After a week of discussing terrorist threats and the debate in class Friday, I found Stephen Walt's post on FP to be quite relevant. The main point of his post resonated with a very similar point made towards the end of class about cost-analysis and defining what success meant in terms of this 'war on terror'.
In class the point was made that we can never guarantee that there is no terrorist threat. Walt writes that America's politicians don't give the people enough credit when it comes to terrorist attacks and refers specifically to the Boston Marathon bombing. "And doesn't Boston's defiant and resolute reaction to the city's marathon bombing in April suggest that the American population isn't nearly as querulous as politicians fear: If you explain to them that there is no such thing as 100 percent security, they don't go all wobbly. Instead, they display precisely the sort of calm resolution that causes terrorist campaigns to fail." I think this is a thought that should be taken more seriously. Obviously politicians are risk-averse, and it is helpful for them to oversell a threat that way they can't be targeted for having too little concern for national security.
This overselling of the threat, and deciding at what point do we accept that we can't have a guarantee of safety, can connect to the discussion on civil liberties we had in class. Where is a good balance of security, civil liberty, and how do you measure each of these in relations to the actual threat level.
Walt says that this overselling of terrorist threats is unnecessary to a degree when we are worried about 'copy cat' jihadist groups in Syria, where the threat is not directly aimed at the US and is better dealt with by local forces. He links to this New York Times article as an example of inflating a threat to a greater level than necessary. He points out Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Mike Rogers as a case for this risk averse attitude that is mostly an outward display of care to national security as a means of covering themselves politically.
The main point of me writing all this was to sort of continue the discussion we had in class, and to see if anyone has opinions on what Walt is saying here, or maybe more information on this line of thinking.
Good post Victor, I agree that this is a topic that could use a bit more discussing. The article you posted from the New York Times is a great example of this 'overselling of the threat'. In incidences like this one it is hard to judge whether the issue in Syria poses much of a threat to the US. I think this is true with all situations in terrorism though. As you said, we are never 100% safe, and to believe that the government can guarantee our safety is unrealistic. That said, the need to oversell a threat does have some advantages as seen in Walt such has its better to oversell rather than undersell. I believe that overselling a threat really just invokes more fear in the nation, and in most cases, terrorism comes at times when we are unexpected. One way to look at this situation is to note that if the government is overselling the threat, at least they are aware of the threat, which can help to prevent it. It is a very interesting debate though what the proper balance of civil liberties and security is.
ReplyDeleteI think it's important to consider the costs of America's "War on Terrorism" since September 11th. The fear of another attack has cost us trillions of dollars, two wars, thousand of soldier deaths, a huge amount of veterans suffering from PTSD, and on top of it all, personal privacy. If my memory serves correctly, the only other terrorist act committed against the US were the Boston Marathon Bombings. Though deaths by terrorist attacks are tradegies, it is important to consider the tremendous amount of money and resources spent on prevention. Perhaps not everybody is out to harm and weaken the US- just a thought.
ReplyDeleteI think that post 9/11, the American public is more aware of the terrorist threat than we would have been a couple decades ago. While it is always good to be safe rather than sorry, I think as time goes on Americans are going to be less willing to put up with more inconvenience in the name of the security. This sentiment probably changes according to the proximity to a terrorist attack. In general, I feel that the public at this point values their civil liberties more than ensuring their security against a potential terrorist attack.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, there seems to be a general awareness that the entire population cannot be protected from a major terrorist attack. More importantly, I think there is a radical difference from the Boston Bombers and other terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda. Unlike members of Al Qaeda, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev were two individuals that acted alone, and after U. S. enforcement killed Tamerlan, and captured Dzhokhar it was a mission accomplished, and any goals of future attacks involving terrorism or growth from the two Tsarnaev brothers had seized to be a threat to U. S. security. Thus, I'm not sure the Boston Bombing truly effects the U. S. population's resolve about the threats of terrorism. This is because the threat to public safety the Tsarnaev brothers possessed is no longer a concern due to their elimination and capture, other groups such as Al Qaeda that are nearly impossible to eradicate. Thus, it is difficult to measure American perception of terrorism and the cost of life, possibly because it is not a topic that is wanted to be considered on a daily basis.
ReplyDeleteI think that most people are at least somewhat aware no one can be completely safe from a terrorist attack, however I do think that many people also have an expectation that the government will protect us the best it can. I do also believe that ever since 9/11 people are much more aware of the threats we face from terrorist groups, however, before 9/11 I think many people were blissfully unaware of the capability of terrorists (aside from the few examples we witnessed such as the Oklahoma City Bombing), and many believed that our government had much greater power to prevent devastating attacks from happening. Before 9/11 our view of terrorists and terrorism was completely different, and I do think people are much more aware that there is no way to completely prevent something from happening.
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