In his contribution Bob de Graaff underlines the biggest difficulties intelligence and security agencies experience in their struggle against the current types of terrorism. He discerns 25 factors that make it hard for these agencies to score a victory in the so-called ‘war on terror’, such as bureaucratic behaviour and turf battles, impossible demands from the public domain, the effects of globalisation, the inheritance of working methods from the Cold War and insufficient knowledge of the workings and objectives of present-day terrorist groups which operate much more flexibly than the intelligence agencies. He reaches the pessimistic conclusion that this struggle, whose final objectives are stated in relatively unclear terms by leading politicians, will last for decades and that time does not necessarily favour those trying to counter terrorism, especially since such a long-lasting fight may sap the morale of the public at large.