The other day, I sat down with War on the Rocks contributors Bill Rosenau, Will McCants, and Afshon Ostovar – all of the Strategic Studies Center at the Center for Naval Analyses – for a conversation that ranged widely from Syria to Snowden to the think tank industry. We were hosted by the Jefferson Hotel in Washington, DC.
Listen here:
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Ton Quiggin 
Ryan Evans 
Greetings!
Enjoyed the discussions, especially the bit on terrorism. I believe there are a number of reasons why those who study terrorism have a hard time getting positions beyond the policy issues and left wing bias that you note.
The first problem is structural and related to how universities are organized. Where does terrorism studies fit into the existing structure? Does it belong in the politics dept? War Studies? Psychology? Sociology? Economics?
Terrorism lacks a home and needs to be identified as a multidisciplinary issue and treated as such. Needless to say, most universities are now places where boundaries are being built between disciplines rather than allowing knowledge to be integrated across boundaries.
The second problem that I have observed up close and personal is that much of the “terrorism research” that is done is really bad. Many of the so-called scholars are not, and a lot of their work has been superficial and often barely rises above a rant against whatever group they are writing about. Much, perhaps most, of the work is driven by ideology, not scholarship. Overall, the field lacks credibility – more so than some other fields.
Terrorism is an inherent part of the political process and has been in existence for 2500 years – and possibly longer.
Hopefully, War on the Rocks can play a role in using a realist perspective to locate terrorism in the overall academic and think tank debate.
Perhaps the debate can be guided by the idea that terrorism is the continuation of politics by other means.
Eminently listenable.
I keep downloading itunes U talks on security and foreign policy and finding atrocious audio quality with hosts who speak over each other.
Not the case here. And that is excellent.
Of course, submitting a comment reloads the page and loses my spot in the player. :P
Thanks Edward. We are very happy to have you listening. I’m about to record the next one. I hope you enjoy it as much as you are enjoying this one.
I enjoyed the podcast and the commentary on the topics. Looking forward to the next one.