Professor Philip Bobbit from the University of Texas-Austin spoke at ICSR on 25 July 2008 in a thought-provoking talk on the nature of terrorism and Western responses to terrorist actions. Bobbit argued that many fundamental approaches to terrorist activity in the twenty-first century were based on the thinking of the previous century, in which wars primarily took place between nation-states and lead to clear victories and defeats. In the current world, no such clarity is attainable and a war which seeks such outcomes can never be won. Bobbit urged his audience to rethink definitions of war and victory in terms of human rights, states of consent and the preservation of personal freedoms.
