Great Terror Competition.

• Author: Byman, Daniel

Presidents Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and Barack Obama agreed on few things, but all sought to make counterterrorism less central to U.S. foreign policy and instead focus on China, Russia, and other great powers, citing their dangerous military capabilities and desire to upend the U.S.-led international order, among other troubling actions. Indeed, with Biden's withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan in August 2021 and Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it seemed like the counterterrorism era had finally ended and the era of "strategic competition"--to use the words of the Biden administration's interim national security guidance--had formally commenced.

Not quite. Confronting major powers, especially Russia, to say nothing of smaller powers like Iran, also requires counterterrorism tools, but what that means in practice differs considerably from the fight against the Islamic State (often referred to as ISIS), AI Qaeda, and similar non-state groups. Terrorism linked to great powers is usually part of broader destabilization campaigns and proxy wars, so basic counterterrorism tools like intelligence cooperation and training local security forces remain vital. The challenges, however, pose different dangers--and require different responses--from traditional forms of terrorism, and the risk of escalation is high.

To be sure, state-sponsored terrorism is hardly new. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and its communist allies established ties to a range of terrorist groups around the world to undermine pro-U.S. regimes, sow discord in NATO countries, and otherwise further their objectives. Moscow and other communist states also used their agents to assassinate dissidents. Mao's China, for its part, tried to spread its revolutionary message in the developing world, offering money, weapons, and training to its acolytes as was a model for insurgent action. Abimael Reinoso Guzman, who founded the terrorist and insurgent group Sendero Luminoso in Peru, was among those who came away inspired after his visit to China in the 1960s.

In the post-Cold War era, U.S. attention focused on countries like Iran, Pakistan, Sudan, and others that backed--and in cases like Iran and Pakistan, still back--an array of terrorist groups that have attacked both the United States and its regional allies like Israel and India. At times, the sponsors' motives are ideological: Iran supported numerous groups after the 1979 revolution as part of its plans to export its theocratic system and topple regimes it deemed ungodly.

In other cases, supporting terrorists helped unpopular regimes shore up their domestic credibility. Syria worked with (but often undermined) an array of Palestinian groups in order to champion its claim to being "the beating heart of Arabism."

The United States also frequently labels the assassination of dissidents abroad as terrorism. In addition to support for groups like Hezbollah that blew up U.S. military and diplomatic facilities, Iran also assassinated members of the former regime, Kurdish leaders in exile, and others who opposed the clerical government. The Trump administration returned North Korea to the list of official state sponsors of terrorism in part due to the regime's killing of the Great Leader's half-brother in Kuala Lumpur in 2017. When allies do the same thing, however, the "t" word is not used, such as when the Saudi government assassinated critic Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 at a Saudi consulate in Turkey.

More often, however, states have backed terrorists for strategic reasons. Pakistan supported jihadi groups to counter India and dominate Afghanistan. Syria allowed jihadists to cross its territory and enter Iraq to weaken the U.S. position there after the 2003 U.S. invasion and occupation. Even Iran's once-ideological foreign policy has become more realpolitik, with the Islamic Republic supporting groups in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and elsewhere to counter Saudi Arabia, weaken U.S. influence, strengthen its hold on regional states, and project power against Israel, among other strategic objectives.

For many regimes, working with terrorist groups gives them deniability, or at least its veneer. Iran's links to Hezbollah, Pakistan's links to Lashkar-e Taiba, and similar connections are well-known, but having the terrorist group kill and sow mayhem allows its paymaster to claim it was not involved. Even many victim states prefer this fiction to the risks inherent in confronting the sponsor, which might mean military action or even all-out war.

Today, when major powers get into the act, they often follow the logic of lesser powers, but at a...