The Iran War and the Global Terrorism Threat

According to the report prepared by the Institute for Economics and Peace in 2026, it is clear that the potential Iran war will change the picture of global terrorism, as it was determined that a war is still the most influential element for increasing the rate of terrorism, in other words; 90% or more of all deaths in terrorism are in the countries undergoing conflict, and since there exists a strong connection between instability and terrorism, the risks become high for Iran because being a state that has regional power but also suffers from certain instabilities, Iran can undergo the same scenario that was seen in Iraq and Syria, where there were rapid expansions of terrorist organizations due to the power vacuum created by conflicts, and eventually, a local instability became a global problem.

    The report also notes that annual deaths related to terrorism exceed 40,000 during periods when there is global instability in the world, yet the number has slightly declined in some regions recently; however, the death toll is highly dependent on ongoing wars, which means that a new large-scale conflict in Iran will reverse the current trend and cause an increase in deaths related to terrorism, especially since Iran plays an important geopolitical role that allows spreading instability beyond its borders, affecting both the surrounding states as well as the international order. 

Another important problem is the existence of proxy wars, meaning that since Iran supports several non-state armed groups such as Hezbollah, these groups are going to engage in terrorist activities simultaneously in different regions in case of a full-scale war, making terrorism activities decentralized, and complicating the detection and prevention process, yet it becomes even harder because of the new trend related to the decentralization of terrorist groups, including lone actors, who account for over 70% of recent terrorist activities, especially in Western countries.

Also, according to the report, digital radicalization has become a serious problem that has changed the dynamics of how terrorism is practiced, meaning that with social media networks being a useful tool for recruitment and propagation of the ideology, thousands of individuals become radicalized without ever being contacted by terrorist organizations, which leads to spontaneous and uncoordinated attacks that cannot be predicted and prevented. And last but not least, it should be mentioned that the economic effect of such a conflict may serve as an important additional factor for increasing terrorism rates, as disturbances in Iran’s oil production could cause significant price increases on oil markets of approximately 20–30%; and therefore, economic instability, followed by inflation and social unrest can arise in many countries and result in increased rates of political violence and radicalization due to existing links between economic factors and terrorism.

Summing up everything said above, it is possible to conclude that the report identifies a potential Iran war as a global threat rather than a local problem, because of both direct and indirect influences that could affect global security.

Source: https://www.economicsandpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/The-Iran-War-and-The-Global-Terrorism-Threat.pdf