It is almost impossible to ignore the fact that the threat of terrorism became more obvious after the 9/11 attacks. Thus, although the United States “was upwards of 60 percent more likely to experience terrorism prior to or during the year 2001 than since,” it is important to note that “the opposite trend holds for those countries with a higher proportion of Muslims” (Smith and Zeigler 1). From this perspective, the U.S. citizens, as well as people all over the globe, remain to be at risk of dying because of a terrorist attack if the fight against terrorism is not effective. The Republican Party is inclined to provide a strict plan of action to overcome the threat of terrorism and protect the safety of U.S. citizens because decisive actions are required to address the problem.
The first point to discuss is the necessity of strong and even aggressive steps to take against terrorism. The recent situation in the world accentuates the idea that passive or “peaceful” strategies against terrorists cannot lead to effective results, and more new and strait decisions are necessary (Schuurman 1-2). From this perspective, it is important to finance anti-terrorist military activities in order to be able to prevent terrorist attacks. It will be possible to protect not only the citizens of the United States but also other people all around the world who suffer from a constant risk of attacks.
The second point to consider is the importance of avoiding any negotiations with terrorists. The practice of addressing terrorist threats and attacks demonstrates that the way of diplomacy and negotiations does not work in these situations, and it is inappropriate to fulfill terrorists’ demands. This path cannot lead to satisfying their requests as well as to stopping their activities (Hirschbein 136-137). Therefore, all the actions that are oriented against terrorists need to be active, powerful, and associated with the use of force.
The third important point is the necessity of making countries all over the globe limit their production of weapons of mass destruction that can be potentially used by terrorists. In order to address this goal, it is possible to use strong and force-based actions. The reason is that the absence of this arsenal can be discussed as a guarantee for protecting the humanity from the threat of using nuclear or biological weapons (Rubenzer 322-324). Diplomatic and negotiation-based strategies are usually viewed as inefficient to address this situation, and an active response of the Republicans is expected to be successful in this case.
There are three key reasons to become oriented to more dynamic and effective actions against terrorists in the United States and globally. The first one is the necessity of acting more quickly and purposefully to prevent possible attacks. The second one is the necessity of avoiding the situation when terrorists dictate the conditions through negotiations, and the third one is the necessity of addressing the risk of using weapons of mass destruction. Strong and active strategies based on the use of military forces and means are important to be applied to address the threat of terrorist attacks because other methods are ineffective to respond to enemies’ aggression. Therefore, much attention should be paid to changing the view regarding successful approaches to overcoming terrorism that need to be utilized at the level of political or diplomatic activities.
Works Cited
Hirschbein, Ron. The United States and Terrorism: An Ironic Perspective. Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
Rubenzer, Trevor. Today’s Foreign Policy Issues: Democrats and Republicans. ABC-CLIO, 2017.
Schuurman, Bart. “Research on Terrorism, 2007–2016: A Review of Data, Methods, and Authorship.” Terrorism and Political Violence, vol. 1, 2018, pp. 1-16.
Smith, Meagan, and Sean M. Zeigler. “Terrorism Before and After 9/11–a More Dangerous World?” Research & Politics, vol. 4, no. 4, 2017, pp. 1-8.