This report offers a preliminary conception of how to determine the capabilities the United States needs to remain safe from international terrorism. The framework provides an indicative assessment of competing demands for high-priority counterterrorism means, especially considering the prioritization of the Indo-Pacific Command area of responsibility in the emerging national defense strategy that seeks to deter war with great powers.
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Research Question
- How can the U.S. government measure the adequacy of investments in counterterrorism in light of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the decline in threats from major extremist Islamist organizations, and the shift of national security priorities from jihadist terrorism to China and Russia?
In this report, the authors offer a concept of how to determine the capabilities the United States needs to remain safe from international terrorism. By assessing the threats and prioritizing the functions and means to counter them, it is possible to derive net terrorist threat assessments: in essence, the dangers given a determined set of U.S. counterterrorism capabilities. The authors provide a framework that offers an indicative assessment of competing demands for high-priority counterterrorism capabilities.
Key Findings
To perform a net assessment, the intent, capabilities, and access to targets of chosen terrorist threats must be analyzed
- This analysis focuses on two broad classes of threats: (1) very capable, usually large, anti-American jihadist extremist groups (mainly in and around the Greater Middle East) and (2) widely, if not globally, distributed networks of radicalized small cells or individuals.
- A complete net assessment should include an examination of other threats by intent, capabilities, and access and of the potential for distributed threats to become more dangerous.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Introduction
Chapter Two
Method
Chapter Three
Conclusions and Further Work
Appendix
Eleven Capabilities
Research conducted by
This research was prepared for the Office of the Secretary of Defense and conducted within the International Security and Defense Policy Center of the RAND National Security Research Division (NSRD).
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