The problem is, though, that the cost of entry to war has been lowered to such a great degree by advances in technology that smaller and smaller groups are progressively able to cause greater and greater strategic disruptions. While the root causes of the dissatisfaction of some terrorist movements obviously need to be addressed, that may not alone "solve" the terrorism problem that is likely to face the West and the state more generally as the 21st century progresses. There are always going to be disaffected elements in any society, further technological advances are likely to further increase the ability of those disaffected societal elements to cause damage disproportional to their size.

When a skilled individual with a $1,000 laptop can wage war on the United States, talking about root causes becomes less relevant to the problem.