James Gow

Benedict Wilkinson

Freedman on Strategy

The Art of Creating Power

This book explores terrorism as a strategic choice-- one made carefully and deliberately by rational actors. Through an analysis of the terrorist groups of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, this book charts a series of different strategic 'scripts' at play in terrorist behavior, from survival, to efforts in mobilizing a supporter base, through to the grinding attrition of a long terrorist campaign. The theme that runs through all the organizations is the unbridgeable gap between their strategic vision, and what actually unfolds. Regardless of which script terrorists follow, they often fall short of achieving their political ambitions. And yet, despite its frequent failure, the terrorist strategy is returned to time and again-- people continue to join such groups, and to commit mindless acts of violence. Scripts of Terror explores the reasons behind this. It asks why, if terrorism is so rarely successful and so hard to pull off, its approach remains an appealing one. And it examines how terrorists formulate their strategies, and how they envisage achieving their ambitions through violence. Most importantly, it explores why they so often fail.

The Stories Terrorists Tell Themselves

Scripts of Terror

The Art of Creating Power explores the intellectual thought and wider impact -- on military affairs, politics and the universities -- of Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman, one of the world's leading authorities on strategy, conflict and international politics. In this volume, senior scholars of international relations and military history trace the long trajectory of Freedman's career, examining his scholarly contribution to a whole host of areas from nuclear strategy to US foreign policy via terrorism, the Falklands War, and Iraq. Individually, these essays provide fascinating and innovative insights into strategy, contemporary defence and foreign policy, and conflict. Taken together, however, they are greater than the sum of their parts as they both reflect and explore the theoretical approach adopted and taught by Freedman - one that has made him one of the great intellectual figures in the canon of international politics, strategy and war. Throughout his professional life, Freedman explored many of the uncertainties that plague our highly unstable world. But as conflicts continue to erupt across the globe, it seems we may be entering an even more precarious and uncertain era. There could hardly be a better time than today to gain a deeper understanding of Freedman's strategic insights.

Benedict Wilkinson

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