A January 2017 Pew survey showed that Americans rate terrorism as the top priority for the Trump administration and Congress. They put the issue ahead of the economy, education, jobs and health care costs.
For the past 12 years as Director of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, I have worked with colleagues to improve understanding of terrorism by studying its causes and consequences. One of our largest and most extensive projects has involved compiling all terrorist attacks worldwide since 1970 into the Global Terrorism Database (GTD).
Based on this work, six issues stand out to me as major challenges for developing effective policy on countering terrorism.
Publication Information
LaFree, Gary. 2017. "Six reasons why stopping terrorism is so challenging." START (May). https://www.start.umd.edu/news/six-reasons-why-stopping-terrorism-so-challenging