Armed Groups - 2nd Edition by Peter G Thompson (Paperback)

About the Book

Armed Groups provides a framework for categorizing and analyzing a key threat to today's security arena-terrorists, mercenaries, insurgents, militias, and transnational criminal organizations. Understanding their goals, strategies, internal composition, and the environment tha...

Book Synopsis

Armed Groups­ provides a framework for categorizing and analyzing a key threat to today's security arena--terrorists, mercenaries, insurgents, militias, and transnational criminal organizations. Understanding their goals, strategies, internal composition, and the environment that fosters them is crucial to understand today's changing nature of war.

Review Quotes

Armed groups do not only exist in civil wars, but also have a huge influence on all aspects of contemporary international relations, politics, crime, and society. This book successfully balances between identifying core features across armed groups and an encyclopedic discussion of cases from around the world. In contrast to much research that is self-contained by narrowing in only on insurgents, terrorists, militias, commercial security actors, etc., Thompson shows that it is possible and beneficial for our understanding of political violence to focus on armed groups as the key analytical concept. This volume is an essential resource for anyone interested in international relations and current affairs including students, academics, specialists, and more general readership.

Thompson's Armed Groups is a comprehensive and essential resource for anyone wishing to engage in international conflict resolution. Its blend of academic depth and practical insights has been missing from scholarship to date, but is much needed as armed groups play an increasingly important role in conflicts worldwide. I will assign it in all of my classes and recommend it to mediators and peacebuilders everywhere.

About the Author

Peter G. Thompson is a Professor of International Security Studies in the College of International Security Affairs at the National Defense University in Washington, DC. He has developed and taught a wide range of International Relations and International Security courses at the undergraduate and graduate level. Peter also teaches in Georgetown University's Security Studies Program and prior to joining the faculty at NDU taught at UCLA, Loyola Marymount University, and Michigan State University. His research has been published in Security Studies, Asian Security, and the Annual Review of Political Science.