Europe is the place where Cro-Magnons evolved from the Neanderthals and brought humanity out of the stone age.  Highlights include the Greek and Roman cultures, frequently regarded as the classic golden age of Western civilization.  Even after the fall of Rome, Europe exerted great influence under Charlemagne's Franco-German empire, which was followed by the birth of nation-states in France, England, and Spain.  The Renaissance and Reformation took place as did colonial expansion.  Then came the French Revolution with Napoleon, who succeeded in putting most of Europe under his spell, except for Britain which underwent an Industrial Revolution.  Soon after, the rest of Europe went Communist, Socialist, Anarchist, or Fascist, followed by two, devastating wars in the 20th Century.  After WWII, Europe became the Cold War (WWIII) battlefield between the U.S. and Soviet Union.  After the Soviet breakup, Europe formed a customs organization called the European Union (EU).  Europe has been the center of violence and controversy more than any other place on earth, and it can be said the war on terror is constantly being fought there.    

Europe is made of 45 diverse countries, of which only 18 or so matter, and the big three even more: England, France, and Germany.  More states are added to the EU every year.  The EU centers around Belgium and France.  Western Europe includes Belgium, France, Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Luxemborg.  Central Europe includes Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Austria, Switzerland, and Lichtenstein.  Eastern Europe is a collection of troubled nations, including Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyztan, Macedonia, Romania, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Yugoslavia.  Northern Europe includes Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.  Southern Europe includes Spain, Portugal, Andorra, Italy, San Moreno, and Greece.  The part of Russia which extends West of the Ural Mountains is considered part of Europe. Although Greenland is governed by Denmark, Greenland is considered part of North America.  Some Europeans do not consider the Ukraine or Turkey as part of Europe, even though they are.  One of the big benefits of EU membership is border-free travel as 25 states have done away with border crossings.

WESTERN EUROPE

ENGLAND
    Known as the U.K. or simply Britain, the county consists of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland (people born in Northern Ireland can identify themselves as Irish or British or both).  England has been a dominant economic and intellectual power for several hundred years.  Its banking and insurance industries are strong.  Science, art, literature, theatre, and music are quite profitable.  Agriculture is heavily mechanized.  At its peak, the British Empire extended over one-fourth of the world.  The English love their monarchy (kings and queens) since no presidential elections have to be held, and the people have little experience with voting.  England played a strong role in establishing NATO.  Its Royal Navy, Army, and Air Force are quite large, as are its police forces.  Espionage has strong roots, especially domestic intelligence gathering.  England's interest in espionage, called the "great game" (a term coined by Rudyard Kipling in his novel Kim), took up much of the Cold War. The U.K. used Persia (now Iran) as a spy center, and the Russians used India.  One of the more colorful stories from that era involved a group known as the Cambridge Spy Ring, aka the antiestablishmentarians, who believed in their intellectual superiority.  Britain had extensive involvement in Iraq, Pakistan, and the Middle East.  Britain is responsible for creating the embassy, ambassador and diplomat system we know today.  The Brits have distinguished themselves as code breakers, and even today think of themselves as quite good at SIGINT, reconnaissance, and counterterrorism.

