PredictionThe Las Vegas Attack Will Inspire Copycats

The Las Vegas Attack Will Inspire Copycats

Given the high death toll in Las Vegas, copycat attacks are bound to follow. One of the factors that drives terrorism, after all, is the success of past attacks.

Early anarchist ideologues saw terrorism as a form of propaganda. In 1885, Johann Most famously declared, "we preach not only action in and for itself, but also action as propaganda." Indeed, in many ways, it seems as if successful attacks are able to influence future attacks more than simple propaganda does. For instance, even though al Qaeda began calling for grassroots jihadists to conduct vehicular assaults in the second edition of its Inspire magazine, published in 2010, and despite the ease of conducting such attacks, only six were recorded outside Israel between 2010 and 2016. However, since the deadly and well-publicized Bastille Day attack in Nice, France, in 2016, at least 10 vehicular assaults have been committed by jihadists in North America and Europe (as well as two others not connected with jihadists). Success, and the heavy media coverage that accompanies it, clearly breeds imitation.