Talk:Counterterrorism

Retention

There are no workgroups assigned to this article. I recommend deletion, anyway, for a WP article on a controversial topic. Martin Baldwin-Edwards 06:06, 10 May 2008 (CDT)

No workgroups assigned as yet, partially because I didn't do the metadata page yet. Intelligence and special operations may need a new workgroup; I've been using "military" for intelligence, and in some cases politics or law. As far as the WP, it's more of a placeholder, but I don't expect not having something merely because it is controversial. There are problems, apparently, with the CZ terrorism article.

Look at insurgency, which I wrote at WP, am still refining, but I think gives reasonable NPOV coverage of a controversial subject. It is my hope that CZ can do the NPOV with which NPOV seems to have trouble. Howard C. Berkowitz 06:12, 10 May 2008 (CDT)

What problems are there with the terrorism article? I was very critical of an early version, but the current approved version is pretty good in my opinion. I didn't write anything on it, but Gareth Leng put a lot of work into it. Martin Baldwin-Edwards 10:00, 10 May 2008 (CDT)

I'm inferring that from the talk page there, but I need to go through it in detail. Just in a first reading, I could see some problems with definitions, and too much emphasis on individual weapons versus the thinking of terrorists. The references seem to rely primarily on news and dictionaries, rather than the rather extensive professional literature on the subject (e.g., see the references in insurgency or foreign internal defense). There's a delicate line of word and phrase choice, avoiding dullness but also avoiding sound bites.

I mention insurgency since, with the exception of state terrorism, the general concept of terrorism really needs to tie to insurgency, in which terror is one tactic. To understand non-state terrorism, one must understand the motivations of insurgency.

There should be consistency between the terrorism and counterterrorism articles, just as there should be between insurgency and counterinsurgency, and terrorism as a tool of insurgency. Foreign internal defense is a U.S. doctrine of counterinsurgency while unconventional warfare (United States doctrine) is the counterpart for insurgency; the national doctrines should not conflict with the global definitions. In some cases, that may be achieved, at least initially, of putting some key definitions into short articles, to which all the relevant main articles link. Howard C. Berkowitz 10:22, 10 May 2008 (CDT)

The topic may have controversial aspects, but this is definitely an area of serious professional attention, much like counter-insurgency, and deserves an article. J. Noel Chiappa 10:48, 10 May 2008 (CDT)

Article name

I took a quick look online, to see whether "Counter-terrorism" or "Counterterrorism" is the preferred variant, but I couldn't get a definite feeling for it. A lot of US govt sites use the non-hyphen version, but a lot of professional-looking sites use the hyphen.

Also, we need to be consistent with hyphens, capitalization, etc, internally to CZ, e.g. the article has a section title "Anti-terrorism versus Counter-Terrorism". J. Noel Chiappa 10:48, 10 May 2008 (CDT)

There really isn't a standard, although the hyphenated version tends to be the British and non-hyphenated the American* English. Counterinsurgency, however, is rarely hyphenated. I happen to think, especially with anti- versus counter-, the hyphenation helps, but have no strong opinions. Incidentally, the distinction between anti-foo and counter-foo (reactive/defensive vs. proactive) is fairly common in military literature.

• Why did I use a hyphenated description of the non-hyphenated case?

Howard C. Berkowitz 11:00, 10 May 2008 (CDT)

Article keeps getting better. Howard, when you keep working on stuff, it keeps improving, I'm impressed with your method and system and how things keep improving. I'm going to try your approach with other places. --Thomas Wright Sulcer 22:56, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

"The thicket"

Tom, I'm thinking about your draft article in building a set of articles here. There's the base terrorism article, which I'm going to split up (e.g., history of terrorism) to make more manageable in size. It works more smoothly if state terrorism is handled in a separate article, because nonstate terrorism then mirrors insurgency more closely, and counterinsurgency. Since not all terrorism is preventable, counterterrorism and antiterrorism, as well as disaster response, link together. Radicalization and self-radicalization deal with recruiting. Strategic communications could deal broadly with the preventive message. Remember, not all terrorism, even today, is radical Islamism; think Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Hindu nationalism, Basque nationalism (ETA), campaigns against abortion providers in the U.S., ecoterrorism, etc. --Howard C. Berkowitz 23:38, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Excellent thinking Howard. Let me know if you need me to work on particular subjects; right now I'm trying to expand the Aeneid using your thicket approach.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 03:01, 29 March 2010 (UTC)