    England has extensive experience with counterinsurgency and counterterrorism where the basic tactic is called the Kitsonian strategy (named after Gen. Frank Kitson) involving: (1) identifying the enemy's reasons for existence; (2) coordinating resources and personnel; and (3) containing, isolating, wearing down the enemy; and splitting or frustrating the enemy politically and militarily.  England's MI5, MI6, and Special Air Services have long been good at implementing this strategy.  While England has experienced failed attempts at nation-building (e.g., Afghanistan in the 1800s), there are many examples of British success (e.g., Malaya, Kenya, Aden, Borneo, and Oman) at so-called "splendid little wars."  With terrorism, of course the most well-known event was the 7/7 or July 7, 2005 London bombing, and another attack, two weeks later, called the July 21, 2005 London bombing.  The 7/7 attack was a well-coordinated series of four, deadly, rush hour subway and bus bombings, while the 7/21 attack only involved the detonators going off.  In September of that year, al-Qaeda claimed responsibility.  Currently, the Brits have a number of deadly Islamist terror cells in their midst, with most British terrorism largely associated with a Muslim minority of
1.6 million people, or three per cent of the population, many descended from immigrants from Pakistan who arrived in the 1960s.  This population along with a growing number of non-Arab converts intend to create "Londonistan," or London as the world capitol for exiled Islamic groups (Phillips 2006).  British security is hamstrung by British multiculturalism, or a politically correct or sensitive approach to the jihadist threat.  For example, police are not to enter Muslim houses with police dogs or with shoes on.  British willingness to prosecute or extradite terrorists has also wavered.  England’s veil controversy (whether allowing women to wear a veil or not) is a touchstone issue for Muslims worldwide.

FRANCE
    The French don't seem to care much about their long and rich history, and can be said to have a "live for today" attitude for the most part.  Like much of Europe and maybe more, the country is technologically sophisticated.  A strong presidency is the form of government, born out of France's long, terrible, and indelible experience with their last colony in the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962) which was a protracted guerilla war.  Since then, France has tried to be security-conscious, but has been distracted with space systems and other technological marvels, such as supersonic airplanes and high-speed railways.  French cinema (movies), TV shows, and artwork are profitable, but their main economic power lies in food and drink.  The French have differences (a transatlantic "cultural gap") with the West on many issues such as the death penalty, abortion, gun control and religion.  They think their justice and anti-terrorism methods are superior.  Basically, the French look for ways to manage social problems, rather than eliminate them.  Association with wrong-doers has always been a crime in France; French police are usually quite persistent; and France relies heavily on HUMINT (infiltration and clever interrogation of suspects) to uproot terrorist networks within the context of wide criminal dragnets.  French intelligence and counterintelligence are good.  Complex French intelligence systems are what enabled France to hold onto its empire so long into the 20^th Century.  France is also good at denial and deception, and often pits the leaders of foreign nations against one another.  France has extensive experience with double agents, resistance movements, maquis units, assassination operations, and using attractive women (honey traps) as bait.  France has problems dealing with insurgency movements.  Besides Algeria, the worst insurgency they faced was in Vietnam before they turned it over to the Americans.  While normally sedate, the French can overreact.  For example, in 1985, they sunk a Greenpeace ship for no apparent reason while it was docked in New Zealand.  France engages in industrial espionage, and has reportedly infiltrated IBM, Texas Instruments, and other companies. French agents have been suspected of stealing electronic and military secrets from other countries.  It is said every top business executive in France is monitored closely.

    An unique French institution is the French Foreign Legion, an 8,000-man strong, disposable, mercenary force made up largely of foreigners willing and able to go anywhere and intervene to protect French interests.  They wear green berets and are considered part of the French Army, but do separate deployments and conduct counterinsurgency operations.  Legionnaires can choose to enlist under a pseudonym, allowing them to turn over a new leaf in their lives if they want.  The main French counterintelligence agency, the DST (Directorate of Surveillance of the Territory), has unusual expertise on terrorism because France has for decades been facing attacks from Arab groups (such as an Algerian faction called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat). The DST works closely with both Israeli and Arab intelligence services. It has been credited with being able to disrupt some planned al Qaeda operations. In March 1998, for example, authorities broke up a cell that was planning to bomb the World Cup soccer matches that summer in France. The DST worked with its European allies to break up another Islamic cell in Frankfurt that was planning an attack during the Christmas holidays in 2000 in Strasbourg, home of the European parliament. And in September 2001, the French worked with other nations to bust a plot to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Paris.  France has a real problem with terrorism because of its liberal policy of granting asylum to just about anybody.  The Muslim population, for example, is about 5 million, consisting of "old" immigrants (French Muslims) who have assimilated into the wine-drinking culture, and "new" immigrants who hold fundamentalist, quasi-terrorist beliefs.  Protests are not uncommon in France, and issues of immigration and discrimination were behind the October and November 2005 Civil Unrest in France where rioting and roving gangs of youth terrorized most of Paris.  Government officials deny that Islamic sentiments had anything to do with the riots, but other observers have called it the start of a "French Intifada" aimed at creating some jihadist conception of "Eurabia."

