Research Note–The New Frontier of Enhanced Terrorism with the United States In Mind

Abstract

The coronavirus pandemic presents opportunities for scholars and policymakers to conceptualize and scope out theoretical parameters of a new terrorism type - “enhanced terrorism,” with its potential to become an emergent reality in the “post-corona” world. Enhanced terrorism is the threat or use of traditional terrorism, or cyberterrorism, or a combination of both, to exploit, either consciously or not, calamitous conditions like COVID-19 in the role of a “force multiplier” (Jenkins). It works to intensify terrorism effect and in some instances to replicate or augment terrorism threat in other geographical locales. The threat of “enhanced terrorism” derives from conditions of enhanced security threats, namely the prospect of chemical, biological, radiological, and/or nuclear (CBRN) calamitous conditions that are a hallmark of our contemporary world. The links between challenges and opportunities that “enhanced terrorism” pose and the role of systemized “anticipatory governance” in policy-making processes are explored.