In what ways is the War on Terror similar to the Cold War? In what ways is it something new, in terms of military, security, and society? Does it warrant the response its been given?

The Cold War involved geopolitical conflicts between two major groups of countries, a Western Bloc, consisting of NATO (Western Europe, the United States, Canada, and Turkey) and the Eastern Bloc or Warsaw Pact (Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Cuba, and allied countries in Asia and Africa). These conflicts were often expressed in "proxy wars" in Africa, Latin America, and Asia with the two blocs supporting opposing sides. The main players in the Cold War were nation-states. While there were philosophical differences, with the Soviet Union tending to espouse communism and the Western Bloc espousing liberal democracy, the conflicts were often as much about geopolitical power as about ideology.
The War on Terror is far more amorphous. Many different groups have used terror as a tactic in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including radical Islamics, Catalan separatists, the FARC guerrillas of Colombia, the Irish Republican Army, alt-right extremists in the United States, Quebec separatists, the Tamil Tigers, and the Shining Path of Peru. Rather than being a conflict between nation-states, the War on Terror is often a fight between nations and other types of entities. While nation-states may sponsor terrorist groups, the Unites States and Saudi Arabia sponsored the Mujahideen (a group fighting the Soviet-allied government that evolved into the Taliban) in Afghanistan and Iran sponsored Hizballah in Syria and Lebanon, in general, terrorists are non-state actors who lack the resources for direct military conflicts and thus resort to guerrilla tactics. It is often difficult to draw a clean line between criminal or terrorist groups and legitimate freedom fighters opposing oppressive governments. The Uzbeks in China, the Tamil Tigers, and the Kurdistan Workers Party, for example, all represent minorities fighting back against genuine oppression and mistreatment.
While in some cases such as ISIS, there are clear military fights against a cohesive group, most terrorism is now performed by lone actors indistinguishable from the ordinary population or people who gradually become radicalized and join internet-enabled networks. This means anti-terrorist solutions must rely more on soft power and community intelligence by focusing on discovering the identity of the disaffected and addressing such issues as the alienation and poverty of young male immigrants, rather than opposing state actors.