Published January 31, 2011 | By Ryan Costello

Status of International Nonproliferation and Counterterrorism Efforts in Southeast Asia

Journal of Threat Convergence, Vol. 1, No. 1 - Fall 2010 | By Rita Grossman-Vermaas

Welcome to the Threat Convergence Journal. This unique electronic journal is a product of the Center for the Study of Threat Convergence at The Fund for Peace. It includes analysis from leading thinkers and practitioners in the fields of nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), terrorism, and fragile environments, and emphasizes policy-oriented analysis that can enable the US and the international community to develop a cohesive and integrated approach to nuclear terrorism.

Journal of Threat Convergence, Vol. 1, No. 1 - Fall 2010 | By Dr. Elizabeth (Libby) Turpen

With the laudable goal of addressing “all vulnerable materials” in his first term, the Obama administration hosted the first Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) in April 2010. The NSS resulted in a communiqué which affirms President Obama’s four year global lockdown goal and commits participants to a Work Plan detailing the various initiatives and activities which this effort will encompass. Although it is clear from the verbiage set forth in the Summit Communiqué and the Work Plan that the negotiators clearly understand the multi-faceted nature of ensuring the lockdown is sustainable, the need is still dire to view the nuclear security challenge as an issue of materials, technology, and know-how governance. This will require bridging the gap between the nuclear nonproliferation community, whose efforts have been more focused on guards, guns, and gates to mitigate the risk of diversion, and the development community, whose decades of lessons learned in providing assistance should be culled for their pertinence to the nonproliferation community’s efforts in achieving rapid lockdown in a holistic, and therefore, sustainable manner.

Journal of Threat Convergence, Vol. 1, No. 1 - Fall 2010 | By Dr. James J.F. Forest

This article examines the socio-political dynamics of local governance within weak states, with particular focus on places that are governed by non-state entities. State weakness is a prime concern for threat convergence, and so-called “ungoverned territories” are central to this concern. However, in many cases this term is mis-applied to describe areas where there is in fact a form of governance, places where security and stability are maintained through a deeply-rooted hierarchy of loyalties and traditions. Several research and policy implications are drawn from this perspective. First, we must recognize the potentially counterproductive state-centric bias inherent in labeling certain places “ungoverned spaces”; rather, we should acknowledge that there are local non-state governance structures that in many cases are functioning effectively and are perceived by local inhabitants as having more legitimacy than the central government. In essence, there are places in the world which could be termed, “zones of competing governance,” in which an intense competition for loyalty takes place between local entities and the central government. We must strive to gain a better understanding of these places and the local non-state governance structures within them through research that transcends a variety of academic disciplines. Improved knowledge about the dynamics of zones of competing governance will then allow us to work toward converting them into zones of complementary or cooperative governance, where the mutual interests of local governance structures and the central government (including security, stability and a sustainable economy) can be achieved.

Published August 15, 2010 | By Alexandra Kapitanskaya

In much the same way that ungoverned regions of the world pose significant risks to global security and nonproliferation efforts, ungoverned swathes of cyberspace contain inherent security vulnerabilities which offer criminals opportunity to conduct illicit activities through the use of information technology (IT).

The rapid growth of IT and its spread around the world has facilitated international trade, finance, communication and human development, offering new opportunities for the exchange of goods, services and ideas. However, the requisite measures to ensure that the IT medium would not be exploited by criminals and terrorists for financial and political gain have been slow to arrive and, in many cases, simply have not been considered a priority for national governments, international organizations and the private sector. The result of this approach has been a marked rise in serious crime committed with the help of modern technology: of the more than 55,000 instances of wire fraud committed since 1998 in the United States, over half have occurred over the past two years in cyberspace.

Published May 1, 2009 | By Patricia Taft, David Poplack and Rita Grossman-Vermaas

The FfP found that existing regional criminal networks in the Tri-Border Area have the potential to facilitate acts of WMD terrorism through: formal and informal financial networks, communications infrastructure, the provision of safe havens and identity “laundering,” and tested routes for the smuggling of personnel and materials throughout the hemisphere. Therefore, the Tri-Border Area may offer a rich enabling environment that could support a WMD terrorism scenario anywhere in the world—one characterized by corruption; gaps in the capacities of state intelligence, border security, and immigration control services; large legitimate economies and trading networks; sophisticated nuclear technology and expertise; and the presence of transnational criminal networks that overlap with the membership and activities of radical movements and terrorist elements.