![]() The present article uses “dangerous” and “lethal” basically as synonyms, and for that reason the empirical tests measure the fatalities of terrorist attacks. George Michael, Lone Wolf Terror and the Rise of Leaderless Resistance (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2012), 3. Simon, Lone Wolf Terrorism: Understanding the Growing Threat (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2013), 23. Simon, “An Army of One: What Makes Lone-Wolf Terrorists so Dangerous?” Foreign Policy, April 17, 2013.ĬNN, “Obama: Biggest Terror Fear Is the Lone Wolf,” in CNN Security Clearance Blog, August 16, 2011. This is argued to be because the robust counterterrorism capacity makes organized terrorism more difficult to accomplish. In the United States, however, lone wolves are generally the more lethal terrorist actors. Around the world, attacks by organizations tend to be far more lethal than attacks by other actors. The article uses data on terrorist attacks in fifteen developed countries, 1970–2010, to compare the lethality of terrorist acts. Lone wolves should only be more deadly in states with especially strong counterterrorism capacity. This argument is conditional upon the environment in which actors operate. However, it presents an argument for why terrorist groups should generally be more lethal. This article considers theoretical arguments for why lone wolves ought to be especially lethal. Furthermore, attempts to explicitly compare these or other types of terrorist actors are almost non-existent. How deadly are lone actor terrorists? A growing body of empirical research focuses on terrorist organizations, but similar work on lone actors is sparse. Scholars, politicians, and pundits increasingly suggest lone wolf terrorists are substantial threats, but we know little about how dangerous these actors are-especially relative to other terrorist actors.
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