Asking the Right Questions: A Framework for Assessing Counterterrorism Actions

Abstract

Since the 9/11 attacks, America has dedicated an extraordinary amount of time, money, and effort to countering terrorism. It has devoted, however, comparatively little effort to developing rigorous and useful assessment frameworks to help policy makers and practitioners understand how effective these counterterrorism (CT) actions have been. To address this shortfall, this article first identifies and characterizes todays prevailing terrorism theories and their associated CT actions. For each theory, an assessment framework is created consisting of specific questions that help gauge the success or failure of CT actions and indicators that could be used to answer those questions. These assessment frameworks, which rigorously link policy to practice, should enable CT practitioners to provide policy makers and commanders direct and actionable feedback on whether the approaches chosen are having the expected impact.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Nov 21, 2016
Accession Number
AD1048072

Entities

People

  • Emily Warner
  • Jonathan Schroden
  • William Rosenau

Organizations

  • Center for Naval Analyses

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Human Systems
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Education
  • Employment
  • Governments
  • Group Dynamics
  • Human Rights
  • International Organizations
  • International Relations
  • Law Enforcement
  • Military Operations
  • National Politics
  • National Security
  • Personnel Management
  • Social Media
  • Societies
  • Terrorism
  • Terrorists
  • United States

Fields of Study

  • Medicine
  • Political science

Readers

  • Mathematical Modeling and Probability Theory.
  • Strategic Security Studies