How we went from 9/11 to lone actors

ABSTRACT Since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks by al Qaeda on the United States, the terrorist threat has evolved. Two decades on, the world continues to worry about violent Islamist terrorist attacks, though now the threat picture seems dominated by lone actor plots which often seem disconnected from any major terrorist group. This article seeks to understand how we got to where we are today by tracing a line through the threat that has been seen over the past twenty years to understand how the threat and response interact with each other. It also seeks to cast a light on how the lone actor threat became the dominant part of the threat picture in large parts of the west.