TerrorismWill terrorism continue to decline in 2019?
Lost in the headlines, rapidly accelerating news cycles and the pervasive fear generated by terrorist threats is the fact that terrorist attacks worldwide have actually been declining – in some areas substantially. From 2002 through 2014, worldwide terrorist attacks increased by 12 times and terrorist fatalities increased by more than eight times. But since 2014, the picture has changed dramatically – a development that has gone largely unreported in the media.
Terrorism has shown a steady decline since 2002 // Source: syr.edu
Lost in the headlines, rapidly accelerating news cycles and the pervasive fear generated by terrorist threats is the fact that terrorist attacks worldwide have actually been declining – in some areas substantially.
Terrorism researchers like me have long noted that the number of terrorist attacks rises and falls in waves – generally lasting several decades.
I’m the founding director of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, or START, and one of the original creators of the Global Terrorism Database. My colleagues Laura Dugan, Erin Miller and I define terrorism as “the threatened or actual use of illegal force and violence by non-state actors to attain a political, economic, religious or social goal through fear, coercion or intimidation.” The database shows that the world has been gripped by a wave of terrorist attacks that began shortly after the 9/11 attacks.
My research using the START database shows the extent of this spike. From 2002 through 2014, worldwide terrorist attacks increased by 12 times and terrorist fatalities increased by more than eight times. Especially hard hit were Iraq and Afghanistan in the Middle East, India and Pakistan in South Asia, and Nigeria in sub-Saharan Africa.
The most active terrorist organizations driving this worldwide boom were the Taliban, Al-Shabaab, the Islamic State Group (also known as IS), the Communist Party of India–Maoist and Boko Haram.
But since 2014, the picture has changed dramatically – a development that has gone largely unreported in the media.
Let’s examine that change.
A downward trend
In 2015 total terrorist attacks decreased by 11.5 percent and total terrorism-related deaths by 12.7 percent.
In 2016, we saw a further 9.2 percent decrease in attacks and 10.2 percent decline in total terrorism-related deaths.
The downward trend continued in 2017, the most recent data available, with a 19.8 percent drop in attacks and a 24.2 percent decline in fatalities.
