The following characteristics are generally present in a terrorist act: the threat or the use of violence, psychological intimidation, political and ideological justifications, noncombatant activity, criminal activity, covert activity, maximized public exposure, relatively low cost, a sympathetic constituency, and small group activity. Because terrorism is so new as a generic policy issue, most governments, including that of the United States, are still reorganizing their bureaucratic structures to address it. The United States has created the Office of the Ambassador at Large for Countering Terrorism in the State Department to coordinate U.S. Government antiterrorism policy, suggesting that terrorism is viewed as a foreign policy issue requiring a political solution. Terrorism can also be viewed as criminal activity or as low-intensity military conflict, the handling of which involves two phases: the crisis management phase and the post-crisis-incident management phase.