What drives terrorism? It's a question asked by governments, individuals, militaries and businesses. Terrorist tactics and tradecraft constantly evolve to respond to external forces that enable, constrain and otherwise shape them.
Tracking the influential forces that shape terrorism is crucial to understanding how attacks are conducted and placing an attack in context. But most importantly, understanding the drivers of terrorism helps security professionals anticipate terrorism trends so they can train their teams and deploy assets accordingly. With this in mind, I want to briefly discuss the main drivers I track to forecast terrorist dynamics and then discuss five terrorism trends I believe will arise in the next few years because of these factors.
Five main drivers of terrorism
1. Past Attacks: The tactics used in past attacks and the security force response to them have long driven terrorist trends. Perhaps this has...
