Click here for linkBy The Heritage Foundation Counterterrorism Task Force
August 24, 2011
Abstract: In June 2011, President Barack Obama released a new National Strategy for Counterterrorism. This document profoundly misreads the nature of the global transnational threat. Following this strategy for a few years will result in a resurgent threat as dangerous as that shortly after 9/11. Dealing with the “next wave” of transnational terrorism will require a different course. The strategy for the next wave must regain the initiative that has been lost by this President, bring a successful end to the long war, and leave behind an enduring and sustainable counterterrorism enterprise—one that can adeptly respond to future emerging threats.
Since 9/11, at least 40 Islamist-inspired terror plots aimed at the United States have been thwarted. All categories of successful terrorist attacks against U.S. targets (both at home and overseas) have been on a downward trend since 2005, although the number of disrupted plots has risen considerably since 2007. Al-Qaeda has been substantially defeated in Iraq, flushed from Afghanistan, and hounded in Pakistan. A number of affiliated groups across Southeast Asia (in part through U.S. counterterrorism assistance and cooperation) were also rooted out. Terrorist networks have been dispersed and disaggregated, reduced to making “open calls” online to strike the West. At the same time, al-Qaeda established alternative bases of operation in Yemen, and new allies, such as al-Shabaab in Somalia, as part of an ongoing strategy of insurgency around the globe.
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