Fighting Ideologies: Is it Possible?

The War on Terror began not only as a way to defend America's boarders, but also our ontological security. The war originated against Al Qaeda, a terrorist group the holds no territory, yet we treated the fight as if it were over land. The war recently has been developed to fight against ISIS, a terrorist group that holds territory. Regardless of the fight, however, the groups' ideologies remain in tact. It is nearly impossible to end an ideology. Our troops can fight to give the land back to it's original countries, but nevertheless will there always be extreme terrorist groups in our world because of the rise of technology.

Terrorist groups in the past were no where near as prevalent in the world as they are today. The rise of technology has allowed for groups, such as ISIS, to recruit members from all over the globe to follow and commit to their ideologies. No longer is a terrorist group concentrated in one area. When Al Qaeda began to rise as a threat to the world, they were much more notorious for single, large attacks, as opposed to multiple, lone wolf attacks. The large attacks are what the United States prepared for, by creating the TSA and Homeland Security. They were preventing large scale attacks from occurring, rightfully so. However, what they failed to prepare for were the lone wolf attacks that allow for terrorist groups' ideals to stay alive. The U.S was not the only place to have fallen victim to the lone wolf attacks, many countries in Europe, specifically England, have suffered from the lone wolf attacks from citizens who have lived in the country their whole lives. Social media and the increased use of technology has allowed for leaders of terrorist groups to spread their ideologies to individual people across the world. Some people who are radicalized are very good at hiding it or showing no threat to the safety of citizens. For example, in England, Kurham Butt is a converted radicalized Muslim. The police know of is views, however, he supposedly shows no signs of threat to the safety of the country's citizens. Butt's story is not very common. The police are commonly unaware of radicalized citizens in their country and by the time they know, it's too late because an attack happened that was not planned for (Robert Verkaik, The Guardian). People are becoming radicalized by a person or group thousands of miles away from them.  Never before has the world seen such frequent terrorist attacks and the majority of the attacks being done by lone wolves in the countries they were born and raised in that had no connection with Middle Eastern countries.

There is no doubt that terrorist groups use social media as a platform to spread their ideals. In addition, they use social media and technology to instill fear in people, which keeps their groups going. Without fear, a terrorist group cannot exist. They thrive off terrorizing people, hence the name terrorism. Most infamous of the groups that uses social media to terrorize people is ISIS, who have published videos of decapitating journalists and other innocent individuals. People are scared to travel. The use of spreading ideologies across the globe has caused for tourism rates to go down, which affects not only local economies, but also the global economy. It has been specifically felt in the UK, where it is estimated that almost 300,000 less tourists will visit London this year due to the three attacks that happened on three months. It could take several years before the decrease in tourists becomes stabilized and increases again. A similar story happened in Paris, where they suffered from a 12% drop in tourism after the attack that occurred in 2015 (Alanna Petrof, CNN Money).

Though ISIS has lost territory, since 2001 there has been an increase in terrorist attacks and terrorist recruitment. The U.S between 2001-2011 spent $7.2 trillion on military defenses (National Priorities Project), only to have seen an increase in terrorism attacks and recruitment in terrorist groups. The increases in both realms would not have been made possible without advances in technology and social media. It is nearly impossible to eliminate the ideologies of terrorist groups, as they will forever live on not just in the areas where the terrorist groups' home bases are, but everywhere in the world as people can find their ideologies online at anytime.



Bibliography

Petroff, Alanna. "Will London Attack Keep Tourists Away This Summer?" CNNMoney. Cable News Network, n.d. Web.

"U.S. Security Spending Since 9/11." National Priorities Project. N.p., 26 May 2011. Web.

Verkaik, Robert. "Why It's Becoming Impossible to Stop the Terrorists | Robert Verkaik." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 08 June 2017. Web.