Despite their serial failure, U.S. leaders describe homegrown terrorists as cunning and their threat as great. Napolitano says they are especially dangerous because they can come from “any direction, and with little or no warning.” Mueller warns that they “understand our culture, our security protocols, and our vulnerabilities. They use the Internet, social media, and marketing skills to influence like-minded individuals.”
The failure of U.S.-born jihadists, however, reflects more than luck. There are at least two good reasons for it. The first is al Qaeda’s ideology. By supporting the murder of most people, including most Muslims, al Qaeda ensures that it remains wildly unpopular in most places. Their ideology is especially noxious to those living in coherent, liberal societies like the United States. Americans drawn to al Qaeda are likely to be a troubled and disaffected lot, lacking traits that most organisations value in recruits.
A more important source of failure is organisational weakness. Mass violence has historically been the product of bureaucratic, hierarchical organisations that belong to states or insurgencies resembling them. Only bureaucratic organisations who have the tools to train and motivate many to act on the orders of a few, which is historically how mass violence with small arms occurred. As agents of states or other organisations that monopolise violence, bureaucratic organisations alone have got the physical security, expertise and capital need to manufacture mass killing weapons like artillery, strike aircraft, and nuclear weapons.
Because they are generally clandestine, terrorist groups usually lack these attributes. They struggle to gain and transfer deadly knowledge, amass wealth, build the physical plants needed to make sophisticated weapons or mass enough manpower to sustain attacks on populations. Those flaws are especially evident in al Qaeda, which has always been more a loosely linked set of radicals than an organisation that commands adherents.
Homegrown American jihadists, who generally lack guidance even from al Qaeda’s withering core, are about the least organised terrorists imaginable. They cannot acquire the funds and training needed for terroristic expertise. Most would quickly kill themselves once they achieved it.