Johannes Urban examines the strengths and weaknesses of Germany's approach to combating international Islamist terrorism. Using a goals-strategies model based on the framework of means-ends analysis, the study characterizes and evaluates the Federal Republic's counter-terrorism strategy. The author identifies which strategies should achieve which goals and what means were employed in the process. The appropriateness of the approach is demonstrated by the relationship between state measures and specific threat characteristics of international Islamist terrorism, indicating whether measures were symmetrical or asymmetrical. Based on the identified need for action, the study provides recommendations on how Germany's counter-terrorism approach could be operationally and organizationally optimized with a measured approach.