Michelle's Adventures in London: Spring Break

Believe it or not, at LSE we got a SIX week spring break! Yes, the hard life of a student. I had some grand plans of travelling and getting a ton of my thesis ready, but alas that was not to work out =) However, I did come up with a topic and title for my thesis. I know I don't talk much of schoolwork here, but I'll give it a little plug. It's going to be called something like: "Transnational Criminal Networks and Terrorism in Chechnya from a New Wars Perspective". In contemporary conflicts, threats to the stability and security states seem to come more often from rogue non-state actors like transnational organized crime or terrorism. The driving factor behind the New Wars thesis, globalization, can also be used to look at the connection between TCOs and terrorism. I will be looking at the role of TCOs in contemporary conflicts, as promoting state disorder instead of using the state apparatus, as traditional organized crime groups do. Finally, I will examine the interaction between TCOs and terrorism in the Chechen conflict, arguing that they feed off of each other--both thriving on state disorder, the promotion of fear, and a regressive form of globalization.
Ha, ok so I guess that is enough school talk. But I'm actually quite excited about the topic. Which is a good thing, since I will be spending my summer researching and writing it!
So I decided to go home to Falls Church for the last week of my break. It was wonderful to see so many people and just chill in the beautiful sunny weather. A week of not thinking about schoolwork and studying!