GERMANY
    The history of Germany is very complicated.  It's probably best to start with 1848 when the country's German Empire (Reich or military leadership) began.  Prussia (a mini-kingdom in the city of Konigsberg) provided the model, and the famous Otto von Bismarck, along with Wilhelm Stieber, created an intelligence system so well organized that even lowly prostitutes were given rank based on sexual abilities. At one time, Prussia was the most powerful nation on Earth, and the German Empire extended from the Baltics to Italy. The Germans briefly experimented with democracy (the Weimar Republic from 1918 to 1933), but then Hitler came to power.  After Hitler, the country was divided into two halves until the Berlin Wall fell and the nation was reunified in 1990.  During the 1968-1977 period, the country was terrorized by a relatively famous group known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang which glamorized terrorism for awhile, at least among self-styled, college-educated, hippie revolutionaries.  

   The Germans have good technology, weapons systems, and bench strength.  Hitler's Nazi Germany succeeded because of technology, strong-arm tactics, and ruthlessness. The SS, organized under Himmler, and the Gestapo, organized under Reinhard Heydrich, regularly practiced having their agents kill one another in order to establish credibility among the groups they infiltrated.  Heydrich, the "blond beast," was the mastermind behind the "final solution" to exterminate the Jews.  The Germans think they are quite good at propaganda, diplomacy, hard power, and soft power.  Germany has a far-reaching conception of its defense interests (the so-called "Struck Doctrine") and is rather quick to join multinational forces on counterterror missions. 

    At one time, Berlin was the spy center of all of Europe.  The East German Stasi (called Stasi: Ministry for State Security)  The Stasi were a very large organization in the 60s and 70s, and often used sex as a weapon, bugging confessional booths, and sending handsome young men, called "Romeos" to NATO bases to charm secretaries. The last of these "secretary-spies" was released in 1990.  Remnants of Stasi are all but totally replaced nowadays.  The legacy of the Nazis and Stasi have complicated efforts to introduce good anti-terrorism laws because Germany wants to learn some lessons from those years.

    Today, numerous self-made terrorist cells exist in Germany along with a number of self-made hackers, and in some ways, the country is still seen (as it was by the 9/11 attackers) as a safe place to plot terrorism.  Lebanese university students have been caught preparing bomb plots.  Other German rogues have been caught preparing to target U.S. interests.  Many types of terrorism go unabated, such as domestic terrorism and cyberterrorism.  German hackers are considered some of the best in the world, but so are the police.  Germany's GSG-9 is a top counterterrorism group and regular winners of the World SWAT Challenge.  Currently, Germany struggles with the civil liberties issues of putting together a terrorism database which would tell them how many Muslim extremists (like the 9/11 plotters) are living in their country.  Contemporary German law is tolerant on some things, but tough on other things.  Profiling, for example, is an acceptable tool of law enforcement, but must be used in combination with probable cause.  Search and seizure is commonplace, but asset forfeiture is not.  Eavesdropping of private homes is allowed but only when there is a "concrete danger."  In short, a strange and complex mixture of antiterrorism efforts.       

