Is There Terrorism Without Fear?

Re-evaluating a familiar refrain on defeating terrorism

By Scott Berinato

August 25, 2006 — CSO —

In early August, suspected terrorists did not blow up several commercial jets over the Atlantic Ocean. The alleged plot was, in part, successful.

Despite the apparent illogic of connecting those two statements, they're not incongruous. The first is provably true, of course. As for the second, what success can terrorists claim?

The ordinary refrain here is that people are scared again. Since 9/11, no stymied terrorist plot has been so vivid in its detail and come so close to execution. Even after bombings in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005, large-scale terror scenarios gradually receded in the American mind, to the realm of vague, intellectual possibility. Until Aug. 10, when once again terror's palpable, bitter taste coated the tongue. Experts, as they have repeatedly since 9/11, seized on fear as the thing that makes terrorists successful. And if you want to know what you can do to help? Dont be terrorized, Bruce Schneier implored in a Minneapolis Star-Tribune op-ed piece after the recent plot was uncovered, later adding, If we refuse to be terrorized, then they loseeven if their attacks succeed.

Professor John Mueller, the Woody Hayes Chair of National Security Studies at the Mershon Center at Ohio State University, gave a remarkably similar prescription in an essay called A False Sense of Insecurity? in 2004. Mueller wrote in Regulation magazine: Terrorists can be defeated simply by [our] not becoming terrifiedthat is, anything that enhances fear effectively gives in to them.

Frankly, its a tired refrain. A sound bite. Limiting the dialogue on defeating terrorism to a bit of clever grammatical parsingits called terrorism, so all one needs to do is eliminate the terrorbetrays the inherent complexities of the so-called asymmetric threat, the stateless, cell-based networks of terrorists operating within legitimate states. It presumes that the motivation of the plotters is singular: purely to scare. Mueller in fact prefaces his statement by defining terrorism in the words of 20th century revolutionary Frantz Fanon, who said, The aim of terrorism is to terrify.

Too simple. Terror is just one of many goals. Causing political upheaval and change, reshaping public opinion and, above all, causing severe economic disruption are more significant goals of terrorists.

Reducing the response to terrorism to "Just don't be scared" is not only glib, but it's also counterproductive. It implicitly condones, for example, a risk management model that would value symbolic targets equally to strategic ones. Put another way, it takes away resources from defending, say, the Brooklyn Bridge (transportation infrastructure) and the Rayburn House Office Building where some members of Congress and their staffs reside (concentrated political power), and allocates those resources to, say, defending the Statue of Liberty and the Washington Monument.

• Print