Conference opinions: The Foreign Fighter Problem [videos]
From the conference report:
FPRI’s Program on National Security held a conference on the foreign fighter problem, July 14-15, 2009, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Michael Horowitz, Michael P. Noonan, Mackubin Thomas Owens, Harvey Sicherman, and Stephanie Kaplan served as panel moderators. Nearly 100 individuals from academia, government, NGOs, the media, the military, and the public attended, and another 180 individuals from around the world participated by webcast. Audio and video files of the proceedings are posted on FPRI’s website at www.fpri.org/research/nationalsecurity/foreignfighters.
Summary: On the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines have confronted third-party national combatants. Known as “foreign fighters,” these individuals have gained deadly skills and connections that can be exported or exploited to devastating effect in other locations. Over the past two decades this foreign fighters phenomenon has grown after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 to the ethnically cleansed fields of the Balkans to Chechnya and beyond. But this is not a new problem. This conference brought together recognized academic and analytical expertise in order to not only delve into the foreign fighter problem, but also to recommend prescriptive advice on how to deal with this issue into the future.
Read entire article at Foreign Policy Research Institute
Summary: On the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines have confronted third-party national combatants. Known as “foreign fighters,” these individuals have gained deadly skills and connections that can be exported or exploited to devastating effect in other locations. Over the past two decades this foreign fighters phenomenon has grown after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 to the ethnically cleansed fields of the Balkans to Chechnya and beyond. But this is not a new problem. This conference brought together recognized academic and analytical expertise in order to not only delve into the foreign fighter problem, but also to recommend prescriptive advice on how to deal with this issue into the future.
Conference videos:
The Foreign Fighter Phenomenon – Overview Foreign Fighters and Sovereignty Case Study: Syria and the Foreign Fighter Problem