IRELAND
    Irish terrorism is, of course, well-known and discussed elsewhere (see Religious Terrorism lecture), but what may be surprising to the reader is that jihadist cells exist in Ireland. Their "discovery" in 2006 has been chronicled by the Irish blogger Tom Carew, and both Irish police (Garda) and the Irish military (G-2) know that Dublin (site of the 1974 bombings) not only has lots of native support for al-Qaeda but is headquarters for al-Qaeda's "Europe Fatwa."  To some, native support is not unexpected since many Irish were Nazi sympathizers during WWII, quite a few received terrorist training back in the IRA days (1916-1994), and many Irish hate Israel, siding with the Palestinians in the Middle East struggle. There are significant Irish-Hama ties, and IRA snipers have long been employed by Palestinian groups. In Dublin, one can find Muslim madrassas cranking out hate propaganda, and thanks to extensive funding from Saudi and Gulf state charities, mosques and madrassas are being built rapidly throughout Ireland.  EU and African immigration are up, and the government is very liberal. The broadcast media is also leftish, but the print media less so. Trinity College regularly hosts well-known terrorist supporters as speakers.  Some opinion polls show that as many as 15% of the Irish are al Qaeda sympathizers.  The world's intelligence services often find Irish passports in jihadist circles, many of which are forged (new Irish passports have RFID chips).  A major terrorist financing group, Mercy International Relief Agency (a now-defunct bin Laden-sponsored front), was headquartered in Ireland.  The FBI connected "20th hijacker" Zacarias ("Please Teach Me How to Steer, and Forget About Takeoffs and Landings") Moussaoui to an al Qaeda cell located in the "Donnybrook" suburb of Dublin near a mosque. The major civil rights issue related to Irish counterterrorism has to do with privacy and data protection rights since almost everything in Ireland (telephone calls, emails, internet access) is recorded and logged via mass surveillance laws where government officials are allowed to easily view records for three years without a court order.

NETHERLANDS
    As one of the more multiculturalism-oriented countries in Europe, it should come as no surprise that areas of the Netherlands have come to tolerate rule by Sharia and not Dutch law.  Bawer (2006) writes on this subject, as well as the whole European habit of appeasing Muslim immigrants, the "Eurabia" thesis (Ye'Or 2005) that the Scandinavian blogger, Fjordman has expanded upon, and "dhimmization" in general (see DhimmiWatch).  Dutch counterterrorism has tried to improve intelligence sharing between the 26 police forces, the military, and the General Intelligence and Security Service of the Netherlands (AIVD).  Dutch counterterrorism policy relies upon a wide-range approach to asymmetric warfare.  This means that the Dutch consider all sorts of ways to frustrate a terrorist plot.  For example, the Dutch can be tough on financial counterterrorism, but tolerant on dissent and protest, but it all depends on the situation.  The Dutch try hard to fight intolerance with tolerance, or protect tolerance from intolerance (the latter being the official party line).  Following a 2004 incident, the Dutch sentenced to life the 28-year old confessed Islamic murderer of film maker Theo van Gogh (the great-great-grandson of Vincent van Gogh and considered Netherland's Michael Moore), but in 2005, the Dutch were unable to win a trial against an 18-year old extremist plotting to blow up Amsterdam airport, government buildings and a nuclear reactor.

SPAIN
    Spain practiced all the usual tradecraft for years until it finally modernized and reformed its Francoist organizations in 1977.  The principal intelligence agency is the Higher Defense Intelligence Center (Centro Superior de Informacion de la Defensa--CESID), which is supplemented (like the pattern found in many Spanish-speaking countries) with special, plainclothes, police services.  Considerable emphasis is given to internal security problems (particularly the Basque ETA), but Spain also has a history of involvement in the Middle East and North Africa (e.g., the GIA and al-Qaeda in Algeria and Morocco).  Spanish intelligence collaborates with U.S. intelligence, the Israeli Mossad, and France.  Security leaks are common. Spanish counterinsurgency operations tend to be humanitarian-oriented, and counterterrorist operations tend to focus on disrupting the flow of materials and/or following the money.  Spain has a Spanish Legion similar to the French Foreign Legion.  The reconquering of Spain is important to radical Islam since Spain was under Islam's domain for 800 years (see interview with Spain's expert on Islamic terrorism and author of The Jihad in Spain, Gustavo de Aristegui at A Fatwa in Spain).

