NATO has committed to the mission of counterterrorism as a central role of the alliance. However, this is a fight that will require the maximum cooperation of all NATO members and partners. To this and other ends, we need to share expertise among ourselves. The NATO Science for Peace and Security Programme supports the work of the NATO centers of excellence in reaching out to our partner nations in order to further this goal.

This book presents the proceedings of the NATO Centre of Excellence – Defence against Terrorism (COE-DAT) Advanced Training Course entitled “Capacity Building in the Fight against Terrorism,” held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, from 11-15 June 2012. During these sessions of the course, presentations were by 11 expert speakers – practitioners and academics – from 8 countries to members of the Kyrgyz police and military forces as follows.

The first article, “Terrorism Overview,” is by Yonah Alexander of the Potomac Institute. Here Professor Alexander sets the tone for the course and this book by describing first the history of terrorism. It is not a recent phenomenon but one that has been with us through the ages. He then goes on to talk about the various root causes for terrorism. Last he addresses the definitional problem in counterterrorism that sometimes prevents us from addressing the issue in a clear and consistent manner.

“NATO's Approach to Defense against Terrorism” by Josef Greipl of the COE-DAT staff is the second article. Starting with an outline of NATO policy towards combating terrorism, he then shows how this integrates with other concepts. From there he discusses what this means in terms of measures taken and plans for the future.

Anna-Maria Talihärm of Tartu University wrote the third article on “Terrorism and Human Rights,” where she discusses human rights treaties in the context of counterterrorism. In particular, she highlights two examples to illustrate the challenge and paying the highest possible attention to human rights while battling terrorism. Both cases underline the fact that the enforcement of the sanctions adopted to target the designated individuals and entities must be in accordance with the international human rights law and any derogations from the law must be proportional, non-discriminatory and not contravening other norms of international law.

The fourth article by Ercan Çitlioğlu of Bahçeşehir University is on “Terrorism Prejudice Perception Management.” The central premise of his article is that prejudices can lead to generalizations that can lead to negative behavioral changes. In essence, by maintain prejudices, we can create the root cause of terrorism, so if we want to eradicate terrorism, we should start to eradicate these prejudices.

“Terrorist Use of the Internet” is the title of the fifth article by Francesca Bosco of the U.N. Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI). In this article, she discusses how terrorists use the Internet for a number of purposes: to conduct attacks, to publicize themselves and their activities, to terrorize, to organize and to recruit. The inherent nature of the Internet makes it very suitable for terrorist use and presents a number of problems for counterterrorist forces to prevent that use.

Next Şaban Ali Düzgün of Ankara University's School of Divinity provides us with his thoughts on “Religion and the Question of Violence.” In this comprehensive article, he analyzes the role of scripture as a justification for violence. Conflicts result from interpretive contexts that are geohistorically, geoculturally and geopolitically different from one another. He describes how out-of-context quotations can easily distort the very meaning of the text, thus transforming it into a source of uproar and chaos rather than peace and serenity. Considering this historical experience, this article draws a difference between the scripture and historical phenomena it has created in order to criticize the essentialist approach that identifies the scripture with its members.

The seventh article on “International Cooperation and Counterterrorism” is by Patrick Tyrrell of Vale Atlantic Associates. Here he discusses the way that international organizations, regional organizations (such as NATO), and national organizations can cooperate against the threat of terrorism. After defining a ‘threat’ as consisting of three key elements of motive, plus capability and opportunity, he discusses how these elements can be approached in a cooperative approach to counterterrorism.

“Recruitment of Terrorists” by Noemie Bouhana of University College London is the topic of the eighth article. This summary of the presentation shows how she broke this down into a two-step process of finding the individuals to recruit and then the process of radicalizing them so they are willing to participate in terrorist group activities. In doing so, she explained the four models of recruitment and how they are used; however, how the Internet and ‘lone wolf’ terrorists play into this is still unknown. She admitted how the state of the art in this field is still reactive, not yet predictive.

Vesna Markovic of the University of New Haven has contributed an article on “Financing Terrorism” where she describes the various methods by which terrorist groups obtain financing. Particularly disturbing is her linkage of terrorism financing with organized transnational crime. She concludes that only through cooperative efforts can this link between organized crime and terrorist be broken. Nations must work together to share intelligence and best practices if terrorist financing is to be stopped.

“Crisis Management,” the tenth article, is another from Patrick Tyrrell where he discusses the concept of crisis management within the context of terrorism. He first outlines a five-step for crisis management. From there, he goes on to discuss dealing a crisis where there is known and unknown information. The last part of the article deals with the concept of the OODA loop – how to learn to react within the information cycle.

“Energy Security and Terrorism,” from Mitat Çelikpala of Kadir Has University, addresses the concept of energy security in the face of terrorism. The reliable flow of energy to people is vital to life as well as the economy. Energy facilities present lucrative targets to terrorists who want to have a big impact. In particular, he discusses the attack on Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline as a case study to demonstrate how terrorists could impact worldwide energy supplies.

Azamat Tynybekov, of the International Scientific Center, in the penultimate article on “Environmental Security and Ecoterrorism,” discusses the impact of radiological, chemical and biological pollutants of the Kyrgyz environment and how these can be used by terrorists. In addition to the causes, he also discusses ways to mitigate the impact of the damage caused by these agents.

The last article, and the second from Josef Greipl deals with “Weapons of Mass Destruction Terrorism.” He details the threat stemming from chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons, then discusses possible scenarios where such weapons could be used by terrorists. He finishes the article by detailing the way that NATO has approached handling this problem.

Representing a significant contribution to furthering the science of counterterrorism, this book will be of interest to all whose work involves aspects of counterterrorism. I thank all who have contributed to this book.

Uğur Gürbüz

Colonel, Turkish Army

Course Director