<
https://theprogressnetwork.substack.com/p/global-terrorism-has-been-shrinking>
"Here’s a sentence that surprises me even as I write it: 2025 was a remarkably
good year for terrorism. By that I mean, incidents, deaths, and injuries all
fell significantly from the year prior, according to the most recent
Global
Terrorism Index report, and no large-scale attacks—with victims in the
hundreds or thousands—occurred anywhere in the world.
In fact, deaths from terrorism were at a 10-year low, nearly half the high of
10,882 in 2015.
It’s not just deaths: Over the past decade, terrorism’s footprint has been
shrinking overall. Incidents occur in fewer countries—57 in 2015 vs. 36 in
2025—and have become less impactful in every region except sub-Saharan Africa.
Even there, it has concentrated in the north-central strip called the Sahel.
To be fair, last year was not a particularly safe one for the West, which
experienced a surge in attacks. The shooting on Australia’s Bondi Beach in
December killed 15, for example, and the January truck attack in New Orleans,
14. Still, as much media coverage as these incidents attracted and as awful as
they were, even a “surge” equates to extremely low death counts. About the same
number of people died in the United States last year in terrorist attacks as
they do every year from taking selfies.
Surge or no surge, the proportion of deaths from terrorism that occur in the
West is so small that it’s barely visible on a graph:
As the most compelling graphs do, however, this one tells more than one story.
As you can see, terrorism rose in Iraq and Afghanistan—and spilled over into
Pakistan—during American interventions in those countries, then fell once the
US left. As the report notes, where conflict goes, terrorism follows. Sowing
the seeds for proxy-led terrorist attacks in the Middle East and the West is
just one more thing the American and Israeli governments are risking in their
current war against Iran. The cards are still being dealt, but it would be a
shame to reverse a 10-year positive roll."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
