Are Some Sahelian Jihadist Groups ‘Antifragile’?

Edward Stoddard on Debate, Sahel, jihadists, Taleb, COIN, insurgencies

Over recent years, jihadists have had a string of tactical wins against West African armies. Evidence from their attacks on Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) suggests that the ‘antifragile’ character of their tactics may provide an explanation for these successes.

According to the best-selling author Nassim Nicholas Taleb, all things fall into one of two categories

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Missing Pieces in a Weapons Seizure in Northern Shan State

Francesco Buscemi on Field, Myanmar, small arms, insurgencies, MANPADS, drug trafficking

On the 22nd November 2019 press releases started circulating on Myanmar social media and news outlets concerning what was defined as one of the largest weapons seizures carried out by the Tatmadaw (Myanmar Armed forces) in the last years. The pictures accompanying the news depicted photojournalists and onlooking security officials immersed in a typical »

From the borderlands to the centre: land travelling in Myanmar


by Francesco Buscemi
 
In the early 2000s, with an article entitled “Geographies of Knowing, Geographies of Ignorance”…

Contrasting agendas: EU’s migration governance vs. West African governments’ priorities


by Katia Golovko
 
In the aftermath of the so-called ‘refugee crisis’, the EU should take into consideration…

Robot fighting: Libya and the wars of the future


by Luca Raineri
 
Intervening at the ISPI Med forum in Rome on December 7, 2019, the Special…

Causalities and casualties: the perpetuation of violence in conflict-management operations


by Luca Ceresani
 
That peace operations and crisis response mechanisms can fail to restore security is not…

Conducting immersive fieldwork on Tunisian Islamic activism: Methodological and ethical challenges


by Ester Sigillò
 
In recent years an increasing number of academic works have focused on the progressive…

Fieldwork research challenged: constraints, needs and opportunities


by Silvia Carenzi
 
Scholars are increasingly aware that fieldwork research in conflict-prone, politically unstable or authoritarian areas…

A slap in the face of justice: the ICC and Afghanistan


by Huma Saeed
 
On 12 April 2019, the Pre-Trial Chamber III of the International Criminal Court rejected…

Warbling security

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ERIS – a research group at the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa (Italy).


Inter-disciplinary Political Studies (IdPS) – open access, peer-reviewed journal publishing academic articles in the field of comparative politics, international relations and related disciplines.