John P. Sullivan

John P. Sullivan is a career police officer. He currently serves as a lieutenant with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department where he is assigned to the Emergency Operations Bureau. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies on Terrorism (CAST). His research focuses on counterinsurgency, intelligence, terrorism, transnational gangs, and urban operations. He is coeditor of Countering Terrorism and WMD: Creating a Global Counter-Terrorism Network (Routledge, 2006).

Strategy and insurgency: an evolution in thinking?

America's internecine counter-insurgency debate is now making some progress, though not on a single predefined path.

By Adam Elkus and John P. Sullivan

/ 16 Aug 2010

Global cities – global gangs

Global cities linking global economic circuits are also home to transnational criminals and global gangs. This essay examines the policy implications of gangs in the global city.

By Adam Elkus and John P. Sullivan

/ 2 Dec 2009

Border zones and insecurity in the Americas

Border zones are potential incubators of conflict. Criminal gangs exploit weak state presence to forge a parallel state and prosecute their criminal enterprises sustained by fear, violence and brutality.

By Adam Elkus and John P. Sullivan

/ 24 Nov 2009

Urban siege in south Asia

A new wave of urban assaults poses a severe challenge in the cities of south Asia and beyond.

By Adam Elkus and John P. Sullivan

/ 9 Nov 2009

Security in the network-state

Questions of state change and sovereignty are becoming intimately linked with issues of global security, with talk of "failing states," "lawless zones," and "ungoverned spaces&

By Adam Elkus and John P. Sullivan

/ 6 Oct 2009