Fluent Essays

Terrorist-State Relationships States that support terrorist groups are known as state sponsors of terrorism. In 2008, the U.S. Department of State indicated that Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria were state sponsors of terrorism. A state can be any sovereign political entity, such as a country, or coincide within a larger state or nation. States have their own sets of laws and courts and therefore can dictate their own policies and regulations. This means they can choose to provide financial and political support to terrorist groups. When states support terrorist groups, they often receive support from the groups in return. Terrorist groups might provide states with protection, access to weapons, or intelligence information. Relationships between states and terrorist groups often have a negative impact on the social, political, and economic systems of those states. Despite such negative influences on the government and its people, many states do not cease relationships with terrorist groups. Therefore one has to ask, why do some states support terrorist groups? In some cases, the support that terrorist groups provide ensures resources that the State is otherwise unable to access. In others, the terrorist groups provide military support against rival enemies to the state. To prepare for this Discussion: Review the assigned pages in Chapter 4 in the course text Terrorism in Perspective. Reflect on the financial relationships between states and terrorist groups. Review the Chapter 4 article The Ultimate Organization in the course text Terrorism in Perspective. Consider Khalfan Mohameds story and reflect on the relations that terrorist groups have with states. Review the article Passive Sponsors of Terrorism. Reflect on the impact of state sponsored terrorism. Review the PBS video segment A Strengthening Taliban. Consider the relationship between the Taliban and the Afghanistan government. Review the PBS video segment The Challenge Just Over the Border. Think about the Pakistan Armys support for the Taliban. Review the article Weak State and Global Threats: Fact or Fiction? Think about the role that weak and impoverished states have in promoting terrorism. Select one terrorist group that is state-supported to use for this assignment. Consider the nature of the relationship between the terrorist group and the state. Think about how the relationship impacts the terrorist group and the state. With these thoughts in mind: Post by Day 4 a brief description of the terrorist group you selected and the state that supports the group. Then, explain the nature of the relationship between them. Finally, explain the impact of the relationship on both the terrorist group and the state. Be specific. Name of state and terrorist group: Libya support to a variety of Palestinian terrorist groups   Required Reading Please see attachment and video link Video Link:    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warbriefing/9 7G LO BA L ST R AT EG I C A SSESSM E N T 2 0 0 9 A Squeeze Play on Sovereignty? Everywhere, it seems, the nation-state is un- der siege. Once the primary actors in the post- Westphalian world, states no longer have the stage to themselves. Throngs of nonstate entities clamor for a share of the limelight. From below, aggrieved national groups press upward, at times violently, in defiance of status quos decried as unfair or repres- sive. Meanwhile, from above, international bodies, regimes, or global advocacy groups press down on states, demanding greater accountability on every- thing from product safety and environmental protec- tion to human rights, often conditioning assistance on domestic performance. And then there is the sideways squeeze: from global society’s empowered private actors—both licit (for example, multinational corporations and trading and investment firms) and illicit (such as narcotraffickers, criminal gangs, and transnational terrorists)—who test the capacity of Chapter 5 Fragile States and Ungoverned Spaces governments to control their own borders, arguably the first requirement of territorial sovereignty. Why is state weakness such a glaring problem now, in the opening decades of the 21st century? After all, the accretion of state authority has never been very smooth or predictable over the course of history. In places such as China, Egypt, and Mesopotamia, civil administrative practices date back thousands of years, while in many other parts of Asia, Africa, and the Americas, the growth of civic governance is comparatively recent. Correspondingly, nonstate actors are hardly novel: whether plying the waters of the Barbary Coast, Shanghai, or lawless seaports in premodern Europe, these actors too have left their mark throughout history. That said, widespread anxiety over the quality and durability of national governance in our current era is not at all misplaced. Three factors help to explain why. January 2009 capture of rebel leader Laurent Nkunda in Rwanda could increase chances for peace and stability in Democratic Republic of Congo A P I m a ge s (K a re l P ri n sl o o ) 9 8 I N ST I T U T E F O R N AT I O N A L ST R AT EG I C ST U D I ES A D A P T I N G T O e I G h T G L O B A L C h A L L e N G e S First, more than a generation later, global society is still coping with the aftereffects of 20th-century decolonization. From the Ottoman Empire’s dissolu- tion to the post–World War II eclipse of Europe’s imperial dominions, the ranks of independent states more than tripled: from 43 in 1900 to 135 by 1970.1 Although this trend was justified in terms of advanc- ing human freedom, its startling speed came at the price of political stability, especially in cases where independence was accompanied by artificial borders, inexperienced or capricious leaders, incipient faction- alism, or socioeconomic and political dispensations that could not hold in the