Overview

Understanding and harnessing the persuasive powers of narrative is central to U.S. and international counter-terrorism efforts. There is an urgent need to understand the narrative tactics of terrorist recruitment and an equal if not greater need to destabilize and exploit the weaknesses of those narratives. Maan makes a connection, unique to terrorism studies, between the mechanisms of colonizing narratives and psychological warfare aimed at the recruit. The power of both relies on misidentification, both types of narratives encourage individuals to take actions contrary to their best interests, and both are insidious: they are continued internally without the implementation of external physical force. While these narrative strategies have been powerful, Maan makes the argument, also unique to terrorism studies, that certain types of compositional structures lend themselves to manipulation and the weakness of those structures can be exploited from a security standpoint.

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Both in terms of its political urgency and the larger questions it raises between narrative and conflict, this work awakens a sense of: why hasn't this been talked about before? -- Cheyney Ryan, senior fellow at Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs This excellent work should be required reading for all involved in the non-kinetic end of counter-terrorism. After its read, we MUST employ these lessons as a part of a comprehensive multi-national effort that effectively supports the counter-terrorism effort. -- Paul Cobaugh, Information Operations, U.S. Army In a very real way, Dr. Maan has pushed the boundaries of colonial/post-colonial theory on deconstructing dominant and coercive discourses by enacting a counter-terrorist narrative and by proposing a new American narrative. -- M. Elise Marubbio, author of Killing the Indian Maiden: Images of Native American Women in Film

Author Information

Ajit Maan, Ph.D. is a security and defense policy analyst and a specialist in narrative strategies in radicalization processes. She is faculty at Union Institute and University's Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program as well as George Mason University's Center for Narrative Conflict Resolution, and is member of The Brain Trust of the Weaponized Narrative Initiative at Arizona State University. She is the author of Internarrative Identity: Placing the Self, Counter-Terrorism: Narrative Strategies, and Co-Editor of Soft Power on Hard Problems: Strategic Influence in Irregular Warfare. Her articles have appeared in Foreign Policy, The Strategy Bridge, Small Wars Journal, Real Clear Defense, Stars and Stripes, The Indian Defense Review, Indian Military Review, Defense and Intelligence Norway, and other policy and military strategy journals.

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