Terrorism Isn't an 'Existential Threat' | Cato Institute

Terrorism Isn't an 'Existential Threat' | Cato Institute: "the Human Security Report Project explain, “the overwhelming majority of terrorist campaigns fail to achieve their strategic objectives.” And, despite media sensationalism, fatalities from terrorism have actually declined by some 40 percent in recent years.

Terrorists bank on overreaction. As Osama bin Laden put it in 2004, “All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al Qaeda, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses.”"

“no state has ever given another state — even a close ally, much less a terrorist group — a nuclear weapon (or chemical, biological, or radiological one either).”

"The Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo had roughly a billion dollars devoted to developing chemical and biological weapons, the most sophisticated such program in the history of terrorism. But when it released sarin gas on the Tokyo subway in 1995, it only managed to kill 12 people."