The Future of Terrorism: ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and the Alt-Right

Historian Laqueur and Wall, a counterterrorism instructor for the Navy, adeptly connect terrorism’s current Islamist incarnations with secular, socialist forebears that plagued Russia and Europe in centuries past. A brief, fast-paced historical overview leads to probing and provocative ruminations on the multifarious factors that draw young men toward violence in the service of an ideology: “all manifestations of terrorism,” the authors opine, “are connected with the rise of democracy and nationalism.” Though ISIS has surpassed al-Qaeda in recent years, the authors contend that the latter remains more dangerous in the long term, as it has consolidated its resources and broadened its networks while lulling the world into the false belief that it is obsolete. The authors also highlight how, in the U.S., where far-right violence is much more common than Islamist violence, terrorism retains the ability to spark vast overreactions and abandonment of liberal values less often seen in Europe; they point out, for example, that, following the Boston Marathon bombing, constitutional protections were suspended and the entire state of Massachusetts was put on lockdown, though the death toll was small compared to that of the attacks in Paris two years later, to which the response was much less extreme. The authors’ nuanced perspective on a complex phenomenon will appeal to readers interested in what lies beyond the headlines. Agent: Joe Spieler, the Spieler Agency. (July)