Federico Bordonaro

Article written by Kevin Whitelaw for the NPR Radio, with bits of an interview of this Author.

Homegrown Terrorist Risk

Publicly, U.S. officials have sought to downplay the risk from independent, homegrown terrorists.

“Homegrown Muslim extremists who have little if any connection to known terrorist organizations have not launched a successful attack in the United States,” Michael Leiter, who runs the National Counterterrorism Center, told Congress in September. “The handful of homegrown extremists who have sought to strike within the homeland since 9/11 have lacked the necessary tradecraft and capability to conduct or facilitate sophisticated attacks.”

But a recent case in Italy has some experts wondering whether radicalization patterns may be shifting, at least in Europe.

A Libyan man named Mohamed Game attacked an Italian army barracks in Milan on Oct.12 with an improvised explosive device similar to the one used to attack the London Underground in 2005. The bomb was poorly constructed, leaving the bomber seriously wounded and lightly injuring an Italian soldier.

Frederico Bordonaro, an Italian security analyst, says the case is important because Game and his two accomplices do not fit the typical profile of a homegrown terrorist.

“They were only moderately involved in local religious activities,” he writes in an upcoming article in the CTC Sentinel, a journal published by the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. “They have no experience fighting in wars, and they do not have criminal records. As in the case of two Moroccans arrested in December 2008, the three men formed a terrorist cell independently without logistical support of established organizations.”

At the same time, he agrees with U.S. intelligence officials that these independent extremists have, up to now, been less dangerous.

“I think it can be harder to detect and track, but that it’s not more effective than the more typical radicalization,” he said in an interview. “However, we shouldn’t underestimate the danger of ‘do-it-yourself’ terrorism.”

Max Hastings in today’s Financial Times says that, in spite of Vaclav Klaus’ recent signature of the Lisbon Treaty, the EU may confront a much more difficult crisis if — like it’s expected — David Cameron will win British general elections later this year.

Gordon Brown on Monday contrasted his party’s commitment to Europe with Tory Euroscepticism, and it is hard to say he was unjust. Opposition leader David Cameron displayed considerable courage in his response to the EU Lisbon Treaty ratification, rejecting a referendum if he takes office next year. Reaction from the Tory right was muted. Its standard-bearers recognise the priority of an election victory, which would be imperilled by disunity.

Thereafter, however, Europe will become a serious issue for a future Cameron government. There will be relentless pressure from the Tory grassroots to loosen, if not break, bonds linking Britain to the EU.

The new Tory MPs will create the most Eurosceptic parliament since Britain’s 1972 entry into the Common Market. Public sentiment is at best tepid, and among a minority, pathologically hostile, in a way that transcends party and class boundaries.

Many look upon Europe as an obstacle to their security and prosperity. Arguments that, for all its flaws, the Union should be perceived as a historic success story make little impact. It is blamed for all manner of domestic social and economic difficulties, and perceived as a drain on British pockets. President Charles de Gaulle of France insisted the British are irredeemably anti-continental, and there are grounds for thinking he was right. […]
It is unlikely Britain will leave the EU, but highly plausible that Mr Cameron will sooner or later feel obliged to force a crisis on specific issues of sovereignty and jurisdiction, of which the outcome is anybody’s guess.

“The essence of war is violence, and moderation in war is imbecility”, wrote Lord Macaulay in 1831.
Does the nature of war change? Or does only its character do?
In light of the recent deterioration of the Afghan situation, it’s worth reading this piece written by Stanley Kober in the Guardian. It’s called “Misunderstanding modern war”.

America’s biggest mistake in Afghanistan and Iraq was to think its modern military would make winning easy
[…] in its overconfidence, the US overlooked several things.
Like Napoleon, it underestimated the resentment many people feel at foreign occupation.
Napoleon had also achieved a revolution in military affairs, and consequently he was exceptionally effective in defeating armies in battle. His invasion of Russia, culminating in the occupation of Moscow, seemed initially like a stunning triumph.
But the people did not submit, and he had to abandon Moscow. With his army in retreat, his allies deserted him. He lost the war and was sent into exile.
Napoleon thought the message of French democracy would be welcomed. When France began to send its armies abroad following the revolution, its leaders thought they would be greeted as liberators. “It will be a crusade for liberty,” confidently proclaimed one of its leaders, Jacques-Pierre Brissot.
Not everyone was convinced. “No one loves armed missionaries,” responded Robespierre. But his caution, which proved prescient, was overruled.

There are two types of historians: the vivid historian or butterfly and the technical historian or caterpillar. The former believes that complete history is neither possible nor desirable. Selection is necessary, and proper selection distinguishes good historians from bad ones. Facts are unimportant in themselves but are used to find underlying principles. The latter puts a premium on the discovery of new facts, letting interpretation take care of itself. While the technical historian’s truths are too small, the vivid historian’s truth is too big. The differences between the two types, in part temperamental, are also based on the periods in which they work; non-modern historians tend to be technical and modern historians vivid because the former are faced with a scarcity of sources, the latter with an overabundance.

Ihor Ševčenko, Two Varieties of Historical Writing, “History and Theory”, 8, October 1969, 332-345.

Apparently, classical geopolitical dynamics are active, even at times when cooperation and transparency prevail over conflict between historically rival nations.
Therefore, the following news reported by the Telegraph and by other world media are not so “incredible” as one may think at first sight. However, Europe should take into consideration that both the Baltic and the Black Sea areas need special attention in the following years…

Russia has provoked outrage in Poland by simulating an air and sea attack on the country during military exercises.

Documents obtained by Wprost, one of Poland’s leading news magazines, said the exercise was carried out in conjunction with soldiers from Belarus. The manoeuvres are thought to have been held in September and involved about 13,000 Russian and Belarusian troops.

Poland, which has strained relations with both countries, was cast as the “potential aggressor”.

(more…)

Disponibile online e in libreria.

Questo volume presenta al lettore italiano i principali autori del pensiero geopolitico anglosassone dalle origini ai giorni nostri, attraverso l’analisi dei testi teorici e della loro influenza politico-culturale. Particolare attenzione è rivolta al pensiero dei classici (Mahan, Mackinder, Spykman) e a quello dei loro eredi nel periodo dalla Guerra Fredda. Infine, lo studio prende in esame le diverse scuole scaturite dalla rinascita della disciplina, in tutto il mondo anglofono, nel tardo Novecento.