Obviously, the terrorist threat is real and endures, as the recent foiled plot in Germany attests.

That plot, which could have claimed more victims than the 9 11 attacks, was foiled by the vigilance of the British intelligence authorities.

Early this month, India s army foiled an attempted incursion by a group of 30 to 40 militants from Pakistani territory, leading Indian critics to decry official peace overtures.

In November, China foiled ASEAN members efforts to create a multilateral forum and an agreed code of conduct to govern economic and security activity in the South China Sea.

And they were to blow up strategic targets and take over the country, and they were foiled by a Nigerian James Bond called Coyote Williams, and a Jewish Nazi hunter.

Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri are still at large, and we need to focus on finding them if we are to prevent attacks like the one foiled in England.

Meanwhile, Turkey faces a direct threat from the Islamic State, exemplified by the twin suicide bombings that killed more than 100 people in Ankara last month. Turkish authorities have since foiled another attack, planned for the same day as those in Paris.

After the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) won parliamentary elections and formed a government in October of that year, the right wing military establishment accepted the new democratic rules of the game and foiled a coup attempt that sought to block the advance of the left.