VIII. Conclusion

Today we are witnessing a pattern of global regionalism and the internationalization of terrorism. Terrorism has typically been carried out by independent organizations such as overly radical religious and nationalist groups. For example, sixty-eight groups may be included in the U.S State Department’s List of Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations, yet no single organization is explicitly or officially funded by a single nation-state.²⁵⁶ Terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda and ISIS do not hold quantifiable territories and their leaders are highly mobile and operate under the radar.²⁵⁷ These organizations can be far more dangerous than state-sponsored terrorism because they operate in a wide variety of territories. For example, the Taliban both spread their radical ideologies to people and recruited “jihadists” to from all over the world.²⁵⁸

²⁵⁰. Id. at 113.

²⁵¹. Fandl, supra note 4, at 602-03.

²⁵². Id. at 606

²⁵³. Id. at 606-07

²⁵⁴. Id. at 609.

²⁵⁵. Id. at 629.

²⁵⁶. U.S. DEP’T OF STATE, Bureau of Counterterrorism, of Democracy, Foreign Terrorist Organizations, https://www.state.gov/foreign-terrorist-organizations/ (last visited Apr. 4, 2021).

²⁵⁷. Lobsinger, supra note 21, at 117.

²⁵⁸. See id. at 116-17.

As terrorism loses its national identity, the use of nation-wide sanctions established two decades ago is no longer a successful strategy to fight terrorism. For this reason, nation-wide sanctions should not be used as permanent counter-terrorism policy.

New anti-terrorism policies must implement a combination of smart sanctions and antipoverty programs to combat the disparate conditions that allow non-state terrorism to grow. Politicians often ignore the fact that country-specific sanctions are a double-edged sword because instead of promoting political collaboration, they foster animosity and impose economic hardships on countries that further exasperate radical ideologies the foster terrorism. When sanctions are not limited to specific activities, they can be less effective against modern forms of terrorism. Although economic sanctions have a long way to go before becoming a particularity effective foreign policy tool, the implementation of smart sanctions do appear to have more successful outcomes.259 For this reason, economic sanctions can be a successful counter-terrorism policy if they are activity-based rather than nationwide sanctions and are combined with antipoverty initiatives.

²⁵⁹. Egle, supra note 28, at 46.

VIII. Conclusion

Table of Contents