Counter-terrorism

Counter-terrorism or counterterrorism refers to the practices, tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, militaries, police departments and other groups adopt in order to prevent or mitigate specific terrorist acts. Counterterrorism is not specific to any one field or organization; rather, it involves entities from all levels of society. For instance, businesses have security plans and sometimes share commercial data with the government.

Terrorism is a tactic used by some insurgents or governments. Not all insurgents use terror as a tactic, and some choose not to use it because other tactics work better for them in a particular context. Individuals, such as Timothy McVeigh, may also engage in terrorist acts such as the Oklahoma City bombing. If the terrorism is part of a broader insurgency, counter-terrorism may also form a part of a counter-insurgency doctrine, but political, economic, and other measures may focus more on the insurgency than the specific acts of terror. Foreign internal defense (FID) is a term used by several countries for programs either to suppress insurgency, or reduce the conditions under which insurgency could develop.

Counter-terrorism includes both the detection of potential acts, and the response to completed acts.