Terror Defense No Al Qaida Terror
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No Conventional TerrorConventional terror attacks like 9/11 are becoming obsolete – the new realm of destruction is the internet.Meyer 15 [Josh Meyer, award-winning national security journalist and author, is the McCormick Lecturer in National Security Studies in Medill’s Washington program, “The Future of Terrorism According to VICE,” January 14, 2015, http://www.vice.com/read/the-future-of-terrorism-114]//JIH Here's the good news: Many security experts—the kind of people who throw around terms like "creative foresight" and "horizon-scanning methodologies"—say that formal al Qaeda–esque groups as we know them are not likely to last very long into the future. Even if they do, these experts predict, they probably won't succeed in launching significant mass-casualty attacks like 9/11, much less some kind of WMD-driven Armageddon. Ten years from now, conventional terror networks—those that are sophisticated and vertically integrated—will likely have been marginalized by aggressive military, intelligence-gathering, and law enforcement efforts. Or at least that's what an informal survey of counterterrorism sages who get paid to see into the future and predict what is on the threat horizon tell me. Now for the bad news: Acts of terrorism both large and small will be coming at us from almost every other direction, and in creative ways we can't yet imagine. To be sure, homegrown, lone-wolf terrorists will still exist. It also seems likely that well-trained jihadis with grievances will return to their home countries from Syria and other conflict zones to kill, kidnap, and cause other forms of mayhem. Meanwhile, the Islamic State and al Qaeda networks in the Islamic Maghreb and the Arabian Peninsula will continue to have a successful and deadly run. As the slaughter at Charlie Hebdo shows, their power and brutality and ability to recruit and inspire followers can't be underestimated. But such attacks are a reflection of terrorism we're familiar with. In the future, we will have to come to terms with a new type of terrorist, the computer-savvy individuals who know how to exploit rapid technological advances and the ubiquity of the internet. "We're entering an era of the democratization of destructive capability," says Paul Rosenzweig, a former senior US Department of Homeland Security official who wrote a book in 2013 on cyberwar. "Things that only governments could do are now being done by individuals." Security analyst Peter Singer agrees, and says there is far more to worry about than just internet-based cyberterrorism.
Terrorism is not an existential threat to the United States – attacks are only meant to be one part of a larger political purpose.Stewart 15 [Scott Stewart, VP of Tactical Analysis at Stratfor Global Intelligence, lead State Department investigator assigned the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the follow-up New York City bomb plot, “Is Terrorism an Existential Threat?” Feb 5, 2015, https://www.stratfor.com/weekly/terrorism-existential-threat]//JIH The reason we can boldly proclaim that terrorism does not pose an existential threat to the United States has far more to do with the nature of terrorism — what terrorism is — than it does with the intent and capability of the actors who employ terrorism. An examination of terrorist theory shows us that terrorism is a tactic or a tool used by militant groups unable to wage an insurgency or fight a conventional war. In fact, it is often used as a way to conduct asymmetrical armed conflict against an enemy with a stronger military. This fact is why Marxist, Maoist and Focoist revolutionary theories all consider terrorism — that is, small-scale, politically motivated attacks against vulnerable targets — as the first step in an armed struggle that is to be built upon to form an insurgency. In many ways al Qaeda and other jihadist groups have also followed a type of Focoist vanguard strategy by using terrorism to shape public opinion through the propaganda of the deed, the concept that a group can better spread its messages through action than through social media posts or YouTube videos. Terrorist attacks raise popular support for their causes while raising doubts about the target government's legitimacy and ability to maintain order. Aside from being a potential first step of revolutionary violence, terrorism can also be used to supplement insurgency or conventional warfare when employed to keep the enemy off balance and distracted, principally by conducting strikes against vulnerable targets behind the enemy's front lines. The Afghan Taliban employs terrorism in this manner. Defending against such attacks on "soft" targets requires a disproportionate allocation of material and manpower, but such an allocation is absolutely necessary for the security forces to prevent the targeted population from feeling terrorized.
In the 1980s, Hezbollah effectively used terrorism to push U.S. forces out of Lebanon. This example later inspired jihadist groups such as al Qaeda. These groups have employed terrorism in efforts to drive U.S. forces out of the Muslim world so they could weaken and overthrow the governments supported by the United States. While a diverse range of groups practice terrorism, it is important to understand that terrorism for the sake of terror is not their end goal. Instead, it is merely one step toward their greater purpose, whether that objective is launching a revolution that will bring about "workers' paradise," providing animals the same rights as humans or establishing a global caliphate. Be skeptical of their claims that terror is coming now – their authors and advocates have economic incentives to provoke fear, and have a history of sounding alarms.Chapman 15 [Steve Chapman, columnist and editorial writer for the Chicago Tribune, “We Worry Too Much About Terrorism,” January 15, 2015 http://reason.com/archives/2015/01/15/we-worry-too-much-about-terrorism]//JIH If we have learned anything from the experience since 9/11, it's that the public and its leaders chronically overestimate the danger posed by Islamic militants. This latest episode fits that pattern. "In the face of rogue jihadists living in the West and urged to attack their homeland, the threat 'is the new normal,' one U.S. government official explained," according to The Daily Beast. "There are thousands more jihadists living in the West than security forces to keep an eye on them. And with the war in Syria raging, there is the potential for that to grow as fighters return from the front lines, potentially radicalized." Former Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman echoes that concern, warning in The Wall Street Journal that "the enemy is stronger today in more places than it was on 9/11 and is gaining more ground than ever." He fears that "the number and frequency of attacks like those in France will increase." But he and others have a history of sounding alarms that are false or greatly overstated. In 2011, Lieberman expected that the killing of Osama bin Laden would prompt someone to "attempt an attack within the United States in the coming days or weeks." It didn't happen. In 2003, notes Ohio State University political scientist John Mueller, U.S. intelligence officials expected a flurry of attacks here after the Iraq invasion. Wrong again. Last summer, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called the Islamic State "an imminent threat." Nothing came of it. The biggest terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11 is the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing—which the soothsayers missed. Two phenomena are at work. One is our habitual human tendency to worry too much about dramatic, unusual dangers, like terrorism and Ebola, and too little about commonplace ones, like car wrecks and falls, that are far more likely to kill us. When we hear about terrorists shooting innocents, we get cold chills wondering whether we'll be next. When we hear that someone died of a stroke, we yawn. The other factor is a giant public-private network that has a stake in stoking these fears. The bureaucratic reality is that it's safer to issue warnings about dozens of dangers that never pan out than to downplay a single one that later materializes. Government officials need a sense of urgent peril to justify their budgets and their powers. Private contractors have reason to inflate the problems they get paid to address. The resulting system, says Mueller, amounts to "a self-licking ice cream cone." By now, the worry about terrorism is ingrained in us. In the wake of the Paris attacks, a Pew poll found, nearly two out of three Americans are "somewhat" or "very" worried that a terrorist attack will soon happen here. But public fear has been that high for years. When an attack happens, we expect more attacks—and when no attack happens, we expect more attacks. A plurality of citizens consistently worry that the government is doing too little to combat terrorism. What is easy to forget is that people in general and Americans in particular enjoy exceptional levels of safety. There was a true threat to our national existence during the Cold War, when nuclear incineration was perpetually half an hour away. There was far more terrorism on U.S. soil in the 1970s, when leftist radicals carried out hundreds of bombings, and even in the 1990s. The chance that extremist violence will touch any of us directly was minuscule before the latest attacks, and it still is. There simply aren't that many people with the will, resources and acumen to engage in serious terrorist operations. Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 2.62 Mb. Share with your friends:
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