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Understanding Extremism 7 enforcement officials have come to recognize that these organizations are not defined solely or even primarily by their use of terror, as the term “ter- rorist group” would suggest, but rather by the ideology that drives their behavior. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines violent extrem- ism as “encouraging, condoning, justifying, or supporting the commis- sion of a violent act to achieve political, ideological, religious, social, or economic goals.”2 A group or organization need not engage in violence directly to be designated extremist. It need only inspire others to do so. Determining what constitutes “encouraging, condoning, justifying, or sup- porting” can be very difficult, especially from a legal standpoint. “Inciting” violence may be a crime condoning or even encouraging it is not. The line separating insurgent groups from VEOs has become so fine that some analysts have all but erased it. They describe organizations such as the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) and the Basque sepa- ratist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (Bosque for “Basque Homeland and Liberty”) as “ethnonationalist” terrorist groups.3 This approach causes no end of confusion and has fueled the exaggerated fear of terrorism. Over the past half century, the vast majority of terror attacks have been perpe- trated by groups involved in local conflicts. The Global Terrorism Index 2017 concluded that over the past 17 years, 99 percent of incidents “occurred in countries that are either in conflict or have high levels of political terror.”4 This data clearly indicates that despite popular preoccupation with its international dimensions, most terrorism is deeply rooted in local affairs. WEAPONS AND TACTICS VEOs employ a variety of tactics in carrying out attacks. They engage in “asymmetric warfare,” which the U.S. Department of Defense defines as the use of methods designed to “circumvent or negate an opponent’s strengths while exploiting his weaknesses.”5 VEOs cannot challenge pow- erful countries like the United States by direct, conventional means, so they attack them indirectly with a variety of unconventional weapons and improvised tactics. Most of these weapons have limited capacity to cause harm, but they are readily available and hard to defend against. Bombs have long been a preferred weapon of extremists. In 1881, Rus- sian revolutionaries used a homemade, hand-thrown bomb to assassinate Tsar Alexander II. Vehicle bombs have proven even more effective because they can be driven to the target and carry a large quantity of explosives. On September 16, 1920, an Italian American anarchist detonated a horse- drawn cart filled with explosives and shrapnel on Wall Street in the finan- cial district of Manhattan, killing 38 and wounding 143. Car bombs have been used so frequently that they have been dubbed the “poor man’s cruise missile.” Zionist insurgents used car bombs to drive the British from Pal- estine in the late 1940s, and Palestinians used them in their struggle with