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Home-Grown Nihilism: The Clash within Civilisations

Countering terrorism in the UK requires an understanding of the forces that drive individuals to become involved. Without objective understanding, wrong lessons may be learned. The absence of a definitive official position has left the field clear for individual commentators to advance their personal views. Common explanations are that terrorists act in retribution for British involvement in Iraq, or as part of a global Islamic conspiracy. Without hard information, such speculation comes to shape public opinion and official policy.

"Kosovo and a Unilateral Declaration of Independence" by Dr Ben Lombardi

Nearly nine years after the NATO-led war against Serbia, the final political settlement of the Kosovo Question remains unresolved, though perhaps not for very much longer. In the next few weeks, it is expected that the Kosovar-Albanian authorities will declare independence, with rapid recognition by the EU and the USA and possibly others following shortly after. This unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) - unilateral in that the United Nations will not authorise it - is due to the failure of negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina to work out a mutually acceptable political settlement. That the most recently concluded round of negotiations - the Troika Talks - were likely never presumed by either Washington or Brussels to have a realistic chance of a favourable outcome has also reinforced the opposition of Russia to the UDI. While an independent Kosovo will pose a significant threat to regional stability in the southern Balkans, and further damage relations between the West and Moscow (though the latter will never permit core interests to be affected), the outcome is nonetheless inevitable. Fear of a popular uprising by the Kosovar-Albanian community, greater than that confronted in March 2004, is a principal motivation of Western policy. Such an uprising would lead to violent confrontations with NATO forces in the province, would challenge the image of the 1999 war as a "good war", and effectively undermine the argument that significant progress had been made in constructing a modern civil society in the former Serbian province.

The Russian Far East: A Chinese Future?

By Mark Smith

Networking in Open Source Intelligence

by Anne Aldis

Hawala and related Informal Value Transfer Systems

An assessment in the context of Organised Crime and Terrorist Finance - Is there cause for concern? By Shima Keene

British Leaders and Irregular Warfare

By David Benest