Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat Domestic and International Terrorists

The growth of terrorism has been accompanied by a steady escalation in the means of violence, from small arms used to assassinate individuals, to automatic weapons used to mow down groups, to car bombs now capable of bringing down entire buildings, to lethal chemicals that (as in Japan) can threaten entire cities. The very real possibility that terrorist states and organizations may soon acquire horrific weapons of destruction and use them to escalate terrorism beyond our wildest nightmares has not been addressed properly by Western governments. It must be recognized that barring firm and resolute action by the United States and the West, terrorism in the 1990s will expand dramatically both domestically and internationally. Today's tragedies can either be the harbingers of much greater calamities yet to come or the turning point in which free societies once again mobilize their resources, their ingenuity, and their will to wipe out this evil from our midst. Fighting terrorism is not a "policy option"; it is a necessity for the survival of our democratic society and our freedoms. Showing how this battle can be won is the purpose of this book.