Our terrorists struggle to buy airplane tickets and use cars, knives and century old guns to do their attacks but please continue to explain how this is a pressing CT threat on which we should now spend millions of dollars. #cdnnatsec
The reality is that the Islamic State is pretty innovative, and yes those innovations can migrate over time. But you also need capacity to do these things. Remember when everyone was convinced we were going to all die in an aerosol drone attack?
They have also been decent at creating chemical weapons - but really terrible at deploying them. Not great, right? But the gas disappears quickly and the effect is more psychological (although panic is obviously bad.) bbc.com/news/av/world-…
Here is a recent assessment of the Islamic State's ability to use chemical weapons: (short version: it's really overhyped in a CT context) ctc.usma.edu/islamic-state-…
The reality is we need to watch for innovation, but also know the limits of our violent extremist cohort which, so far, seems pretty limited. Like I guess you could spend thousands of dollars on such a project... or just get a gun and kill people.
So in other words, I'm looking forward to the next stupid fight about CT threats in Canada....
