Counter-terrorism efforts losing steam

Five years after the gruesome Holey Artisan Café attack shook the nation, it is most unfortunate that our counter-terrorism efforts have remained less than satisfactory. There are two ways to dealing with extremism: one is the hard approach—use of force—and the other is the soft approach. While the former is necessary in certain circumstances—for example, when it comes to handling emergencies like the Holey Artisan attack—it is the latter that can truly prevent extremism from breeding in the long term. Unfortunately, due to a lack of government will, we seem to be stuck in a form of mono-dimensional thinking and have put all our eggs in one basket: concentrating on using force only.