Countering the Threat of Improvised Explosive Devices: Basic Research Opportunities: Abbreviated Version (2007)
Chapter: Appendix C Glossary
Appendix C
Glossary
Asymmetry: the absence of a common basis of comparison with respect to a quality or a capability.
Data fusion: a formal framework in which means and tools for the alliance of data from different sources are expressed. It aims at obtaining information of greater quality; the exact definition of greater quality will depend upon the application (Wald, 1999).
Disruption: an action that interrupts, disables, or prematurely activates the detonation sequence of an IED.
Human terrain: the political, social, cultural and economic environment.
IED campaign: the concerted use of IEDs to achieve strategic or tactical goals.
Insurgency: A struggle between a non-ruling group and the ruling authorities in which the non-ruling group consciously uses political resources (such as organizational expertise, propaganda, and demonstrations) and violence to destroy, reformulate, or sustain the basis of legitimacy of one or more aspects of politics (O’Neil, 1990). Terrorism may be a tactic used in an insurgency.
JIEDDTF: Joint IED Defeat Task Force
JIEDDO: Joint IED Defeat Organization
ONR: Office of Naval Research
Ordnance: munitions, weapon-delivery system, or item that contains explosives, propellants, or chemical agents.
Persistent surveillance: the monitoring of targets of interest with sufficient frequency, continuity, accuracy, precision, spectral diversity,
and data content that the targets will not be able to move or change substantially without notice.
Terrorism: an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, used by clandestine or semi-clandestine individual, group, or state actors for idiosyncratic, criminal, or political reasons, whereby—in contrast with assassination—the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population and serve as message generators. Threat- and violence-based communication processes between terrorist (organization), (imperiled) victims, and main targets are used to manipulate the main target (audience(s)), turning it into a target of terror, a target of demands, or a target of attention, depending on whether intimidation, coercion, or propaganda is primarily sought (Schmid, 1988).