    Many experts consider Spain the European hub of operations for al-Qaeda.  Syrian fugitives and others regularly hideout in Spain.  The Spanish passport system is not hard to penetrate. An unknown terrorist group carried out the March 11, 2004 Madrid train bombings (also known as 3/11 or M-11).  Sympathy for the Spanish people poured in from everywhere, but three days after the attacks, the presiding Spanish government was defeated in an election, bringing the Socialist party to power. A peace movement subsequently took place, and in short, Spain caved into terrorism, and one of the first actions of the new government was to pull its troops out of Iraq.  This has taught terrorists to rachet up their activity during election periods.  Spanish authorities initially thought the bombings were the work of Basque terrorists, but the explosives were not the type used by the ETA, and a stolen van parked outside the rail station contained tapes of the Koran.  The current Spanish government has not, of course, blamed al-Qaeda, but most Western experts definitely think it was them, but less definitely think there is any significance to the 30-month cycle (between 9/11 and 3/11) of major al-Qaeda attacks.                          

EASTERN EUROPE

    The international community has never really had much influence over events in Eastern Europe. This is because of ironclad Soviet influence, the existence of age-old territorial disputes like the Balkan conflicts, and Western neglect. Unlike other parts of the world where governments seem to come and go, Eastern Europe suffers from the opposite problem of entrenched, authoritarian governments. The Internet, for example, is not allowed in many Eastern European nations, and also noticeable is the lack of telephone service. Torture and being held without trial are somewhat common, especially in places like Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Krygyzstan where the courts are unlike anything found elsewhere in the world. The government of Kazakhstan may very well be the most repressive government in the world. As in other parts of Eastern Europe, people are regularly rounded up and held in "detention centers." Whole villages and cities are razed and burned to the ground.  Minority religious and ethnic groups suffer widespread persecution, even in liberal countries like Croatia, Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia, and Slovakia. Law enforcement in Eastern Europe simply does not investigate nor care much about crimes against minorities, with exceptions.  For example, the Czech Republic is one of the more stable and modern places in Europe.  The people there have always prided themselves on being better than the Germans and even the Soviets who occupied them for many years.  Prague, however, has always been one of Europe's spy capitals, and Czech handguns are famous for being exported to third world trouble spots.  In general, governments of Eastern Europe are mainly interested in keeping Muslim fundamentalism and minority ethnic tensions from flaring up.  

    An interesting group of people who seem to populate many trouble spots in Eastern Europe are the gypsies, who prefer to be called Roma since they have their own language (Romany) and have been persecuted as outsiders for 500 years. They emigrated from India between the ninth and 14th centuries and settled mostly in Central Europe, mostly around Germany until Hitler exterminated roughly 600,000 of them. The majority (80%) today are in Bulgaria, and to a lesser extent, in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, but they number 12 million worldwide. They frequently protest for their civil rights around Europe and elsewhere because they are victims of ethnic hate crime by drownings and beatings, and are regularly denied access to educational systems. To learn more, visit the European Roma Rights Center.

    ALBANIA, which was either part of the Iron Curtain or not, depending upon historical sources, is often claimed to be a staging locale for CIA operations in Eastern Europe, but the truth is that the country is the target of much international assistance, primarily EU assistance in the form of PAMECA.  Technically a democracy after throwing off communism in 1990, Albania suffers from the problem of gangsterism, which is neither terrorist nor extremist, but simply a tendency toward entrenched organized crime.  Albania is also a common transshipment point for drug and people smuggling.  Albanian narco-traffickers operate throughout Europe.  Besides having the worst telephone system in all of Europe, Albania ranks as having the worst crime problem in all of Europe.

