Intelligence Archive

Though only a little more than half over, 2016 has already turned into a tragically bloody year of terrorism. What is concerning is not simply the extent of this violence but the ongoing mutation of terrorism into new forms. This is not unexpected. Terrorism constantly changes as the dark organizations that use it innovate. Terrorists seek to cause fear, anxiety, panic and overreaction. The unknown and unexpected amplifies fear, so once the terrorists’ intended audience adapts to a type or level of violence, they must escalate or find new methods. As is often true in strategy, what works today for […]

The July 14 massacre in Nice, in which a Tunisian-born man living in France, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, drove a truck through densely packed crowds celebrating Bastille Day along the waterfront, came just one week after a parliamentary committee called for an overhaul of the French intelligence services. That call followed an investigation by a nonpartisan parliamentary commission into the response to the two attacks France suffered in 2015: first at the offices of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket that killed 17 in January; and subsequently at a number of sites in and around Paris, including the Bataclan […]

Last month, officials from Indonesia and Australia met in Sydney, where they agreed to increase counterterrorism cooperation and information-sharing in response to the growing threat from the so-called Islamic State. In an email interview, Greta Nabbs-Keller, the manager of Indonesia programs at the University of Queensland’s international development unit, discusses the current state of Australia-Indonesia relations. WPR: How have ties with Indonesia evolved under the administration of Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, and to what extent have the two sides been able to move past recent tensions over Australia’s asylum policy and Indonesia’s execution of Australian drug smugglers? Greta Nabbs-Keller: […]

With Brexit taking up most of the oxygen in Brussels these days, it was easy to miss the release last week of the Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy. Federica Mogherini—the EU’s foreign policy chief and a vice president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch—was tasked with developing the new strategy last June. It was drafted after extensive consultations with the commission, the European Parliament, EU member states and think tanks. Officially titled “Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe,” the strategy outlines the foreign policy objectives of the EU and asserts the bloc’s […]