Federal authorities are tracking an elevated terrorism threat across the United States at a moment when budget cuts have hollowed out key investigative agencies, raising fresh questions about the country’s ability to detect and disrupt attacks before they happen.

Recent incidents illustrate the scope of the threat. In New York City, two men federal authorities say were inspired by the Islamic State brought powerful homemade explosives to a protest outside Gracie Mansion, the official residence of the mayor. In Michigan, a naturalized citizen from Lebanon drove a vehicle into a synagogue before security personnel shot him. In Virginia, a man previously imprisoned on terrorism-related charges was arrested again on new allegations.

These cases, coming in rapid succession, have alarmed counterterrorism officials who say the threat environment is as complex as any they have faced in years.

The backdrop makes the situation more difficult. The Trump administration’s ongoing military campaign against Iran has inflamed tensions with state-sponsored actors and their proxies. Intelligence analysts warn that Iran and allied militant groups retain both the motivation and the organizational capacity to encourage or facilitate attacks on American soil, even if they stop short of directly coordinating them.

At the same time, the workforce responsible for investigating those threats is shrinking. The FBI and the Justice Department have both absorbed significant personnel and budget reductions under the current administration’s broader push to cut federal spending. Veteran counterterrorism agents and analysts have departed through buyouts, layoffs, and what colleagues describe as an exodus driven by low morale and political pressure.

Critics of the cuts argue the timing could not be worse. The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces, which coordinate intelligence sharing between federal, state, and local law enforcement, depend on experienced agents who have cultivated sources and built case files over years. That institutional knowledge does not transfer quickly to replacements, and in some field offices it is simply gone.

Administration officials have pushed back against that framing. They argue that leaner agencies can still operate effectively and that the cuts have targeted bureaucratic waste rather than frontline investigative capacity.

The evidence from recent arrests suggests the threat is coming from multiple directions simultaneously. The New York suspects represent the persistent danger from individuals radicalized online by foreign terrorist organizations. The Michigan attack reflects the kind of lone-actor violence tied to geopolitical grievances that is notoriously difficult to predict. And the Virginia case underscores the challenge of monitoring individuals who have already been through the criminal justice system and released.

Civil liberties advocates have long warned that aggressive surveillance and monitoring programs carry their own risks, particularly for Muslim American communities that have historically borne the brunt of counterterrorism scrutiny. Those concerns have not diminished. But current and former law enforcement officials say the question of how to balance civil liberties with public safety becomes harder to answer when the agencies conducting that work are operating with fewer resources.

Congress has received classified briefings on the current threat environment, according to sources familiar with the matter, and at least some lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have expressed concern privately about the intersection of elevated threats and reduced investigative capacity. Whether that concern translates into action, including possible appropriations to restore some of what has been cut, is an open question.

For state and local law enforcement agencies, the federal cuts have created practical problems. Grant programs that helped fund local counterterrorism units and equipment purchases have been reduced or eliminated. Officers who once could call federal partners for rapid assistance now describe longer response times and less information sharing.

The cases in New York, Michigan, and Virginia were all disrupted or contained. But counterterrorism work is built on the understanding that the system needs to succeed every time, while those seeking to cause harm only need to succeed once. Investigators, analysts, and the lawmakers who oversee them are wrestling with whether the current configuration of federal law enforcement, leaner and under new political pressures, is adequate for the moment the country is facing.