Counterterrorism is both a reaction to and an anticipation of the activities of those who wield terror for political purposes. Counterterrorism pits itself against terrorism, aimed at ending or at least limiting its operations, spread, and damage. As Richard English has acknowledged, non-state terrorism has much less impact on the world than the counterterrorism it elicits. The vast powers at the disposal of states and their reactive tendency to military methods, such as after 9/11, make this entirely predictable. Fiona de Londras’ examination of transnational counterterrorism ably documents how states acting in concert have reshaped the world, particularly in the post 9/11 era. Guendalina Simoncini’s book on Tunisia clearly illustrates how counterterrorism can be used to enable the establishment of an authoritarian regime in Tunisia and the resultant disastrous consequences for that society.

For the past 13 years, Egypt has been ruled by the personalist-cum-military dictatorship of Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. In 2013, El-Sisi seized power after overthrowing the first freely elected civilian president in Egypt’s history, Mohamed Morsi, and has since undertaken a sweeping reconfiguration of Egypt’s political economy. He narrowed the ruling coalition to privilege military, intelligence, and police officers while demoting and surveilling civilian state elites such as judges and parliamentarians. The praetorian ruling clique is kept intact by unbroken streams of foreign financing. Recipient of an annual $1.3 billion of military aid from the United States since 1979, the military is now also the beneficiary of some of the largest arms transfers in its history; Egypt was the world’s eighth-largest arms importer between 2020 and 2024. Another income stream is the military’s extensive enterprises in the civilian economy; they pay no taxes, control public land, and enjoy the free labor of conscripts. Intelligence agencies own media companies that produce agitprop valorizing El-Sisi as a handsome visionary, as satirized in the thriller Eagles of the Republic (dir. Tarik Saleh) that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2025.