New Counter-terrorism Strategies:

Overview of America’s National Strategy for Combating Terrorism pre-phrases that, “War on Terror is a different kind of war. From the beginning, it has been both a battle of arms and a battle of ideas. Not only do we fight our terrorist enemies on the battlefield, we promote freedom and human dignity as alternatives to the terrorists’ perverse vision of oppression and totalitarian rule.” 

The paradigm for combating terrorism now involves the application of all elements of national power and influence. Not only it is to employ military power, use diplomatic, financial, intelligence, and law enforcement activities to protect the Homeland and extend defences, disrupt terrorist operations, and deprive enemies of what they need to operate and survive. There is a need to break old orthodoxies that once confined our counterterrorism efforts primarily to the criminal justice domain.

Walter Laqueur argues that the only effective weapon against terrorism in the modern era has been the infiltration of their ranks and the use of informers. Counter terrorism's success in democratic societies is mainly due to advanced computer technology and the cooperation of a population that provides important leads.

Vandana Asthana of Department of Government and International Affairs in Eastern Washington University has observed in her work titled as “Cross-Border Terrorism in India: Counterterrorism Strategies and Challenges” that, “In a global context, however, India is in fact considered a laboratory where major acts of terrorism are experimented before being exported to other parts of the world. 

There is no doubt that the future of international counterterrorism hinges on success in the region of South Asia, through rooting out terrorist networks and deterring regimes there from encouraging or harbouring terrorists. South Asia today has become the hub of terrorism and insurgency operations. While it is time to realize that asking a country to bring terrorists to book is not pointing an accusatory finger towards the country of their refuge, but rather soliciting cooperation for security on both sides of the border” 

She further suggests that four important changes stand out as necessary for successfully revamping the institutional structure to deal with terrorism: 

• The need for a Federal Intelligence Agency, 

• The creation of a National Investigation Agency, 

• The creation of a National Counterterrorism Terrorism Centres, and 

• Modernization of police forces.

The transnational terrorism has to be countered by – 

• Effective international means and mainly by international cooperation which may include declaring terrorism as an international crime, 

• Extradition of the offenders to another state, 

• Denying to the offences of terrorism the status of political offences, 

• Better measures of assistance including sharing of evidence at their disposal, following international convention to abstain from any negotiations with terrorists, 

• Refusal to succumb to extortionist demands, and 

• Effective sanctions against those actively supporting terrorists giving them asylum and other types of assistance and stressing for their strict implementation.

Bolstering institutional capacity to counter terror is going to be a long and demanding task, but it is an essential aspect of an effective and comprehensive counterterrorism policy. All this requires political will and leadership. The Indian government has come under severe criticism for a lack of a coherent and well-conceived strategy by the political leadership to counter terror. Political consensus has remained hard to reach in countering terror in India and that is a challenge the government needs to address with honesty and sincerity.