COUNTERTERRORISMSmart Pressure: Conceptualizing Counterterrorism for a New Era

By Don Rassler

Abstract: When it comes to counterterrorism, the United States has been living through an inflection point. It wants to focus less on terrorism so it can place more emphasis on strategic competition, but key terrorist adversaries remain committed. The terrorism landscape and the approaches used by key terror adversaries have also been evolving. The United States and its partners have been placing various forms of pressure against priority networks such as the Islamic State and al-Qa`ida in key locations to keep the threats these groups pose degraded, and to restrict their ability to conduct external operations and other impactful acts of terror. But over the past two years, there have been growing signs that the Islamic State is evolving around the pressure that has been placed against it, developments that highlight the limits of existing CT pressure approaches and the need for those approaches to evolve. This article introduces two frameworks: 1) a framework to help conceptualize non-state VEO power and CT pressure efforts to degrade those elements of power and 2) a defense and degradation in depth framework that can be used to help strategically guide future CT pressure campaigns. It is hoped that these frameworks provoke debate within the counterterrorism community and that they help the United States and its allies adjust their CT approaches so they can evolve to stay ahead of the threat.

The uptick in attacks and plots linked to the Islamic State and its Central Asian affiliate—Islamic State Khorasan (ISK)— in Europe and other places over the past two years is a cautionary tale. It is a reminder of the steadfast commitment of key salafi-jihadi groups, the persistent threats that these types of networks pose, and the need for ongoing forms of pressure to keep entities such as ISK off-balance and their capabilities, reach, and potential for surprise degraded.

Another lesson from the last two decades is that terror threats rarely stay the same: They change and adapt.¹ “The history of global jihadism,” as noted by The Economist, “is one of reinvention under pressure from the West.”² That pressure has helped to keep the threat posed by the Islamic State and its key affiliates at bay. But over the past two years, there have been growing signs that the Islamic State is evolving around the pressure that has been placed against it.