This chapter considers the importance of technology from two fundamentally different perspectives: first, as an instrument of terror, and, then, as a means of preventing and responding to acts of terror. Specific technologies are described in both domains. For terrorists, technology is involved in both the means of terror, including weapons of mass destruction and use of the Internet, and the targets of terror, including technological infrastructure targets. Technology can be a critical tool in counterterrorism too, through smart identification systems, sophisticated technologies for intelligence gathering and analysis, and the use of the Internet as a bridge builder to reduce tensions that can lead to terrorism. The chapter closes with a reflection on the limits of technology both for terrorists and for peace-loving people.

Technology as an Instrument of Terror

It was noted in Chapter 4 that some of the same forces of globalization that have facilitated the growth of economies and encouraged cultural exchange throughout the world in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have also become available to terrorists, who have used these technologies to expand their activities and make them more lethal. Political scientist Joseph Nye (2002) refers to this development as the “privatization of war.”

Terrorists have traditionally limited their activities to their local areas, targeting people of their own land. Because of the explosion of communication and information technologies used to move goods and financial capital, they have been able to broaden their horizons substantially.