What strategy would work to stop terrorism?

Better security, bombing runs with drones, targeted assassinations, covert surveillance, banning all Muslims from traveling to the US, media blackout of any attacks, changing the culture by empowering moderate Muslims, putting an embargo on Saudi oil, gun control, arming more people, having Congress declare war, taking them down on-line, or maybe a big non-nuclear blast to wipe out cities like Raqqa, stopping the propaganda with a pro jihad spin on TV and the Internet, ground troops to setup safe zones, working with Russia to get Assad to clamp down on religious fighters...

Or do we need to really look at the causes of this on both sides with the horrible past decisions and the response attacks, the desire to have cheap oil, and the oppression of the people by the ruling class that lives the high life and controls the poor. Maybe it is the over-population problem, strain on resources, poverty, and seemingly lack of birth control and abortions in the 3rd world countries. And the rules and culture that living in a theocracy creates. The involvement of Western governments to control countries, commit crimes, and wage war. The Crusaders who want a modern day WW3 style holy war. The industry that wants to make lots of money selling weapons to both sides of this conflict. An inability to forgive and forget.

And that is just for Islamic terrorists, who I would have expected 100 times more attacks if this was a real war.

Now, there are plenty of US-made domestic terrorists that aren't quite as bad, but have done plenty of attacks of their own. They just have only carried out unorganized attacks for now, and the media likes to spin it that way. However, I'm just glad I'm not a FBI agent or Secret Service agent right now.

 

The only solution is very long term and it involves embracing the enemy and accepting that they will likely cut us in the embrace.

It's social. It's economic. It's political. (I don't think it's religious when it comes down to it)

The answers to those questions don't come from the end of a gun or from the result of a dropped bomb. Guns and bombs, while certainly expeditious end up creating more of the same.

 

The nutcases of the world will never go away. Better identification and monitoring are about the best way to minimize their activities.

 

Terrorism as a global problem probably can't be completely eliminated-- not in anything akin to the short term. The best that we can do with force is to oppose the largest or most destructively active terrorist organizations, like Daesh or Boko Haram, with some real chance of defeating them as organizations-- though likely when the groups break, individuals will get away to kill another day.

But the best we can do to really reduce radicalism and stunt the growth of terrorism is to improve living conditions, education, and economic opportunities in the countries where these movements tend to generate, and in those countries from whence members of such groups tend to spring. To try and ensure those areas see increased pluralism and tolerance in their societies-- which may not be synonymous with instituting American-style democracy there-- and to push for more separation between religion and state-- which, again, may not be synonymous with entirely separating religion and state. But ultimately, radicalism and extremism are weeds that grow in the fertile soil of poverty, hopelessness, xenophobia, tyranny, and especially ignorance.

In fact, we can see a shadow of the same phenomenon at work here in America, where xenophobic and ignorant people are supporting the most extreme and radical presidential candidate they can find....

Education, decent infrastructure, decent economic opportunities, and relative freedom from tyranny and intolerance will simply not promote the creation of terrorism. Most people don't start out wanting to be terrorists. They usually end up lured or seduced or deluded into becoming terrorists because the few lunatics who really do want to be terrorists exploit terrible living conditions and lack of better options for people to their own advantage.

 

Overpopulation Negatively Affects Everything From Climate Change To Health Care

Overpopulation is one of the big problems, but most oppressed societies and countries think they can get a large enough population, along with enough followers of their rules/religion that it becomes impossible to stop them.

 

Dirty bombs aren't that great of a threat, but they accomplish true terrorism in that people are lead to believe that they are. You can read more here:
NRC: Fact Sheet on Dirty Bombs


The Chernobyl disaster was the result of an unsanctioned and abysmally managed experiment which attempted to cool an RBMK reactor (an awful design, above all) using the remaining kinetic energy of the turbine following shutdown. The accident resulted in the deaths of 41 people on the scene. The only incidence of radiation-associated disease to have increased in the aftermath of the event is that of thyroid cancer, which has resulted in 15 deaths out of several thousand cases. Far more people in the former USSR have been affected by the increase in prevalence of psychosomatic disorders resulting from pathological anxieties manifested at odds with generally low levels of exposure in many Belarusian, Ukrainian, and Russian communities.

The tsunami resulting from the Tohoku earthquake damaged the poorly placed backup diesel generators cooling the Fukushima Daiichi plant after it had been shut down at the time the earthquake struck. Five of its personnel were killed as a result of the tsunami striking the plant; none died from radiation. About 18,000 people were killed by the earthquake and tsunami, and about 1,600 died as a result of the evacuation, many due to suicide. None of the evacuees received an effective dose above legal or medical limits, and not a single case of illness among them has resulted from exposure to radiation.

In both these cases, irrational fear of radiation has caused much more harm than the radiation itself. Modern proliferation and terrorism threats can be rationally assessed through the examination of robust evidence, not by the influence of uninformed paranoia.