Countering Terrorism

by Martha Crenshaw, Gary LaFree

Overview

Can We Construct a Grand Strategy to Counter Terrorism?

Fifteen years after September 11, the United States still faces terror threats—both domestic and foreign. After years of wars, ever more intensive and pervasive surveillance, enhanced security measures at major transportation centers, and many attempts to explain who we are fighting and why and how to fight them, the threats continue to multiply. So, too, do our attempts to understand just what terrorism is and how to counter it.

Two leaders in the field of terrorism studies, Martha Crenshaw and Gary LaFree, provide a critical look at how we have dealt with the terror threat over the years. They make clear why it is so difficult to create policy to counter terrorism. The foes are multiple and often amorphous, the study of the field dogged by disagreement on basic definitional and methodological issues, and the creation of policy hobbled by an exacting standard: the counterterrorist must succeed all the time; the terrorist only once. As Countering Terrorism shows, there are no simple solutions to this threat.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815727644
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	01/03/2017
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	286
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Martha Crenshaw is a senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, as well as professor of political science, by courtesy, at Stanford University. She is also professor of government emerita at Wesleyan University and a lead investigator with the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and the Responses to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland.

Gary LaFree is professor of criminology and criminal justice and director of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland. He is a past president of the American Society of Criminology, a member of the Attorney General’s Science Advisory Board, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Law and Justice.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

1 Introduction 1

The Context for Analyzing Counterterrorism Difficulties-Current Threats and the State of Academic Research

2 Over responding to Rare Events 33

The Problem of Uncommon Threats with Irreversible Consequences

3 The Tip of the Iceberg 69

Accounting for Failed and Foiled Terrorist Plots

4 Down an Elusive Adversary 99

What Is a Terrorist Organization?

5 Who Did It? 131

The Attribution Dilemma

6 Counter terrorism Results 165

Can Effectiveness be Evaluated?

7 Moving Forward 195

Notes 221

Index 249

Editorial Reviews

This is an important academic and public policy analysis of the role of the "conceptual and empirical requirements of defining, classifying, explaining, and responding to terrorist attacks" in "crafting effective counterterrorism policy."--Dr, Joshua Sinai, Perspectives on Terrorism

A substantial contribution to the literature on terrorism and counterterrorism.--Paul Pillar, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Center for Security Studies, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Services, Georgetown University

A corrective to oversimplified analysis. The scholarship is sound and the book is a welcome offering from two scholars whose knowledge and credentials are superlative.--Audrey Kurth Cronin, Professor of International Relations, American University, and author of How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns

From the Publisher