Extinction.

Terrorism is among the most volatile and unpredictable threats faced by the international community, with a wide array of non-state actors committed to carrying out widespread violence for political and ideological gain.

But a soon-to-be published report by two leading experts outlines the potential for an even more deadly scenario on a scale that could threaten the existence of humanity as a species.

Methods outlined in the report include those in which militants perpetrate or induce attacks involving biological weapons, nuclear exchanges, artificial superintelligence, and even the redirection of extraterrestrial objects.

Zachary Kallenborn, co-author of "Existential Terrorism: Can Terrorists Destroy Humanity," set to be published in the European Journal of Risk Regulation, tells Newsweek that while the likelihood of such scenarios remains quite low, the shift of major powers such as the United States and China from counterterrorism to competition could potentially leave humanity more vulnerable.

"American national security attention is increasingly focused on the rise of China and so-called 'strategic competition,'" said Kallenborn, a George Mason University School of Policy and Government fellow who has served as a national security consultant and contributed to the U.S. Army as part of its Mad Scientist Laboratory program.

"If that focus means terrorism gets forgotten as a risk and pressure is removed from terrorist groups," he explained, "terrorist groups could focus on building organizations, capabilities, and acquiring, solidifying, and expanding territory where they have the capacity and desire to do so."

When it comes to imminent and universally recognized existential threats, such as an impending "planet-killer asteroid," Kallenborn noted it would likely take only a single capable actor to step up and deflect them. But the situation becomes far more complicated in an array of other potential scenarios emerging amid the deepening feud between Beijing and Washington, one which portends a worsening geopolitical environment.

"Consider a hot war between the United States and China that's on the brink of going nuclear and a terrorist tries to encourage escalation," Kallenborn said. "Historically, states have been willing to step back from the edge, but as arms control advocates like to note, they still stepped up to the edge."

"How a terror attack might interact with those crisis dynamics is, to my knowledge, a complete unknown, and definitely scary," he added.

Direct Existential Attacks

The 19-page report examines potential methods and motivations for terrorist groups to create existential harm. Both areas are broken down into subsets, with methods being comprised of existential attacks, existential spoilers and systemic harm.

Among the possible forms of direct existential attack are the use of genetically engineered microorganisms, which the report defines as the only existing weapons posing an existential threat to humanity "that are even plausibly within the capability of terrorists to produce and deploy on their own."

The report notes that producing and releasing a bioweapon capable of threatening humanity requires a great deal of materials and expertise, accompanied by the failure of the international community to respond adequately. Rapid advances continue to make this method more accessible, while international disunity around the COVID-19 pandemic highlights major shortcomings in global cooperation and safeguards.

"Even if all of the obstacles are not surmountable today," the report reads, "the rapid forward march of biotechnology suggests that at some point in the not-too-distant future terrorists might be capable of brandishing an existential-level microbe."

The report examines other ways in which the present may define the future, citing the possibility of terrorists weaponizing "artificial superintelligence" (ASI), defined as a form of "artificial intelligence capable of performing all the cognitive tasks a human is capable of better than a human can." Already, alarms have increasingly raised in scientific, political and military circles regarding the progress and proliferation of AI technology.

Yet another method listed under "future technology weapons" is the potential advent and subsequent weaponization of nanotechnology capable of self-replicating to a scale so devastating it would leave no room for living beings.

Indirect Existential Attacks

The report also explores so-called "indirect attacks," through which terrorists could utilize existing means of mass destruction in the hands of others, including a nuclear option.

In this scenario, terrorists would instigate a nuclear exchange by infiltrating and acquiring control over a nation's nuclear arsenal either for a first launch or by "spoofing" early warning systems to suggest such an attack was imminent, thus prompting a launch. The report points to cyberattacks in both cases as the most plausible means of achieving this aim. Additionally, the report notes that the recruitment of insiders within a country's national security apparatus to overcome established protections could be vital to success.

The report also involves a space scenario that involves "redirecting a benign planetary protection system." This would constitute taking over a nation's means of redirecting the path of a near-Earth object such as a "planet-killing asteroid," and instead using it to draw the object toward Earth. Here too the report said a covert insider, along with an immense level of specialized knowledge, would be necessary.

"This scenario becomes more plausible to the degree that commercial space companies develop the capability to manipulate the trajectories of near-Earth objects, such as future space mining companies," the report said, "assuming such manipulations generate adequate force to shift a near-Earth object into a collision orbit."

Existential Spoilers

In addition to existential attacks, the report identifies so-called existential spoilers, which it defines as "terrorist attacks aimed at sabotaging, disrupting or otherwise preventing existential risk-mitigation efforts from succeeding." When it comes to planetary events, this would entail terrorists merely hindering efforts to deflect an incoming planet-killer asteroid rather than actively causing such a collision.

Other examples provided include terrorists attacking or disrupting society over a wide array of human activity, including super-volcano cooling measures, astro-engineering constructs or sanctuaries, climate change talks or geo-engineering efforts, pandemic responses, safeguards around AI or ASI, social resilience, peace talks between warring nuclear powers, and mitigation measures to counter nanorobotics.

While the means to do so may be relatively accessible for well-equipped terrorist organizations, the reports notes that the probability of any of these scenarios resulting in existential destruction is "highly contingent." Bringing about the end of humanity on this path is only accessible when an "existential risk is on the verge of manifesting or the risk-mitigation effort cannot just be rescheduled or modified," according to the report.

Systemic Harm

The third category of methods through which terrorists could potentially erase humanity is referred to as systemic harm. In this description, "other terrorist actions have the unintended side effect of increasing the overall level of existential threat."

Three types of systemic harm are mentioned in the report.

The first two are impeding mitigation and opportunity cost, both of which involve the real or perceived risk of terrorism redirecting policy efforts away from measures or research that would ostensibly prevent an existential threat. The third is overreaction, through which governments, in a bid to fight terrorism, either amplify potentially existential threats such as ASI or pursue methods sufficiently destabilizing to wreak global havoc to the degree of causing existential harm to humanity.