Maritime Terrorism Article Critique Writing Assignment (Article Critique Sample)

Name of University/ College
Subject-section
Article Critique
Professor: name of professor
Student Name: Name
Date of Submission
“Maritime Terrorism: Risk and Liability”
By: Michael D. Greenberg, Peter Chalk, Henry H. Willis,
Ivan Khilko, and David S. Ortiz
Abstract
Maritime terrorism has the capacity to inflict more harm than terrestrial terrorism since most of the oceans and seas as well as other water bodies are not included in any jurisdiction of any country. There are two forms of maritime terrorism, attacks on passenger carrying vessels and attacks on cargo vessels. Between the two, attacks on cargo vessels have the capacity to inflict more economic damages while attacks on passenger carrying vessels have high human harms. This is why the government and private sectors must implement strict security and follow the U.S. civil liability law.
Introduction
Because the spread of terror also occurs in the waters this study recommends that the country must uphold as well as strengthen the implementation of the civil liability law and to advice both government and private sectors to improve and strictly apply safety security measures for both passenger carrying vessels and cargo vessels.
Article Critique
Maritime Terrorism: Risk and Liability, written by Michael D. Greenberg, Peter Chalk, Henry H. Willis, Ivan Khilko, and David S. Ortiz, is an article focused on understanding the nature of maritime terrorism and its possible effects on the economy and human sources of both the private and public sectors as well as its intangible effects that affects the government. This article seem to not have any central argument as it aims to understand, analyze and investigate on the vulnerabilities, threats and consequences of maritime terrorism. In other words, the article aims only to inform and to provide certain ideas to increase the security and knowledge of both the government and private sectors that it had successfully achieved by providing a direct assessment as to the implications of the information it had presented. This study conducted by Greenberg et. al. was, however, not very unique since there are other studies published which answers the same problem or has the same study pattern. The article, although presenting various data collected from the interviews and previous studies, poses only three general points. These points were: 1) the high risk of maritime terrorism on the economy and human sources of both the private and public sectors; 2) the high probable occurrence of terrorism in both passenger-carrying and cargo vessels which has various consequences that lead to economical and human harms and; 3) the importance of civil liability in helping disseminate the costs of an attack from the victims to other parties and in creating pressure for private-sectors to tighten their security which helps in protecting their vessels as well as their paths. Most of the literatures cited by the authors were utilized to either add to the data pool being analyzed or provided further understanding for the analysis of the collected data. The authors did not dwell further on their data collection since they have previously informed their readers that the study was based on available historical data taken from institutions and past studies, and from the interviews they had conducted. Due to this manner of accomplishing the study, it would be possible to replicate this study. In looking at the variability of the study, the authors collected a variety of data but were able to relate each one on the other or at least they were able to compare each with the same circumstances. The authors were also successful in answering the problem they have raised and in supporting their claims since they used valid data and appropriate analysis of these data with the use of ordinal scaling, then the study must be valid. In general, however, the study had provided enough evidence to support its claims and with the information produced from this study, the authors were able to provide comprehensive recommendations in assessing their results. Therefore, this study is an effective read in understanding the nature of maritime terrorism and furthering studies that would improve this study would be encouraged.
One cause of global destabilization would be terrorism, namely maritime terrorism which involves water vessels such as cruise ships, ferries and cargo vessels. In this article, Greenberg et. al. studies the nature of maritime terrorism by analyzing, understanding and investigating historically based attacks and relating them to the consequences, threats and vulnerabilities of maritime terrorism. In posing this problem, Greenberg et. al. did not, however, provide a hypothesis or a main argument, per se. This is because, in the length of the article, the authors seem only focused on presenting their data and giving an in depth analysis of their results and in relating these analyses to each other which when conglomerated provided the readers with three points. One would be that maritime terrorism poses a very high risk on the economy and human sources of both the private and government sectors. Written on the Preface of the book, the authors stated that “maritime attacks have the potential to inflict significant harms on persons and property and, in at least some instances, could be highly disruptive to U.S. commerce” (Greenberg, Chalk, Willis, Khilko, & Ortiz, 2006). Another is that both passenger-carrying and cargo vessels are threatened by maritime terrorism wherein cargo vessels set a higher risk for they could be “…a means to transport weapons or to sabotage commercial operations more broadly…” (Greenberg, Chalk, Willis, Khilko, & Ortiz, 2006) while passenger-carrying ships (i.e. cruise ships and ferries) are highly threatened by biological attacks and on-board bombings. The third point would be that civil liability is important for it helps spread the costs of attacks from the victims to other parties and it “creates private-sector incentives for prevention and mitigation efforts” (Greenberg, Chalk, Willis, Khilko, & Ortiz, 2006). These said points might be broken down to other more elaborate understanding of the article; however, they already provide a brief background as to what the article was about. This clarity in raising three major points helped the article present focus on what they were tackling in their study. These points tackled were: 1) the reason for the study, as seen in the first point, 2) the scope of the study which are centered on the passenger carrying and cargo vessels as presented by the second point and 3) the rules that may help reduce the effects and occurrence of maritime terrorism as in the third point.
In terms of data collection and literature citation, the authors used articles which: 1) added to the data they were to analyze such as the historical collection of maritime terrorism attacks recorded from 1961 to 2004 and the Al-Qaeda has Multi-faceted Marine Strategy: Report written by Agence France Presse in 2003 and, 2) articles which could help them further their understanding in the data they were to analyze. These literature cited helped in the validity of the study, although, historical studies were not enough to provide understanding of the nature of maritime terrorism and this lack made the use of interviews vital. The authors also conducted interviews with antiterrorism experts whom they gathered from various parts of the world such as Manila, London and Amsterdam. Therefore, the data collection process of the authors were highly credible since they utilized both previous case studies and reports and jived it with the understanding of the antiterrorism experts on various parts of the world. However, this conduction of interviews could have been better if they interviewed those who have experienced maritime terrorism or at least, have experienced attacks. Also if they could have included in their published work a copy of the interviews then the data they have gathered from these interviews could have been more credible. In another light, involving their data collection, their study is possible to replicate since they used historical reports and mashed it with interviews and present-day data. However, the probability of replicating their data is not 100% since they interviewed different people from different countries and it would be a very small chance to be able to interview the same persons. Therefore, with this, we could say that, des...