Terrorism and war on terrorism are among the issues that are being discussed by political and security experts in a real-time online discussion on Columbia International Affairs Online (CIAO). This discussion between leaders of policy institutes, specialists in Middle Eastern politics and scholars of diplomatic and security studies from leading academic institutions, is open to the public at http://www.ciaonet.org/ . In addition, the digital volumes of information on terrorism and related topics on CIAO's homepage are open to the Columbia community. Others can register for a 30-day free trial to gain access to the site.

CIAO is the first multi-disciplinary online publication of its kind in the field of international affairs that combines a wide range of scholarship on one site, including working papers from university research institutes, occasional papers and series from NGOs, foundation-funded research projects and proceedings from conferences.

A day after the fall of the World Trade Center towers, Americans were struggling to find some meaning behind ruthless acts that cost thousands of innocent people their lives. Meanwhile knowledge was at the fingertips of a wider public through CIAO via the Internet.

• Terrorist attacks are generally as carefully planned as they are premeditated
• Terrorists have utilized the notion of martyrdom and self-sacrifice through suicide-bombings as a means of last resort against their conventionally more powerful enemies.
• The timing of the violence by the religious terrorists is carefully selected to coincide with their own theological requirements or in attempt to desecrate their enemies' religious holidays and sacred moments.
• Between the mid-1960s and the mid-1990s, the number of fundamentalist movements of all religious affiliations tripled worldwide. Today, nearly a quarter of all terrorist groups active throughout the world are predominantly motivated by religious concerns.
• According to the former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, terrorism is the most important threat that the United States and the world face as the 21st century begins. (1998).

These facts come from international centers on terrorism and scholarly journals, scholars' working papers, FEMA fact sheets, U.S. State Department briefs, strategies for security and other documents that were posted on the CIAO homepage a day after the attack.

"Just after the attack, there was a significant jump in the numbers of users requesting a 30-day free trial of CIAO," said Kate Wittenberg, who oversees CIAO. "Equally interesting was the range of these users, which included journalists, members of U.S. government and international agencies, even a faculty member in international affairs from a Pakistani University, in addition to scholars and students. It was clear that we had become a resource to people worldwide, so we decided to extend the resources available by inviting a real-time discussion among some of the top thinkers in International Affairs, who could offer the public immediate commentary on what is rapidly becoming an international crisis."

CIAO has offered public access to that real-time discussion between the 14-member CIAO advisory board, which includes leaders of policy institutes, specialists in Middle Eastern politics, and scholars of diplomatic and security studies from leading American academic institutions. CIAO editors have extended the invitation to the larger scholarly community to contribute their thoughts to a growing archive of information.

"Here is a situation where the potential of digital scholarly publications is fully realized," said Wittenberg. "We are lucky to have a place where, in real time, the thoughts and discussions of international affairs experts can be pushed out to a broader audience through a medium that is much faster than traditional media."

It was Wittenberg who appealed to the CIAO advisory board for its perspectives on terrorism, the implication of U.S. counter-attacks, analysis on the Bush Administration to add to CIAO's resources. A cooperative project that draws from the University's press, its libraries and academic network, CIAO's editors were able to work overnight with technicians from the University's academic computing systems to code the responses and post them immediately. The result is an organic online scholarly discussion and debate that is growing daily.

While many scholars are being tapped by the press as key commentators on the issues that face the U.S. as a result of the terrorist attacks, many more have important perspectives to bring to a public forum.

"The CIAO discussion was an opportunity for a somewhat different kind of exchange," said Jack Snyder, political scientist and foreign affairs expert from Columbia. "A number of the international affairs scholars who have been taking part tried to be very explicit about grounding their analysis of the current crisis in the logic of social-science theories. That is hard to do on the op-ed page, so CIAO in this case has provided a real-time venue for a distinctively valuable kind of debate."

Scholars interested in adding to the discussion on America's crisis can submit their thoughts or responses by contacting Sean Costigan, CIAO editor at sc717@columbia.edu.