Ch. 6- Military Force & Terrorism Flashcards
Foot soldiers who use assault rifles and other light weapons
Infantry
An effort to combat guerrilla armies
Counterinsurgency
Concealed explosive devices, often left behind by irregular armies, that kill or maim civilians after wars end
Landmines
The ability to use military force in areas far from a country’s region
Power projection
Use of the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves, radar, infrared, etc) in war
Electronic warfare
The use of special radar-absorbent materials and unusual shapes in the design of aircraft, missiles, and ships to scatter enemy radar
Stealth technology
The use of terrorist groups by states, usually under control of a state’s intelligence agency, to achieve political aims
State-sponsored terrorism
Nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, all distinguished from conventional weapons by their enormous potential lethality and their relative lack of discrimination in whom they kill
Weapons of mass destruction
The elements uranium-235 and plutonium, whose atoms split apart and release energy via a chain reaction when an atomic bomb explodes
Fissionable material
The major strategic delivery vehicle for nuclear weapons; it carries a warhead along a trajectory and lets it drop on the target
Ballistic missiles
The longest-range ballistic missiles, able to travel 5,000 miles
Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM)
A set of agreements through which industrialized states try to limit the flow of missile-relevant technology to third world states
Missile Technology Control Regime
An agreement that bans the production and possession of chemical weapons and includes strict verification provisions and the threat of sanctions against villagers and non participants in the treaty
Chemical Weapons Convention (1992)
An agreement that prohibits the development, production, and possession of biological weapons but makes no provision for inspections
Biological Weapons Convention (1972)
The spread of weapons of mass destruction into the hands of more actors
Proliferation
A treaty that created a framework for controlling the spread of nuclear materials and expertise
Non-Proliferation Treaty
A UN agency based in Vienna that is charged with inspecting the nuclear power industry in NPT member states to prevent secret military diversions of nuclear materials
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
The possession of second-strike nuclear capabilities, which ensures that neither of two adversaries could prevent the other from destroying it in an all-out war
Mutually assured destruction
A US effort, also known as Star Wars, to develop defenses that could shoot down incoming ballistic missiles, spurred by Ronald Reagan in 1983
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)
A treaty that prohibited either the US or the Soviet Union from using a ballistic missile defense as a shield, which would have undermined MAD and the basis of deterrence
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
A treaty that bans all nuclear weapons testing, thereby broadening the ban on atmospheric testing
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
A hierarchy of officials through which states control military forces
Chain of command
A term that refers to the seizure of political power by domestic military forces, that is, a change of political power outside the state’s constitutional order
Coup d’état
States in which military forces control the government. Most common in third world countries
Military governments
