Customer Reviews

Deadly Connections: States that Sponsor Terrorism

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am always excited when another book by the Saban Center is produced so when Deadly Connections was released I had to get my hands on it. The book, while dry, is loaded with facts and diagrams on top terror supporting nations. If you aren't interested in Middle Eastern affairs or terrorism than this won't be worth your money.

The author does a supreme job with describing state connections to terrorist groups across the globe, from Syria sponsoring groups like the PFLP-GC to Iran giving aid to Islamists and Hizbullah. The graphs and diagrams presented also give the facts more credibility in addition to making it easier for some to understand. For most people studying Middle East history or writting a paper on Middle Eastern nations connections to terrorist activity I would highly recommend this book. For the average person just wanting to have basic knowledge on terrorism, this may not be for them.

Well known Daniel Byman offers very interesting book about a topic which was so far not thoroughly conceptualized - terrorism sponsored by states. Author basically provides useful typology of sponsorship, matrix of four categories:

1)State capable of acting, supporting terrorism
2)State incapable of acting, supporting terrorism
3)State capable of acting, opposing terrorism
4)State incapable of acting, opposing terrorism

He emphasize the role of passive supporters, some times neglected in the analysis of this phenomenon and calls for distinguishing unwilling host of terrorism.

Byman provides more than that - he presents comprehensive typology of character of support and more interestingly state's incentives for support of terrorism. This framework is very handy for anyone who thinks about writing a case study of state support of terrorism.

Byman than illustrates his framework on case studies of Iran and Hizbu'llah, Taliban and al-Qa'ida and Syria and Palestinians groups. In the end presents some ideas about stopping state sponsored terrorism. I have just two reservation towards his work:

- when dealing with Hizbu'llah he does not take in account the relationship between Party of God and Syria (see Palmer-Harik)

- Byman focus only on state sponsored terrorism, neglecting rising self sufficiency of terrorist organizations thanks to illegal global economy (see Napoleoni). It can create uncomplete image, but probably is not the intention of Byman to argue that self sufficiency does not exist, just prefers to deal with different topic.

Byman's work is original, academically sound and very useful, even more for students or academics who could use it's framework, for them definitely 5 stars, for other readers 4 stars.

Petr Zelinka,
Journal of Security Issues

The book is certainly well-written, and informative. At the same time, one should never forget that Britain officially terrorised Boer civilians in the Anglo Boer War. It is easy to hammer about the Middle East, but no-one from the Middle-East has done anything worse than Britain has, in terms of terrorising civilians. Before anyone in the Middle-East is being judged, it is time for the West to re-consider itself and its own history. To my knowledge no terrorist group from the erea in question has ever tranvelled abroad, took an army of 2 1/2 times the population of an entire region, and starved the civilians in concentration camps.

Nevertheless, this is a book that libraries should buy, as it is a good reference.

British terrorism against Boer civilians