With respect, stationing troops all round the world is about effective as farting in a thunderstorm.

The very nature of terrorism is that it is covert, underground and hidden. The only REAL way to counter terrorism is to respond with extreme force. You blow up one of our buses, we'll take out a small village. You kill one of our citizens, we eliminate you, your mother and the next five generations. And your dog and your camel.

Of course, this all relies on intelligence and information, which is where the whole argument falls apart, as our intelligence services couldn't find their way out of their office without asking the cleaner.