This week my colleagues Leo Blanken and Ian Rice and I published a piece in War on the Rocks titled: Al Aqsa Storm Heralds the Rise of Non-State Special Operations. Check it out (free access), it looks at the Hamas operation on October 7 and how it fits into our understanding of how non-states conduct special operations. Violent non-state actors conduct special operations for some of the same reasons state actors do: to achieve strategic effects beyond the impact of the tactical action; as an economy of force; to demonstrate prowess, and to humiliate a foe. This is a current book project for Ian and I, who worked together on an article on Islamic State special operations below. Islamic State is barely mentioned in the above linked article, but it was our research into Islamic State special operations that had us thinking about writing a book on non-state special operations. Hamas, Asaib ahl-Haq, and Islamic State all conduct special operations in what seems to be a growing trend, and in our future book project we are expanding beyond militant groups to understanding how a raft of non-state actors (proxy groups, private military companies, transnational criminal groups) think about and execute special operations. The logic of this argument comes from our article on Islamic State special operations, which we titled “Black Ops”—a play on the video game but also the black flag of IS and the nickname of special operations. The article can be found at this link (pdf): https://www-tandfonline-com.libproxy.nps.edu/doi/full/10.1080/1057610X.2019.1628623 but in case it can’t be accessed by some I have it below.
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ISIS and Non-state Special Operations
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This week my colleagues Leo Blanken and Ian Rice and I published a piece in War on the Rocks titled: Al Aqsa Storm Heralds the Rise of Non-State Special Operations. Check it out (free access), it looks at the Hamas operation on October 7 and how it fits into our understanding of how non-states conduct special operations. Violent non-state actors conduct special operations for some of the same reasons state actors do: to achieve strategic effects beyond the impact of the tactical action; as an economy of force; to demonstrate prowess, and to humiliate a foe. This is a current book project for Ian and I, who worked together on an article on Islamic State special operations below. Islamic State is barely mentioned in the above linked article, but it was our research into Islamic State special operations that had us thinking about writing a book on non-state special operations. Hamas, Asaib ahl-Haq, and Islamic State all conduct special operations in what seems to be a growing trend, and in our future book project we are expanding beyond militant groups to understanding how a raft of non-state actors (proxy groups, private military companies, transnational criminal groups) think about and execute special operations. The logic of this argument comes from our article on Islamic State special operations, which we titled “Black Ops”—a play on the video game but also the black flag of IS and the nickname of special operations. The article can be found at this link (pdf): https://www-tandfonline-com.libproxy.nps.edu/doi/full/10.1080/1057610X.2019.1628623 but in case it can’t be accessed by some I have it below.