ABSTRACT
If it is true that every strategy has an ideal counterstrategy, then understanding how to counter terrorism demands some understanding of terrorism as a strategy. In this chapter I seek a better understanding of the ways states have won and lost fights against terrorists and insurgents by analyzing and comparing particular historical cases. I am interested in answering two questions. First, what mix of strategies and forces works best against terrorists and insurgents and what does not? Second, if it is true that France, Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union/Russia each learned through painful experience how not to defeat terrorists, why did they systematically abandon that knowledge?
