Part 1 : Country Reports on Terrorist Trends
It is no secret that countries and regions differ in their exposure to terrorist groups and terrorist violence. Understanding these trends and what factors determine the rates, trends, and types of terrorist activity are critical to formulating an effective and appropriate response.
Respond to the following:
For this activity, select one region/country (not the United States) from the US Department of State’s Country Reports on Terrorism and write a 300-400-word post summarizing the trends in terrorism, the groups involved, and a concise summary of the effects on US interests in that region or country.
Assume that this memo is for the Secretary of State, and consider what the Secretary of State would be particularly interested in related to this region.
It would be easier to write a multi-page paper on this topic, so your ability to write clearly and concisely is critical here. You can find the country reports on terrorism at the official State Department website (Links to an external site.), which was one of the readings for this module:
- U.S. Department of State. (2010). National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) 2010 country reports on terrorism. (Links to an external site.) Retrieved from https://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2010/index.htm
Part 2: Developing a System to Track Terrorist Violence
In this activity, you play the role of the head of a think tank assigned to track terrorism in the United States and come up with the most critical factors that should be recorded for tracking terrorist events. Due to budget limitations at your organization, you are only able to track five key variables relating to terrorist events (terrorist violence that occurs in the United States); what these variables are is your choice.
Please review the following articles from the readings this week:
- R. (2007, March 12). Combating terrorism: The challenge of measuring effectiveness (Links to an external site.) [PDF File Size 118KB]. Retrieved from https://fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/RL33160.pdf
- Perl, R. (2007, March 12). Trends in terrorism (Links to an external site.) [PDF File Size 145 KB]. Retrieved from https://fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/RL33555.pdf
- U.S. Department of State. (2010). National Counterterroris Center (NCTC) 2010 country reports on terrorism. (Links to an external site.) Retrieved from https://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2010/index.htm
(You do not have to read every word on every page here, but take the time to familiarize yourself with what is being tracked, how it is being tracked, and global terrorism trends. Please read the Annex of Statistical Information in detail.) - Jenkins, B.M. (2001).Terrorism: Current and long term threats (Links to an external site.) [PDF File Size 83 KB]. Retrieved from https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/testimo…
- “The Measurement of Terrorism EditEdit download” [PPTX File Size, 247KB]
- U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Counterterrorism, and Countering Violent Extremism (Links to an external site.) https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/27248…
Respond to the following:
In a 300-400-word post, explain which five variables you would track and why you chose them. In your support of your response explain the characteristics of state-sponsored terrorism and discuss terrorist paradigm of categories of dissident terrorism.
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