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Dr. Tawfik Hamid is Chair for the Study of Islamic Radicalism at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. In a recent interview with Voice of America, he reacted to the strong showing by an Islamic political party, Ennahda, in the recent Tunisian elections. Dr. Hamid says while the results are interesting, alarm is not warranted. “When you put radicalism on a scale of zero to ten, ten is Taliban and Al Qaeda, and I put Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt at a level five, for example. But the Ennahda Party may be only one or two,” he told VOA. Click here to read the article in full.
Ben Sheppard, PhD, is a terrorism analyst, an Academic Fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, and the author of The Psychology of Strategic Terrorism (Routledge, 2008). In an essay for a Government Security News series on national security since 9/11, Dr. Sheppard writes that the government's response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 may have inadvertently increased the public's fear, rather than alleviating it - and that ten years later, risk communication strategies are still falling short. Click here to read the article in full.
Potomac Institute for Policy Studies Senior Fellow Amb. David Smith, (Ret.), is a former US arms negotiator and a defense, foreign affairs, and international security expert who currently serves as Director of the Georgian Security Analysis Center in Tbilisi, Georgia. He also serves as US Member of the International Security Advisory Board. In an interview with Washington, DC's FOX-5 News, he addressed UNESCO's admission of Palestine as a member, the Obama administration's response to that move, and the ongoing international debate over Palestine's bid for acceptance in the United Nations. Click below to watch the interview in full.
The latest issue of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies' peer-reviewed journal, Synesis, features a provocative paper by Prof. James Giordano, PhD, and Rachel Wurzman, PhD(c), entitled Neurotechnologies as weapons in national intelligence and defense – An overview. In this paper, Prof. Giordano, who is Vice President for Academic Programs and Director of the Center for Neurotechnology Studies at the Potomac Institute, and Ms. Wurzman write, "While usually considered in medical contexts, many neurotechnologies may also be viably engaged as weapons. Such 'neuroweapons' are obviously of great interest in and to national security, intelligence and defense (NSID) endeavors, given both the substantial threat that these technologies pose to the defense integrity of the US and its allies, and the viability of these approaches in the US NSID armamentarium." Click here to read the paper in Synesis.
Read more: "Neuroweapons" Highlighted in Latest Issue of Synesis Journal
Prof. Yonah Alexander, PhD, is the Director of the Institute's International Center for Terrorism Studies. In an interview with Washington, DC's FOX-5 News, he commented on allegations that the Iranian government was behind a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador on US soil and to bomb the Saudi and Israeli embassies in the US and elsewhere. Click below to watch the interview in full.
US Ties Iran To Plot To Assassinate Saudi Ambassador: MyFoxDC.com