The Historian’s Approach to Understanding Terrorism

Editor’s Note: Too often the United States and its allies find themselves in a counterterrorism policy version of the movie “Groundhog Day,” repeating their past mistakes without end. There are many reasons for these failures, but one is the reluctance of historians to weigh in on contemporary policy debates. Richard English, of Queen’s University, argues that this is a mistake and details the many roles that historians can, and should, play in the broader debates on counterterrorism policy.

Daniel Byman

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H.R. McMaster’s 2020 book, “Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World,” argues very powerfully for the centrality of historical understanding for addressing the world’s greatest challenges. Reflecting on U.S. approaches past and present, McMaster—retired lieutenant general, former national security adviser and himself a historian by training—suggests that “[i]gnorance or misuse of history often led to the neglect of hard-won

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