Well, the Third Generation of the Global Jihad has landed smack dab back in the middle of the news. First off, apologies for my absence here on D&D -- finals landed pretty hard here at the Fletcher School, and I am only now coming out from under. The news about Faisal Shazhad should have been enough to jar me from my work, and back to blogging, but what can I say. Anyway, in the hopes of starting a discussion of Global Jihadi radicalization in the west (and some blatant self-promotion) here is the conclusion of my most recent paper on the subject. The paper (currently titled "Getting to Boom") seeks to analyze and synthesize the current theories and frameworks explaining self-starter radicalization.

I do hope to be adding more pertinent context vis-a-vis the Times Square "wanna-bomber", but for now, here is my valiant attempt of doing two things at once -- paper writing and blogging:

Conclusions and Today's Threat Environment:

Many scholars, social psychologists, and counter-terror analysts have sought to accurately describe the process of radicalization that transforms a Western citizen to shahid...