Al-Qaeda and the Question of State Sponsorship

August 24, 2008 By

Republished on Global Geopoltics Viewpoints
August 24, 2008

By Alan F. Fogelquist, Ph. D.
International Monitor Institute

Completed August 29, 2002

© Copyright 2002 Alan F. Fogelquist, Ph. D.

Introduction

Shortly after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush declared an open-ended “war on terrorism”. Within a few days, intelligence and law enforcement organizations in the United States and around the world had gathered massive evidence that the global terrorist network, Al-Qaeda, headed by Osama Bin Laden, had organized and financed the attacks which were carried out by cells whose members had been recruited, trained, and dispatched by the organization’s top operational leaders. [1] Al-Qaeda became the primary target in this war and the US government sought support from governments around the world.

At the center of many discussions on how to defeat Al-Qaeda are questions about the level of military, financial, and logistical support which the organization has received from existing governments or regimes. In the language of international relations and terrorism specialists this is the issue of state sponsorship.

This study traces the history of Al-Qaeda and reviews some of the most important evidence of state support for the organization and its affiliates.[2]
[Read more...]

Filed Under: Editor's Column, History, Middle East, Politics, Security, Terrorism

RUSSIA, BOSNIA, AND THE NEAR ABROAD

August 24, 2008 By

This article is being republished on Global Geopolitics Viewpoints because of its historical interest and relevance to recent events in Georgia.

Eurasia Research Center
1998

© Copyright 1995 Alan F. Fogelquist, Ph. D.

By Alan F. Fogelquist

Post Doctoral Scholar History Department University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA)

Paper Presented April 19, 1995 at the International Conference on Bosnia-Hercegovina Organized by Bilkent University and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey
INTRODUCTION

Although the present Russian policy towards former Yugoslavia is related to political developments inside Russia and the former Soviet republics, it is also the result of the unsuccessful international policy initiated in 1991 by the United States and Western European governments. Russian policy towards the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina has generally followed in tandem the policies of Western Europe and the United States. If the leaders of these countries had correctly diagnosed the nature of the conflict in former Yugoslavia and acted energetically to stop Serbia’s war of aggression against its neighbors, Russia might have followed suit. At the time of the impending breakup of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, the leaders of the United States and Western Europe failed to understand that the movement towards greater independence by non-Serbian and non-Russian nations had become irreversible. Instead of acting to encourage a peaceful and democratic separation of the members of the two multi-national states, the United States and European leaders tried to discourage political leaders in both the non-Serbian and non-Russian republics from seeking independence. When Croatian representatives came to the United States in the fall of 1990 to discuss a plan for the peaceful reorganization of Yugoslavia as a confederation, American Secretary of State James Baker and National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, told them that the United States was not interested in such a plan. They were told that the Bush Administration favored the preservation of both Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union as unified states, if necessary, by military force.
[Read more...]

Filed Under: Conflict, Editor's Column, Geopolitics, History

REVIEW OF SOME LITERATURE ON POST-COMMUNIST – POST-SOVIET ECONOMIC "REFORMS"

August 22, 2008 By

REVIEW OF SOME LITERATURE ON POST-COMMUNIST – POST-SOVIET ECONOMIC “REFORMS” AND THEIR SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES

Republished on Global Geopolitics Viewpoints
August 22, 2008

By Alan F. Fogelquist, Ph. D.

EurasiaNews Analyst – December 4, 1998

(c) Copyright Alan F. Fogelquist – Eurasia Research Center, 1998

Here I present a quick review of some literature which reveals the complexity and inadequacy of reform efforts in the FSU. A reading of just some of the literature below will raise many questions about simplistic formulas for reform.

Two works which represent the viewpoints of western advisors to the Russian and other Post-Communist Transition governments are.

Anders Aslund, How Russia Became a Market Economy, Brookings, 1995

Jefferey Sachs, Wingt Thye Woo, and Stephen Parker, Economies in Transition, MIT, 1997.

In Russian similar views are presented by Yegor Gaidar in several works.

All of these books have a common two common characteristics. First, they go into considerable detail on the evolution of macro-economic policy, prices and exchange rates. Second, they contain very little detailed examination of what was happening in Russian enterprises as these policies were introduced, resisted, reintroduced etc.

These authors for the most part have attributed Russia’s woes to the resistance by members of the old nomenklatura to reform and the failure to continue the anti-inflationary monetary policies introduced by Gaidar in the first three months of the reform. Aslund’s book is particularly good for a detailed tracking of the policy changes and changes in aggregate prices during the first four years of the reforms. Aslund’s book is also useful in that he uses a language comprehensible to policy makers or laymen without advanced training in economics.
[Read more...]

Filed Under: Editor's Column, Europe, History