorism’. Moreover, even the most determined unilateral intervention falls short of being truly effective, if for no other reason than its narrowly defined focus on immediate outcomes of the operation and its almost guaranteed failure to address multidimensional long
obstacles to western exploitation of the material resources and commercial, financial, and labour markets in the regions adjacent to conflict. 113 Moreover, several of these conflicts posed new security threats for the West, including cross-continent refugee flows, political terrorism, transnational crime and environmental degradation. The West’s response was to export comprehensive