IDENTITIES IN POLITICS

Separatist Efforts

People inside a country occasionally find themselves unable to agree on the rules by which they can all live in harmony. A separatist movement is likely to emerge if this occurs. Separatist movements frequently concentrate around issues of control over religious practise, language, or other aspects of culture. Typically, the offended party is a minority group living in a peripheral portion of the country, ready to break away from the dominant group in the country's hearth or core region.

Thousands of separatist movements have occurred throughout history, and hundreds of separatist organisations exist now. Even in rich Europe, dozens of ethnic groups (nations) want to secede and form their own nation-state within the continent. The right to self-determination, which is essentially the right of a group of people to govern the political system of the land in which they live, is supported by Americans and American foreign policy in principle. Indeed, the United States was founded on a revolt by separatists living in a disenfranchised, outlying part of the British Empire. The rallying cry for self-determination among American colonists was "no taxation without representation." Scotland has been debating its membership in the United Kingdom for many years (England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland).

Many Scots, who are resentful of their more populous English neighbours, held a legislative vote in late 2014 to decide whether or not Scotland should become an independent country. Finally, the Scots decided to remain in the United Kingdom but to maintain Scotland within it; the English gave in to various demands by Scottish separatists for more autonomy from British (English) authority. When the United Kingdom surprised the world by choosing to leave the European Union in June 2016, Scottish separatists used the political and social unrest to renew their call for independence and self-determination.

Identity and Politics

Separatist movements are not necessarily motivated by perceived identity differences. The real difference is frequently economic, but those who would lead a people to rebel rarely confess this. The American Civil War was fought more for control of the rules governing slavery and the economics of slavery than for identity. Both sides of the battle identified as Americans, but Southerners believed that control should be local, while most Northerners believed that some of that local control, particularly in regards to slavery, should be national.

The most fascinating aspect of civil wars and separatist movements is that those who suffer the most benefit the least when violence erupts. The vast majority of soldiers from the South, as in the American Civil War, did not own slaves and stood to benefit from wage competition in the labour market after emancipation. The elite Southerners were the ones who required slavery. So, how can those who don't have much to fight for be persuaded to fight?

Some of the solutions can be found in persons in positions of power's ability to effectively control the opinions of parts of the public. People are frequently persuaded by populist politicians that their personal or group difficulties are the result of unfair treatment by another group. These reasons are sometimes valid and can be substantiated by facts; other times, the evidence to justify rebellion or secession is insufficient.

It's frequently difficult to figure out exactly whose interests a separatist group serves. Secession movements are sometimes led by a small political elite that claims the right to speak for a larger group of people. The elite, on the other hand, may not represent the majority of the population, and their motivations may be purely personal (wealth, power). This is why the United States' foreign policy is so perplexed by concerns of self-determination. Our administration has yet to come up with a consistent answer to individuals who want to take ownership of their own land. In several situations, the United States has backed subnational groups' right to form their own country. The disintegration of Yugoslavia into many new republics was generally supported by the Clinton administration.

In other cases, the United States has collaborated with groups attempting to exercise that freedom. Consider the Kurds, an ethnic minority who live in northern Iraq, eastern Turkey, and northwestern Iran. The Kurds speak a different language, have a different history, and have a different identity than the Iraqis, Iranians, and Turks with whom they share space. Many Kurdish nationalists believe that a new nation-state called Kurdistan should be established. The Kurds appear to have a valid point, and there have been various Kurdish insurgencies over the years. Kurdish insurgencies have always been greeted with bloodshed by the governments of Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. The US government backed various forms of Kurdish autonomy in Iraq and Iran, but not in Turkey, presumably because the latter is an important US partner.

Terrorism

Because current terrorist groups have gotten more lethal, networked, and technologically skilled, terrorism is proving to be an ever-present worldwide menace. Today, terrorist organisations like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and al-Qaida may take control of entire towns and hold them captive. This power arises mostly from their capacity to profit from a variety of illicit activities with near-total impunity.

Al-Qa'ida had roughly 300 mujahedeen in Afghanistan with the Taliban's assistance during the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. After fifteen years, two global terrorist organisations, al-Qa'ida and ISIS, have arisen, changing the global danger landscape. ISIS controlled 6-8 million people in a territory the size of Belgium towards the end of 2015, and had a force of 30,000-50,000 militants, as well as attracting the largest number of foreign recruits in history.

