Improvised Explosive Devices : The Paradigmatic Weapon of New Wars

149 Pages·2016·2.19 MB·English

by  James Revill (auth.)

IMPROVISED
EXPLOSIVE
DEVICES
The Paradigmatic
Weapon of New Wars
James Revill
Improvised Explosive Devices

James   Revill
Improvised Explosive
Devices
The Paradigmatic Weapon of New Wars
James   Revill
University of Sussex
Brighton, United Kingdom
ISBN 978-3-319-33833-0 ISBN 978-3-319-33834-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-33834-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016947463
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A
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This case study was funded by a grant from the Economic and Social
Research Council (ESRC)/Dstl Science and Security Programme. It
forms part of a wider project on the “Strategic Governance of Science
and Technology Pathways to Security” [ES/K011324/1] that was led
by Professor Mary Kaldor and awarded jointly to the London School of
Economics and Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex.
The author would like to thank Alexander Ghionis for insightful com-
ments and taking the time to read over the text and check; Roger Davies
for the advice and the provision of a wealth of information on his blog
“standing well back”, which is thoroughly recommended for those inter-
ested in such topics; Michael Kearney for advice on legal issues; and Adrian
Smith for insights into Grass Roots innovation. Additional thanks go to
Caitriona McLeish, Sam Vincent, Maya Brehm, Steve Johnson, Geneviève
Schméder, Paul Nightingale, Stuart Gordon, Tom McCutcheon, Peter
Pringle, Kai Ilchmann, and several individuals at Dstl for providing advice
on specifi c micro case studies or comments over the course of the project.
This would not have been possible without the support and advice of
Professors Julian Perry Robinson and Mary Kaldor, and I am very grateful
to both.
v

C
ONTENTS
1 From the Gunpowder Revolution to Dynamite Terrorism 1
Gunpowder Goes West 3
Early Post-Independence America 8
The Crimean War 9
The American Civil War 9
2 Dynamite Terrorism and the Fin de Siècle 1 9
Diffusions of Materials and Technology 20
Explosives Information 2 0
Explosives Training 21
Socio-Economic Context and the Failure of Insurrection 2 2
Extreme Irish Nationalists 2 3
Narodnaya Volya 25
Anarchists 27
3 IEDs in the Twentieth Century 3 5
Second World War 3 7
States and IEDs 39
Afghanistan and the Soviet Invasion 41
Northern Ireland and “the Troubles” 43
Middle East 46
Sri Lanka 48
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viii CONTENTS
4 IEDs in “New Wars” 5 9
Afghanistan 60
Iraq 63
Syria 66
Use of IEDs Outside Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria 6 7
5 The Diffusion and Adoption of IED Technology 77
Relative Advantage 79
Complexity 81
Compatibility 83
Trialability 86
Observability 87
6 Strategic Governance of IEDs 9 1
Political Interest 93
Legal Measures 94
Export Controls 9 7
Material Control and Modifi cation 9 8
Information Management 100
CIED Efforts and Forensics 1 02
Engagement 102
S tigmatisation 103
Conclusions: IED Futures from Past 111
Bibliography 1 15
Index 1 31
A A
BOUT THE UTHOR
James Revill is a Research Fellow with the Harvard Sussex Program,
Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), University of Sussex. Over the
course of completing his PhD on the evolution of the Biological Weapons
Convention with the University of Bradford, he worked as a consultant to
the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research and completed
research fellowships with the Landau Network Centro Volta in Italy and
the Bradford Disarmament Research Centre in the UK. Revill’s research
interests focus on the interplay between science and security.
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