I have done some work on this question. Essentially the international struggle against terrorism is a national project. What makes it international is the fact the UN Security Council has adopted a number of resolutions that obligates states to criminalize terrorism at home , build their national counter-terrorism capacities and cooperate to prevent this type of event or to investigate how operations were carried out. Another element in this global effort is the development and evolution of counter-terrorism ”best practices“ by intergovernmental organizations at both regional and international levels. This approach works because it is not only state-centered but also because the goal is to build states’ capacities to fight terrorism. States, especially developing states, receive financial and technical assistance from developed states to establish or strengthen their military, intelligence, financial or criminal justice institutions.
This system is not always good. For example, as a reaction to the 9/11 attacks, it paid little attention to human rights issues. And many states in the Middle East - my case study area - used these counter-terrorism laws and institutions to control and silence protesters during the Arab spring.
If you are more interested see some of my published work on the UN and terrorism.
Terrorism is, first and foremost, a political tactic. Terrorism is conducted by leaders who have clear goals in mind. However, terrorist leaders need to recruit people to carry out the terrorist acts. So terrorist groups have TWO types of people: the political actors with a clear political agenda, and terrorist recruits who join for a sense of purpose (sometimes religious), revenge, or other emotional reason. One of the ways states can prevent terrorism is by preventing recruits from joining terrorist organizations. There will always be political agents willing to do whatever it takes to gain power, but recruits can be reduced. To do this, states ought to minimize the feelings of isolation that immigrants often feel. For example, many of the terrorist attacks in other countries, including the US, come from immigrants who feel isolated and rejected by their new nation. If better efforts were made to be accepting of these individuals, the likelihood of their recruitment is drastically decreased.
In short, separating terrorists or groups from the public, discredit their ideology, disrupt financial resources, decapitation of leadership, target hardening, improvements in security and law enforcement, intelligence gathering by means of community policing and intel-led policing, and finally winning hearts and minds in the long run.
Completely agree with Suray. I would just start with winning hearts and minds of the populations that are accomodating this people. When their mothers, wifes, and sons will tell them to stop, they will most probably do so.
I would also recommend to stop calling them terrorists, this is what they want, to inspire fear. They should just be called criminals. This is what they surely are.
Globally, creating an alliance to rezognize the impact that Terrorism has on the world. In this case, using social media platforms to raise awarness and to counter the wrath of terrorism as a whole.
I agree with you Carlos. Terrorism is not a national problem it is an international problem. You need to act globally because local efforts are too tribal in their culture. They act on tradition not on truth.