Currently, al-Qa'ida and ISIS are intensifying their activities in a fierce competition for global prowess and international reach, as well as affiliates around the world. ISIS is currently posing a greater threat than al-Qa'ida because of its aim to govern and control territories in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. It is a three-dimensional threat, with a core in Iraq and Syria, regional affiliates, and an internet presence. ISIS-inspired overseas fighters, ISIS-inspired radicalised cells, ISIS affiliates, and, most significantly, ISIS criminal finance operations have all sprung from this constellation. As will be demonstrated, these three elements promote ISIS criminal networks and operations.

ISIS core, regional affiliates, and inspired groups have carried out around 4,000 attacks in 28 countries since the caliphate was established in June 2014. Since its appearance on the global stage in 2014, ISIS' geographic presence has increased at an exponential rate. ISIS has 30 self-declared wilayats or provinces, 10 of which are located outside of the group's core heartland in Syria and Iraq. Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen have regional affiliates, as well as allied affiliates in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Former members of the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani Network, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) make up ISIS in Afghanistan, which is backed by Jamaat Ul Dawa al Quran (JDQ). These organisations have made millions of dollars each year from drugs trafficking and illegal precious stone and timber exploitation. ISIS is thus gaining cash not only through its wiliyats, but also from the illicit markets of other groups, as former members continue to branch off. ISIS is also actively forming ties with Southeast Asian terror groups. The Asia Pacific region, which is home to 62 percent of the world's Muslims, provides ISIS with not just a new base of operations, but also fresh financial streams to exploit.

Al-Qa'ida operates in a similar way, with offshoots in Africa and Asia, and it is forming new alliances with groups in the Caucasus, India, and Tunisia. Al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) continues to have a large presence in Yemen and is still the group's greatest direct danger to the US.

Due to falling state power and strife in the Middle East and North Africa, criminal-terrorist groups have the potential to take over geographic areas at will. The instability that followed the Arab Spring, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of people wanting to flee to Europe, weakened state control and posed a threat to the authoritarian order in six Arab countries. Libya, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen are four governments that are either collapsing or partially failing, resulting in perpetual violence, instability, and terrible poverty across the area. This has provided a fertile ground for violent religious zealots, terrorists, and criminal organisations to thrive. Several countries in the region are no longer able to completely regulate and contain criminality and violent terror within their borders.

Criminal-terrorist networks are posing a threat to states around the world, particularly in jails, urban areas, and internet. Terrorists and criminals now congregate in prisons to plan, plot, and recruit. The most prominent example was Abu-Bakhr al-Baghdadi, the self-declared caliph of ISIS, who spent formative time at Camp Bucca, a US-controlled prison in Iraq, where he met Samir Abd Muhammad al-Khlifawi, a former colonel in Saddam Hussein's air defence forces' intelligence service, who was the architect of the ISIS strategy for the takeover of towns, which heavily focused on surveillance and e According to the Iraqi authorities, 17 of the 25 most important ISIS leaders spent time in American jails in Iraq, plotting the formation of ISIS and its ideology.

Prisons in the West have evolved into a networking and learning environment where terrorists and criminals may swap ideologies and form networks. A considerable percentage of terrorist recruits, as high as 80% according to some estimates, have criminal records ranging from minor to major offences. Terrorists can gain the skills they need to succeed by recruiting criminals: a proclivity for violent acts, the ability to act discreetly, and access to illicit markets for weapons and bomb-making materials. According to a survey of radicals planning attacks in Western Europe, 90% of the cells were involved in money-making illegal activities, and half of them were totally self-funded, with only one out of every four receiving funds from international terrorist organisations.

The prison has become a significant recruiting location for Islamist terrorist groups. They are particularly interested in young petty criminals from the Middle East. Amedy Coulibaly and Cherif Kouachi, for example, met in prison after the Charlie Hebdo attacks. They also met Djamel Beghal, al-top Qa'ida's operative in France, who served time in prison for attempting to bomb the US Embassy in Paris in 2001. Both the mastermind of the Paris plot, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, and his co-conspirator Salah Abdeslam, followed a path from petty crime to armed robbery, eventually ending up in prison, where they met and were radicalised by Fouad Belkacem, the former leader of the Brussels terrorist recruiting organisation Sharia4Belgium.

