Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Established:	February 20, 2003
Affiliation:	United States Military Academy United States Military Academy The United States Military Academy at West Point is a four-year coeducational federal service academy located at West Point, New York. The academy sits on scenic high ground overlooking the Hudson River, north of New York City...
Chair:	General (Retired) John P. Abizaid
Director:	Lieutenant Colonel Reid Sawyer
Location:	Lincoln Hall, West Point, NY

The Combating Terrorism Center is an academic institution at the United States Military Academy

United States Military Academy

The United States Military Academy at West Point is a four-year coeducational federal service academy located at West Point, New York. The academy sits on scenic high ground overlooking the Hudson River, north of New York City...

 (USMA) in West Point, New York

West Point, New York

West Point is a federal military reservation established by President of the United States Thomas Jefferson in 1802. It is a census-designated place located in Town of Highlands in Orange County, New York, United States. The population was 7,138 at the 2000 census...

 that provides education, research and policy analysis in the specialty areas of terrorism

Terrorism

Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...

, counterterrorism, homeland security

Homeland security

Homeland security is an umbrella term for security efforts to protect states against terrorist activity. Specifically, is a concerted national effort to prevent terrorist attacks within the U.S., reduce America’s vulnerability to terrorism, and minimize the damage and recover from attacks that do...

 and weapons of mass destruction

Weapons of mass destruction

A weapon of mass destruction is a weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to a large number of humans and/or cause great damage to man-made structures , natural structures , or the biosphere in general...

. Established with private funding in 2003, it operates under the aegis of the Department of Social Sciences

Social sciences

Social science is the field of study concerned with society. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences usually exclusive of the administrative or managerial sciences...

 of the USMA.

History

At the time of the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001

September 11, 2001 attacks

The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...

, West Point's counterterrorism curriculum consisted of a single elective class. In order to fill this gap and provide greater educational resources in terrorism-related issues, the Academy welcomed the creation of the Combating Terrorism Center and included it in its Department of Social Sciences on February 20, 2003. Though thus a part of the United States Military Academy, the CTC was established with private funding and is an independent research group. Primary funding for the founding of the CTC was contributed by Vincent Viola, a 1977 graduate of the United States Military Academy and former chaiman of the New York Mercantile Exchange

New York Mercantile Exchange

The New York Mercantile Exchange is the world's largest physical commodity futures exchange. It is located at One North End Avenue in the World Financial Center in the Battery Park City section of Manhattan, New York City...

; significant initial support was also provided by Ross Perot

Ross Perot

Henry Ross Perot is a U.S. businessman best known for running for President of the United States in 1992 and 1996. Perot founded Electronic Data Systems in 1962, sold the company to General Motors in 1984, and founded Perot Systems in 1988...

, George Gilmore Jr. and Major (ret.) George Gilmore Sr. The Center's first Distinguished Chair was General (Retired) Wayne Downing until his death in 2007. General (Retired) John P. Abizaid, the former commander of Central Command, presently holds the Distinguished Chair. The current director, Major (P) Reid Sawyer, a founding member of the Center, returned to the Center in June 2008.

Research and Analysis Products

In addition to providing counterterrorism education, the CTC also regularly publishes a wide range of analyses and reports in its subject-specialty areas. Some of the most significant and large-scale of these research and analysis products are detailed below.

The Militant Ideology Atlas used citation analysis

Citation analysis

Citation analysis is the examination of the frequency, patterns, and graphs of citations in articles and books. It uses citations in scholarly works to establish links to other works or other researchers. Citation analysis is one of the most widely used methods of bibliometrics...

 to provide the first systematic mapping of the ideologues most influential in the global jihadi movement. Analyzing the most downloaded jihadi literature from one of al-Qa'ida's online libraries and cataloging more than 11,000 citations from these texts, the Militant Ideology Atlas found that the most influential living jihadi thinkers are not - as is commonly supposed - senior leaders of al-Qa'ida itself, but rather a handful of primarily Saudi and Jordanian clerics; the most widely-cited writer is the Palestinian-Jordanian Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi. The Atlas was published in November 2006.

Harmony Database Reports are works of analysis and policy recommendation produced by the CTC on the basis of documents declassified for this purpose by the Defense Department from the latter's Harmony Database, which houses al-Qa'ida-related documents captured throughout the world in the course of the War on Terror

War on Terror

The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...

. The CTC's first Harmony report, Harmony and Disharmony: Exploiting al-Qa'ida's Organizational Vulnerabilities, was published in February 2006 and, along with extensive analysis, made primary source documents from the Harmony Database available to the public for the first time. According to the CTC, Harmony and Disharmony "includes a theoretically informed analysis of potential opportunities to exploit al-Qa’ida’s network vulnerabilities, a case study of jihadi operational failure, and specific recommendations for effectively addressing the evolving al-Qa’ida threat."
The CTC's second major Harmony report focussed on the Horn of Africa

Horn of Africa

The Horn of Africa is a peninsula in East Africa that juts hundreds of kilometers into the Arabian Sea and lies along the southern side of the Gulf of Aden. It is the easternmost projection of the African continent...

. Released in May 2007 al-Qa'ida's (Mis)Adventures in the Horn of Africa provides a detailed picture of al-Qa'ida's efforts to establish itself in East Africa, what its successes and failures were in the region, and how conditions in weak and failed states affect the ability of jihadi groups to function. The report also included a second batch of declassified documents from the Harmony Database, with full English translations, and in-depth profiles of key figures and groups. The entire report can be downloaded here. The third Harmony report explores al-Qa'ida's internal conflicts over the course of its history. Released in October 2007, Cracks in the Foundation: Leadership Schisms in al-Qa'ida from 1989-2006, analyzes further declassified Harmony documents in order to tease out the issues that have divided al-Qa'ida's leadership and details the factions that have struggled for control of the organization.

Islamic Imagery Project published the first complete catalog of important, recurring images used in violent jihadi propaganda with explanations to enhance the understanding for students, teachers, and policy makers.

CTC Sentinel is a monthly, interdisciplinary journal that covers research and news. It is available here in the pdf file format: http://www.ctc.usma.edu/publications/sentinel