Terrorism in the Cold War: State Support in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Sphere of Influence

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Accounts of the relationships between states and terrorist organizations in the Cold War era have long been shaped by speculation, a lack of primary sources and even conspiracy theories. In the last few years, however, things have evolved rapidly. Using a wide range of case studies including the KGB's Abduction Program, Polish Military Intelligence and North Korea's 'Terrorism and Counterterrorism', this book sheds new light on the relations between state and terrorist actors, allowing for a fresh and much more insightful assessment of the contacts, dealings, agreements and collusion with terrorist organizations undertaken by state actors on both sides of the Iron Curtain. This book presents the current state of research and provides an assessment of the nature, motives, effects, and major historical shifts of the relations between individual states and terrorist organizations. The articles collected demonstrate that these state-terrorism relationships were not only much more ambiguous than much of the older literature had suggested but are, in fact, crucial for the understanding of global political history in the Cold War era.

Reviews

This book offers a distinctive and thorough perspective on terrorism during the Cold War era through case study analysis as well as access to unique historical material. * Frederic Lemieux, Professor, Georgetown University *
Overall, the two volumes of Terrorism in the Cold War represent an important ontological contribution to our understanding of why and how state interact and, in some cases, create alliances with violent non-state actors. The volumes of essay will be of interest to all those looking to appreciate the complexity of state-terrorist relations and grasp the paradoxes born out of these liaisons ... By using new evidence to reconnect the dots on state-terrorist relations, these essays help us rethink what we know about the international history of terrorism as well as the Cold War * Intelligence & National Security *

Author Bio

Adrian Hnni is Lecturer for Political History at Distance Learning University, Switzerland. He was previously postdoctoral fellow at University of Leiden and Lecturer in History at Univesity of Zurich. He holds a PhD from University of Zurich. Thomas Riegler is an Affiliate Researcher at the Austrian Centre for Intelligence, Propaganda and Security Studies at the University of Graz. He is a member of the Editorial Board for the academic journal Perspectives on Terrorism. Przemyslaw Gasztold is a research fellow at the Historic Research Office of the Institute of National Remembrance in Warsaw. He received his Ph.D. from Warsaw University in 2016.