3Ps: A Community Oriented Strategy against Terrorism

The concept of community oriented defense against terrorism though enhancing their resilience is becoming popular among the counterterrorism experts while designing counterterrorism strategies to combat terrorism. Communities pose all the resources that could be best utilized against fighting terrorism. However, there are certain issue pertaining to community involvement in security planning and their level of resilience against terrorism. This article conceptualizes and provides an insight of community defense strategy (CDS) that focused on improving community defense against terrorism through enhancing community’s resilience. Based on literature and key informants’ views, three key thematic areas of community defense strategy were identified namely 3Ps: Prevent, Prepare and Protect to improve community resilience against terrorism at grassroots level in Pakistan. On top of it, the article specifies critical roles belong to communities and the state in order to achieve the target of diminishing terrorism.