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THE NEW THREAT OF ORGANISED CRIME AND TERRORISM

IN THIS post-Cold War era, it is clear that many 'old' phenomena from the international security environment have been radically altered. Sebastyen Gorka reports on how the concepts of threat, security, deterrence and national interest have been reassessed by nearly all national capitals and by their policy elites.

Factors such as economic globalisation, transparency of borders and the explosion of information technology have all played a part in this process. Consequently the categories and tools of the past have been shown to be lacking. While terrorism and organised crime still exist, they are far removed from the quintessentially political terrorism of the 1970s and 1980s or the clichéd mafia syndicates we are all too familiar with. Both activities have exploited the change in the international environment and, more importantly, they have overlapped to a degree unimaginable prior to 1990.

Crime versus terrorism
Terrorism i...