These days, terrorism seems not just more lethal and more common, but more widespread. The death toll in recent weeks speaks for itself: 22 people dead in Bangladesh, 49 gone in the United States, 44 gone in Turkey, 292 gone in Iraq, then another 37, another 12, yet another 12.
And by one oft-cited measure—the Institute for Economics and Peace’s Global Terrorism Index—that’s true. As a rough representation of the global threat of terrorism nearly 15 years after the 9/11 attacks—nearly 15 years after George W. Bush declared that his “war on terror” would “not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated”—the findings are extremely disheartening. War, they suggest, has only brought more terror.
Deaths From Terrorism, 2000 — 2014
In 2015, terrorist attacks occurred in almost 100 countries—up from 59 in 2013—according to the University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database, which the Institute for Economics and Peace relies on for its analysis. ISIS, for its part, appears increasingly to be training its sights on overseas targets as it loses territory in Iraq and Syria.
In 2015, terrorist attacks occurred in almost 100 countries—up from 59 in 2013—according to the University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database, which the Institute for Economics and Peace relies on for its analysis. ISIS, for its part, appears increasingly to be training its sights on overseas targets as it loses territory in Iraq and Syria.
Donald Trump asks why they hate us—why jihadists have it out for Americans. But the data shows that terrorism today is not about us, at least not primarily. Though they may profess hatred of Westerners, terrorists are largely tormenting conflict zones like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria.
In explaining why this happens, Byman compared terrorism to robbery. You can think about robbery in terms of grievances: “Why do people steal? Because they’re poor and they want something.” Or you can think about it in terms of capability: “Why do they do it? Because they can. … You and I might steal, if there was no penalty—if we could walk into a jewelry store and take stuff and there were no cops.”
Civil wars increase both grievances and capability, Byman said. They produce vicious cycles of grievances—“you could be displaced from your home, your brother could be shot.” And they produce capability by gutting government authority. If 40 people tried to overthrow the U.S. government, he said, they might kill some people, but they’d also be arrested. But if the U.S. government isn’t functioning because the country’s gripped by civil war, those same 40 people can overtake a town and swell their ranks. “Wars in general create opportunities for groups, and at the same time create grievances that groups feed on,” Byman noted.
Which is why one of the signature features of the “war on terror”—the invasion of Iraq—ended up unleashing more terrorism. “When a stable government is destabilized and collapses, that’s very bad from a counterterrorism point of view,” said Byman. This is true with or without massive U.S. involvement, as Syria’s civil war demonstrates.