    ARMENIA versus AZERBAIJAN is one of the world's hottest hot spots (Strauss 2006). Back in 1924 when Russia occupied the area, it created an autonomous region called Nagorno-Karabakh on the border between the two countries, and even though the region was 94% Armenian, it eventually became part of Azerbaijan.  Since 1988, the two countries have been fighting over it.  Armenia supports ethnic secessionists there who are primarily Christian and want to secede from predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan.  The Azerbaijanis have responded with targeting killings and blockades to control the two-way refugee problem.  The Armenians have responded with military incursions, looting, and burning.  The-once "silicon valley" of Eastern Europe is now a war-ravaged region where the indigenous people want nothing to do anymore with either side.  The ongoing territorial dispute is mediated by a group known as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), perhaps the only international entity which recognizes the de facto Republic of Nargono-Karabakh, which today is mostly under Armenian military control.  Armenia also has territorial claims against Turkey, and the border is often closed between those two countries.  The U.S. supports Azerbaijan somewhat in this region, primarily because after 9/11, Azerbaijan helped provide the U.S. with airspace and intelligence.

    BALKANS (aka Southeastern Europe, Yugoslavia being an indisputable part, see Wikipedia physiographics): The three main groups making up Yugoslavia were the Serbs (10 million), Croats (5 million), and Bosniaks (4 million).  For many years, Yugoslavia was effectively run by a Croat leader named Josip Tito, but then around 1986, a Serb named Slobodan Milosevic rose to power with expansionist designs for a Greater Serbia, which triggered the Yugoslav Wars between 1990 and 2002.  To unite all Serbs, Slobodan Milosevic drummed up "ethnic hatred," along with his wife, Mirjana Markovic, a hardline Marxist sociologist who still exerts great influence in the region.  Slovenia (a country on the other side of Croatia) was the first breakaway, and fought a 10-day war in 1991 to achieve independence.  Milosevic did not care much about Slovenia, but he did care about Slavonia, a region in Croatia with a heavy Serb population.  When Croatia refused to give up the Slavonia region, the Croatian War (1991-1995) erupted, which was noteworthy for its brutality on both sides, but the Croats eventually forced the Serbs to retreat into Bosnia-Herzegovina where the Bosnian War (1992-1995) had started.  In Bosnia, the ethnic hatred was even more intense, and the main city of Sarajevo came under seige.  Reports of genocide and ethnic cleansing existed, and NATO stepped up militarily with Operation Deliberate Force in 1995, which soon resulted in a peace accord.  Meanwhile, a third major war erupted in Kosovo, a province in southern Serbia.  The Kosovo War (1996-1999) was actually two wars, the first a civil war between Serbian security forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army, and the second between Serbs and NATO.  In this province, the Serbs used rape and murder to "cleanse" the area of Kosovar Albanians.  In the aftermath of the Yugoslav Wars, somewhat effective progress was made toward the extensive refugee problem, as well as with an International War Crimes Tribunal which established many precedents in international law.  The status of Kosovo remains unresolved; formally it is still part of Serbia, but is more like a permanent U.N. protectorate.  Elections do not tend to go well in the region, with political violence sometimes flaring up over something as simple as voter registration.  Many problems remain, not the least of which involve Muslim terrorist groups (numerous Islamic Liberation Fronts or Armies) operate throughout the region in hopes of freeing some of their people in jail.

    BELARUS, a former Soviet country north of Ukraine surrounding the town of Minsk, is run by one of world's worst dictators, Alexander Lukashenko ("the last dictator in Europe"), but the country, by all indicators, is the world's one and only "success story" of a planned socialist economy.  A fixer of elections and jailer of oppositionists, Lukashenko's human rights record is so bad, he's banned from travel anywhere in Europe.  He is an admirer of Stalin and nostalgic for the days of old Soviet-style rule.  One of his acts involved paving over the graves of 250,000 victims of Stalin.  He frequently calls anyone who disagrees with him a "terrorist" or member of the "mafia."  His police state is quite extensive, supported by KGB agents (they are still called that there).  Russia is Belarus' chief ally, and Lukashenko has vowed never to allow anything like an Orange Revolution occur which brought a peaceful conclusion to election protests in Ukraine.

