"From Theory to Practice: The Four Waves and U.S. Counterterrorism," by Dr. Kim Cragin (INSS) was released by Terrorism and Political Violence. It examines David Rapoport's Four Waves Theory through the lens of U.S. counterterrorism and argues that policymakers, like Rapoport, understood terrorism as large-scale phenomena. But, unlike Rapoport, they did not view themselves as having the ability to affect the direction, momentum or stagnation of terrorism's waves. This perceived lack of agency constrained the amount of time, attention, and resources that policymakers were willing to devote to counterterrorism during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.

Read more