Explaining the Adaptability of Counterterrorist Organisations: France, Britain and the United States facing Transnational Terrorism

Could 9/11 have been avoided? We know that the US intelligence services had clues on some of the terrorists that struck on that fateful morning. So what went wrong? Counter-terrorism is all about cooperation and information sharing between intelligence agencies and police services. Frank Foley’s postdoctoral research examined how this inter-service cooperation is organized. His research has led him to identify the lack of organization within these agencies due to the high number of different stakeholders (FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, Police departments, etc.) and the competition between some of them. Conversely, the UK and to a certain extent France, with fewer agencies and less competition, show a higher level of cooperation, which has boosted their ability to coordinate counter-terrorism efforts.