To stress the salience and urgency of the national situation as dictated by contemporary terrorism and to underscore the need for behavioral and social science understandings of that situation are to pronounce the self-evident. Terrorism, already recognized by some as the looming form of international conflict in the late twentieth century, moved dramatically to center stage on September 11, 2001, and promises to occupy national attention for decades. It is also evident that while the scientific, technological, and military aspects are essential parts of understanding and containing terrorism, every aspect of that phenomenon yields human and social dimensions
