In 2014, counter-terrorism is once again a major focus of national attention in Britain. A raft of new initiatives are being announced by government ministers while journalists and commentators placed the issues of radicalisation and extremism firmly on the media agenda. At the centre of this process is the fear that foreign fighters returning from Syria and Iraq might engage in terrorist violence within the UK.1 For many, the atmosphere is reminiscent of the early years of the War on Terror. But, in this renewed round of high-profile counterterrorism policy-making, have the lessons of the post-9/11 years been learnt? To some extent, over the last five years, policies have been subjected to ongoing critical scrutiny and reform. For example, the Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) programme that seeks to stem radicalisation and extremism has developed through a number of iterations in response to challenges from various constituencies. On a fundamental level, though, while the legacy of policy failures in the first six years after 9/11 is well documented, there has been little attempt to link those failures to flaws in the underlying analytic model that shaped how the UK government responded to the events of 9/11 and the 7/7 London bombings, particularly in relation to domestic counterterrorism policy…