Last Week

There are three readings this week. They are all short so make sure you do all of them.

Hoffman's Critique of Sageman

Sageman's Response to Hoffman

Sageman Strategy for Fighting Terrorism

Week 12

Carolyn Nordstrom reading

IED Readings

PDF Version of IED reading

Investigate the effect political economy has on the structure of non-state assemblages and
the access to weapons and smuggling necessary for these assemblages to create
increasingly lethal forms of violence. We will also discuss the importance of surplus and
the dumping of seemingly outdated weapons and technology ranging from seemingly
outdated landmines to garage door openers and cell phones. The reliance of insurgents in
Iraq on Improvised Explosive Devices will organize this week’s discussion.

Week 11: How Control Exists After Decentralization

Alexander Galloway and Eugene Thacker, The Exploit, All Pages Posted.

This week will introduce students to Network Theory. In short how it is that
decentralized organizations and loosely connected networks can maintain hierarchies i.e.
order and control actions, as well as how you study and analyze entities that change
structure frequently, move constantly and yet maintain an identifiable consistency.
Examples will draw on problems of maintaining borders, internet piracy, as well as
global terrorism assemblages such as Al-Qaeda.

Week 10: Counterinsurgency Today

David Kilcullen (Caroline) xiii-38, 115-185. (Caroline)

Week 9: Cities and Slums

Mike Davis, Planet of Slums

Stephen Graham, War and The City

Gilles Deleuzes, “Postscript on the Societies of Control”

Luic Waqant “The Militarization of Urban Marginality: Lessons from the Brazilian
Metropolis”, International Political Sociology, 2, 2008.

Suggested Film: Elite Squad, Weinstein Company, 2008. Available at Library or Video Americain

This section investigates recent trends in urbanization as containment and the resulting
militarization of police forces as well as the increasing urban training of military forces.
The goal of this section is to demonstrate how changes in the local and seemingly insular
urban environment have global security effects. We will also revisit the question of
structural versus subjective violence.

Week 8: The State Fights Back

David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice, Insurgency Praeger Security International 2006.(Kavanaugh)

David Kilcullen, Counter Insurgency REDUX

Nagl, Learning as we go

Compare the responses of Western powers to develop counter-insurgency tactics and the forces to carry them out. The focus will be on the French suppression of resistance in Algeria and the United States counter-insurgency methods. The texts themselves will represent very different ways to relate to this question. The first is a short, practical handbook written for military personnel by a participant in the French Army during the war for independence in Algeria. The other two articles are by advisors to the U.S. Military who helped developed our contemporary counter-insurgency doctrine.

Week 7: Blood and Politics

Frantz Fanon, Wretched of the Earth, Grove Press "Concerning Violence" "Violence in the International Context" "Spontaneity: Its Strength and Weakness" pgs, 35-147 (Natalie)

Suggested Film: Battle of Algiers available on youtube.com (Danielle)

Focuses on Anti-Colonial uprisings and the philosophy of freedom and self-determination that animate those uprisings. Focusing primarily on the work of Frantz Fanon, the question of this week is why so many people would prefer violence and even death to the security of colonial administration. The response of those that believe that all individuals seek security would be that the colonial states were not adequately providing that security. While that may be true to a degree, desires for dignity and freedom often motivated those who benefited and lived well, materially, under colonialism to risk and even kill themselves in the pursuit of independence.