    MOLDOVIA is a bit difficult to understand without extensive knowledge of geography. Although maps don't reflect it, there is an eastern half of Moldovia (some territory in the Ukraine which Russia has always referred to as Bessarabia), and there is a western half of Moldova (united with Romania and called Moldava in English).  Romania is relevant here because there is also a western part of the Ukraine called Bukovina which is also typical of the ongoing ethnic tensions in the region.  The eastern half of Ukraine is what you see on most maps as the country of Moldova.  In 1991-92, a vicious civil war erupted (between ethnic Russians and ethnic Romanians) in the northeastern corner of Moldova near the Dniestr River (an area known as Transdniestr or Transnistria).  Transdniestr (the ethnic Russians) managed to win that war and form the officially unrecognized state of Transdniestr Republic (TDR) which is the only well-off place in all of poverty-stricken Moldova, but TDR is also a mafia-ridden place where anything goes -- drug trafficking, human trafficking, and weapons trafficking.  Many experts believe TDR is the place where 24 Russian nuclear warheads went missing.

    RUSSIA (aka Russian Federation) is now an independent country still twice the size of Canada and an influential member of the 12-nation Commonwealth of Independent States, an organization set up to allow a "civilized divorce" from the former Soviet Union and a slow "driftward West" if a member state wants that.  The CIS is not a confederation nor security organization, but rather has some unique features similar to the European Union.  Russia's biggest contribution to European thought has long been the Stalinist "cult of personality" idea that the best leader is an authoritarian leader.  Russia's present concerns are with three ongoing conflicts: Chechnya, Georgia, and Dagestan.  President Putin has called the Chechen rebels "bastards" and "child killers," and most of the world agrees that the al-Qaeda-connected Chechen rebels are terrorists.  Chechnya borders Dagestan to the southeast and Georgia to the southwest.  Georgia is the main dividing line between Turkey and Russia, so it's a natural transit point for just about anything, and the Russians police it heavy, monitoring for any Muslim extremists who might try to transit.  Georgia has also become a very strategic place as major oil pipelines have been laid across the country.

    TURKEY versus GREECE and the island of CYPRUS:  The story goes like this -- the island of Cyprus ("where East meets West") was a British colony before a Greek insurgency group known as EOKA (National Organization of Cypriot Fighters) liberated it from British rule.  In 1971, the insurgency group morphed into EOKA-B and in 1974 launched a coup designed to achieve union, or enosis, with Greece.  Rioting erupted, and five days later, Turkey sent in troops to protect Turkish Cypriots.  Turkey eventually came to occupy the northern part of the island, and the Greek Cypriot community held the southern part.  The U.S. refused to intervene, but the U.N. did, and partitioned the island into North and South.  Turkey continues to station troops there, along with thousands of U.N. peacekeepers patrolling a buffer zone.  Southern (Greek) Cyprus is recognized as a separate EU country, but Turkey only recognizes the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus."  Resolution of the Cyprus issue is a central controversy with Turkey's accession to membership in the EU.  The U.S. plays both sides of the issue, and although no terrorism has sprung out of Cyprus, the area remains a festering site of long-held grievances, attracts more than its fair share of international attention, and is generally a place where "anything goes" including prostitution, drugs, money laundering, illegal business transactions, and fraud.  Turkey has its hands full with maintaining good relations with the U.S., obsessing over EU membership, being obstinate over the Cyprus issue as well as another territorial issue regarding Iraqi Kurdistan which has spawned terrorism in the form of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) and Turkish Hezbollah (no relation to the Hezbollah in Lebanon).   

