Title: Return of the Barbarians
Description: "Barbarians are back. These small, highly mobile, and stateless groups are no longer confined to the pages of history; they are a contemporary reality in groups such as the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and ISIL. Return of the Barbarians re-examines the threat of violent non-state actors throughout history, revealing key lessons that are applicable today. From the Roman Empire and its barbarian challenge on the Danube and Rhine, Russia and the steppes to the nineteenth-century Comanches, Jakub J. Grygiel shows how these groups have presented peculiar, long-term problems that could rarely be solved with a finite war or clearly demarcated diplomacy. To succeed and survive, states were often forced to alter their own internal structure, giving greater power and responsibility to the communities most directly affected by the barbarian menace. Understanding the barbarian challenge, and strategies employed to confront it, offers new insights into the contemporary security threats facing the Western world"--

"Barbarians are back. Small groups, even individuals, administering little or no territory, with minimal resources but with a long reach, are unfortunately on the front pages of newspapers because of their destructive fury. They harass and attack states from the streets of London, Paris and Barcelona to wider areas in the Middle East and elsewhere. They are not merely tragic and bloody nuisances but strategic actors that compete with existing states, forcing them to alter their behavior, their military postures, and even their domestic lifestyles. The various Islamist groups and individuals who over the past decade have presented in different ways a persistent threat to the United States and the West, as well as to states in other regions of the world, come immediately to mind. It would be certainly wrong to ignore the religious connotations of these groups, arising from the Islamic world, but it is equally dangerous to think that the conditions that are making these murderous groups possible are rooted exclusively in Islam. Barbarians are back because there are deep trends that bestow lethality, and thus a strategic role, to groups that do not need the vast administrative apparatus, the territory, and the skilled and rule-abiding citizenry of modern states"--
Subjects: International relations, Security, international, Political violence, Terrorism, History, Violence, Non-state actors (International relations)