At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 27 August 2008, rising terrorism specialist Dr Adam Dolnik looked at the successes and failures of the field of terrorism studies, and offered some explanations about why people become terrorists- The Lowy Institute for International Policy
Bio
Dr. Adam Dolnik
Adam Dolnik is Director of Research Programs and Senior Fellow of the Centre for Transnational Crime Prevention (CTCP) at the University of Wollongong in Australia. He has served as chief trainer at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore, and as a researcher at the Weapons of Mass Destruction Terrorism Project at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California and at the United Nations Terrorism Prevention Branch in Vienna, Austria. Dolnik regularly lectures for various governmental and nongovernmental organizations and agencies around the world, and has conducted field research on terrorist networks in conflict zones such as Afghanistan and the North Caucasus. He is the author of Understanding Terrorist Innovation: Technologies, Tactics, and Global Trends (2007) and contributed to James J. F. Forest's The Making of a Terrorist (Praeger, 2006).
Who cared about terrorism before 9/11? Now we do (in America) therefore the root cause of the awareness of terrorism in the U.S.A. was the event of 9/11.
Why would anyone kill themselves? Because they have nothing to live for. Nothing to look forward to. And then you include infectious memes like a belief in 72 virgins in Heaven and, poof, you got something to look forward to.
I am proud to have known Adam Dolnik since he was 15. I was always sure he would do great things and make his home country Czech republic proud. I know I am proud to be counted among his friends and applaud his work for international safety.