Counterterrorism

Newly elected Iraqi Prime Minister, Mohammed al-Sudani, recently spoke out in an interview expressing support for U.S. military presence and training in Iraq. This statement holds both disillusion and relief for the United States, due to a history of tension between the two countries.

“Aside from a small number of low-level plots either thwarted or failed, there have not been any successful terrorist attacks on Italian soil since 9/11, a trend that has remained true since the rise of the self-proclaimed Islamic State in 2014” (Vidino 2017). Why is this the case? Why has Italy not been on the receiving end of recent brutal terror attacks in the same way that many other European nations have? By this research, I attempt to understand what Italy has done to mitigate terror threats better than other European nations. To do this, it is important to distinguish luck from planning, as one theory purports that there is no inherent piece of the Italian system that has reduced the threat of terrorism. My research indicates that a series of factors are important, including policing, border policies, historical context, radicalization issues, and governmental practices and policies. Italy excels in many areas where other nations do not, occasionally at the expense of due process and human rights. In this research design, Italy will be compared across Europe as a whole, the EU, and Western Europe in different situations. However, these strengths in comprehensive Italian counterterrorism are still fallible; it would be unwise to predict that these trends are foolproof as the potential for terror always exists, especially as growing numbers of second-generation immigrants experience the potential for radicalization.

XinJiang, the Uyghur Autonomous Region, stages some of China’s most violent separatist movements, the most violent of which are developing terrorist- threats. In April, President Xi Jinping visited the region and spoke specifically on the issue of combating terrorism. While China has not officially declared a counterterrorism program, it has developed a new National Security Commission designed to counter “unconventional security” threats. China has modeled much of its new commission after that of the U.S. and may, in the future, follow the U.S. model further by developing a comprehensive counterterrorism program. Given the escalating situation in various autonomous regions, the likelihood that China will develop a broader official counterterrorism strategy is high. This analysis takes into consideration two simplified factors: the development of separatist movements in a Chinese national context, and the evolving Chinese policy of dealing with regional security threats.