This week’s “Daily Journal” guest columnist is Justin Coates, research intern at the John Locke Foundation.
Even though it has been six years since the last terrorist attack on American soil, the United States is in more danger now than it was right before 9/11. Since that fateful day, Islamic fundamentalist groups have proliferated throughout the world. Because many of these groups have the same extreme goals (creating a greater Islamic state, destroying Israel, removing Western influence from the Middle East, etc.), many of them are in competition with each other for international attention, money, and recruits. As with a business trying to outdo its competitors, terror groups are innovating and becoming more and more dangerous to stand out from each other. This is what al-Qaeda did on September 11, and one can expect other groups to do the same thing in the years to come.
If the goal of a terror organization is to stand out from other groups and seize the attention of the world, hijackings, kidnappings, and male suicide bombings just do not make the nightly news in the post 9/11 world. To increase worldwide attention, Islamic terrorists have resorted to using female bombers, making attempts to attain chemical and nuclear weapons, and finding ways to surpass post-9/11 security measures. As Mia Bloom said in her 2005 article “Mother. Daughter. Sister. Bomber” (in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists), female bombers provide much more media attention than male suicide bombers, and female bombers can be used to shame more men into becoming suicide bombers. Additionally, al-Qaeda and other terror organizations have made attempts to attain chemical and nuclear weapons to create mass casualty attacks that would put international attention on them for years. Finally, terror groups have been working to bypass the post-9/11 security measures in place around the world. Even though they have not been very successful thus far, they will keep trying until they are. The real danger is that as time goes on terror groups will continue to proliferate and competition will increase. This will lead to a more and more competitive atmosphere that will force groups to find even more dangerous ways to shock and awe the world.
Innovation of terror tactics not only achieves the goal of helping an organization stand out from other groups by getting more international attention, but it also strengthens the organization as a whole. The more attention a group receives, the bigger and more advanced a group becomes. State sponsors of terrorism will be more likely to sponsor groups that are effective in executing attacks and attracting the world’s attention. Also, just as a successful business will receive more and better-qualified job candidates than unsuccessful businesses, a terror group that is constantly in the news for its attacks will be more likely to attract more and better-qualified recruits to fight for their cause. Al-Qaeda has been very successful at innovating its tactics to get more international attention, funding, and recruits for its cause. What better way for a terrorist group to stand out among its competitors than follow the al-Qaeda model and attack the United States on its own soil?
Although many politicians and American citizens believe the threat posed to the United States by terrorism ended in 2001, it did not. The threat is growing daily. All it will take is for one terror group who wants to make a name for itself to get into the United States and set off a few bombs for the United States to be back in the same position it was six years ago. The way to disrupt this free market of terrorism is the same way a country disrupts an economic free market: government intervention. The United States must keep combating terrorism at home and abroad in order to diminish these increasing threats. Six years without a terror attack shows the success of the United States’ counterterrorist measures, but the U.S. government and U.S. citizens must not become complacent. The terrorists won’t.