In addition, state influence is gradually eroding in major cities and ports. Criminals, terrorists, militants, and bandits take use of lawless enclaves in urban areas. Governments have lost their ability to govern or uphold the rule of law in so-called feral cities like Mogadishu, Caracas, Ciudad Juárez, and Raqqa. In September 2015, the United Nations formed the Strong Communities Network (SCN) to help cities become more resilient.

Terrorists have been causing instability in the actual world for decades, but in the last 15 years, there has been a fundamental paradigm shift: terrorists are now operating on the world's largest open place, the internet. With ISIS's expanding worldwide clout, it's the first time in history that a terrorist organisation has ruled both the physical and virtual realms. Violence has found a new home in cyberspace. It's used to recruit and project force through movies of torture and assassinations.

Extremist groups' biggest achievement in cyberspace is their ability to strategically employ propaganda to recruit combatants and supporters. ISIS exploits the digital realm to build an idealised picture of itself, a reality show that is meant to resonate with and mean something to its many adherents. For those seeking adventure, it broadcasts its military might and bloodshed; for those seeking a home, work, shelter, religious satisfaction, or meaning in life, it portrays the caliphate as a peaceful, benevolent state dedicated to aiding the needy, it uses this media to offer an idyllic world. ISIS has a successful media wing called Al-Furqan, which has around 36 media offices. They collaborate on hundreds of videos and Roumiay (previously Dabiq), ISIS's online propaganda magazine. Between July 2014 and May 2015, ISIS sympathisers sent over six million tweets, according to a RAND research.

Since the commencement of the civil conflict in Syria, more than 40,000 foreign militants from over 120 nations have poured into the country, including 6,900 from the West, the vast majority of whom have joined ISIS. For considerable finance, the organisation is reliant on European recruits. It instructs would-be militants to raise money before joining ISIS. Petty theft and scamming public organisations and service providers are among the moneymaking techniques used by European recruits. Pretending to be police officials, British foreign fighters defrauded U.K. retirees for their bank account information, collecting more than US$1.8 million before being captured.

ISIS has also been effective in funding itself through cybercrime. It instructs combatants on how to transfer money using money service businesses, pre-paid debit cards, Apple Wallet, hawala, and Dark Wallet, a dark web programme that purports to anonymize bitcoin transactions. ISIS also advises its adherents to obtain firearms via the internet. 'Lone wolves' and cells plotting attacks in Europe are increasingly turning to the dark web to buy weapons: In 2015, 57 persons were arrested in France for purchasing weapons on the internet.

War, religious and ethnic conflict, corrosive governance, weak militaries, failing states, and the expansion of digital technology are all contributing to the current increase in global terrorism. One of the most significant trends, however, is the growing cooperation between criminal and terrorist networks. While criminals used to be motivated solely by political objectives and terrorists, we are now witnessing a convergence of terrorism and crime. These new hybrid groups are motivated by both financial and political goals, culminating in criminal and terrorist organisations with previously unheard-of resources and transgressive goals. The impact of this growing threat can be gauged by how terrorist groups have expanded their global area of influence. Other examples of terrororism from throughout the world are shown below.

Geospatial Intelligence (GI) is a term that refers to the study of

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to mention a few, all use geospatial technology prominently in geopolitical battles. The video on the right is a segment from Episode 3 of the Geospatial Revolution, which focuses on war and warfare.

Click here to read an excellent WIRED Magazine article titled How Geospatial Analytics is Aiding in the Hunt for the LRA and al-Shabaab.

Geospatial Intelligence (GI) is a term that refers to the study of

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to mention a few, all use geospatial technology prominently in geopolitical battles. The video on the right is a segment from Episode 3 of the Geospatial Revolution, which focuses on war and warfare.

Click here to read an excellent WIRED Magazine article titled How Geospatial Analytics is Aiding in the Hunt for the LRA and al-Shabaab.

Humanitarian initiatives can also benefit from geospatial technology, which can be used to end conflict or monitor situations before they worsen. The Satellite Sentinal Project was founded by The Enough Project and Maxar, the largest private satellite photography company in the world (formally called Digital Globe). The organisation first used satellite photography from satellite imagery and Google Earth to monitor potential humanitarian problems along Sudan's and South Sudan's border. It is now employing satellite images to follow poachers who use black market proceeds to fuel civil wars such as the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).