    GREECE is a major tourist nation which has traditionally been a place of high emigration, but today (because uncontrollable immigration outpaces emigration), it serves as more of a breeding ground for terrorism.  Prostitution is also legal there.  Foreigners come and go so frequently that it is nearly impossible to monitor everyone's movements.  Drug smugglers, for example, can operate fairly freely, and Greece has been a major tourist resort for Latin American drug lords.  By 2004 (just in time for the Olympics), Greece finally seemed able to come to grips with its three-decades-old problem of homegrown terrorism in the form of November 17, an anti-globalization, anti-capitalist, anti-American terrorist group.  This particular revolutionary group, also known known as 17N (or N17) is now defunct, having been "eradicated" by Greek authorities in 2002 with multiple life sentences handed out to four members the following year.  The group took it's name from the final day of a student uprising back in 1973 which was put down harshly by Greek authorities and followed by a military dictatorship supported by the USA (this being the source of anti-Americanism in Greece).  In 2007, a spinoff group emerged, calling itself Revolutionary Struggle, and there are other, more obscure spinoff groups such as Popular Revolutionary Action as well as other defunct or inactive groups such as Revolutionary Nuclei and Epanastatikos Laikos Agonas (ELA), ELA and 17N being the two main umbrella groups for all Greek terrorists (MIPT's database at Terrorism Knowledge Base (START Database containing the full list of all Greek terrorist groups).  It would not be all that misleading to say that Greek terrorists are still fighting a lot of "hippie" causes from the sixties.       

    Endnote: The five (5) Islamic republic "Stans" are Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Kyrgyzstan, and each of them, in their own ways, are seeking their own identities, but only three of them (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) are gas-producing.  China and Russia are making more inroads into the region than the U.S. is, primarily because of U.S. animosity towards Iran.  These countries are more extensively discussed in the Asia area lecture, and only the briefest depiction is provided here.  What all five (5) nations have in common are corrupt dictatorships, extensive unemployment and poverty, few civil liberties, little rule of law, and strong Islamic fundamentalism.  The Stans have, in fact, long been Islamic, but traditionally of a more secular form of Islam.  More radical fundamentalism is growing in the region, and there are environmental catastrophes waiting to happen.  For example, in Tajikistan a giant lake 50 miles long exists atop an earthen dam originally created by an earthquake in 1911, and experts predict the next big earthquake will unleash flood waters which will kill millions.  In Kazakhstan, a Soviet-abandoned biological weapons lab exists which many experts say is inadequately secured by its present custodians.  Also, throughout Kazakhstan and in other Stans, the former Soviet Union regularly dumped radioactive debris in pits and just bulldozed it over.  This makes for an easily accessible source of dirty bomb material for any terrorist group so inclined.

INTERNET RESOURCES
State Dept. Counterterrorism Office Area Overviews
ABCNews.com's Country Profiles
CIA World Factbook
Counterterrorism in the Netherlands (pdf)
Effectiveness of French Counterterrorism
Electronic Embassy
European Internet Network Regional News
European Security Strategy Against Terrorism
Evidence the Paris Riots were the French Intifada
Germany's Role in Fighting Terror (pdf)
Global Conflicts Overview
Library of Congress Country Studies
Marshall European Center for Security Studies
Nationmaster Crime and Illicit Drug Database
Patterns of Global Terrorism: Europe Overview
State Department Travel Advisories
Wikipedia: French Foreign Legion & Spanish Foreign Legion
Wikipedia: Northern Ireland

PRINTED RESOURCES
Alexander, Y. & Pluchinsky, D. (Eds.) (1992). European terrorism: Today and tomorrow. Washington DC: Brasseys.
Bawer, B. (2006). While Europe slept: How radical Islam is destroying the West from within. NY: Doubleday.
Calleo, D. & R. Leone (2001) Rethinking Europe's future. NJ: Princeton.
Carpenter, T. (2000) NATO's empty victory. Washington: CATO.
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Last updated: Dec. 21, 2007
Not an official webpage of APSU, copyright restrictions apply, see Megalinks in Criminal Justice
O'Connor, T.  (Date of Last Update at bottom of page). In Part of web cited (Windows name for file at top of browser), MegaLinks in Criminal Justice. Retrieved from http://www.apsu.edu/oconnort/rest of URL accessed on today's date.