Brent Scowcroft Center Assistant Director Alex Ward writes for The National Interest about why the ISIS threat is overhyped, giving the group more power than it deserves while distracting from bigger threats:
Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson made news recently by claiming that “without a doubt we have evolved to a new phase of the global terrorist threat.” His basic argument was that ISIS and similar groups are “more decentralized, more complex, [and] more diffuse.”
While some concern is warranted, there is no need for alarm on the scale we are currently witnessing. The ISIS threat is overhyped, giving the group more power than it deserves while distracting from bigger threats. More to the point, there is no new phase of terrorism, just the same phase—but with a different ability to promote use of usual tactics.