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Terrorism and the Dynamics of Threat Exaggeration
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TERRORISM AND THE DYNAMICS OF THREAT EXAGGERATION
John Mueller
Department of Political Science
Ohio State University
August 2, 2005
Mershon Center 1501 Neil Avenue Columbus, OH 43201-2602 USA 614-247-6007 614-292-2407 (fax) ## email not listed ## http://psweb.sbs.ohio-state.edu/faculty/jmueller
Prepared for presentation at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association,
Washington, DC, September 1-4, 2005. Copyright by the American Political Science Association.
ABSTRACT It has been common to exaggerate and to overreact to foreign threats, something that seems to be continuing with current concerns over international terrorism. This paper assesses threat exaggeration and overreaction from Pearl Harbor to the post-Cold War period and applies that experience to post-9/11 fears of, and policies toward, international terrorism. Alarmism and overreaction can be harmful, particularly economically. And, in the case of terrorism, they can help create the damaging consequences the terrorists seek but are unable to perpetrate on their own. Moreover, stoked by the terrorism industry, many of the forms alarmism has taken verge on hysteria. The United States is hardly likely to be facing an existential threat in the sense that it will be toppled by dramatic acts of terrorist destruction, even extreme ones. The country can, however grimly, readily absorb considerable damage if necessary, and it has outlasted more potent threats in the past. A reasonable policy might be to seek to reduce fears about what may well prove to be quite a limited problem.
1. Introduction
"At the summit of foreign policy," Warner Schilling once observed, "one always finds simplicity
and spook" (1965, 389).
This paper deals with two results of that proposition as it pertains to American foreign policy over
the last several decades: the tendency to exaggerate threats and then, partly in consequence, to overreact to them. Of particular interest is the way this proclivity seems to be continuing with current concerns over international terrorism. To carry this out, I consider threat exaggeration and overreaction from Pearl Harbor to the present day and apply the experience before September 11, 2001, to the current era and, specifically, to the extravagant, sometimes even hysterical, fears international terrorism has fostered and to the expensive policies those fears have inspired.
Section 2 of the paper begins the discussion by assessing the Pearl Harbor experience, an event
often taken to have parallels to 9/11. It suggests that the trauma and fury triggered by the Pearl Harbor attack impelled the country to overreact by cascading impetuously into a savage, revenge-oriented war
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TERRORISM AND THE DYNAMICS OF THREAT EXAGGERATION
John Mueller
Department of Political Science
Ohio State University
August 2, 2005
Mershon Center
1501 Neil Avenue
Columbus, OH 43201-2602 USA
614-247-6007
614-292-2407 (fax)
## email not listed ##
http://psweb.sbs.ohio-state.edu/faculty/jmueller
Prepared for presentation at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association,
Washington, DC, September 1-4, 2005. Copyright by the American Political Science Association.
ABSTRACT It has been common to exaggerate and to overreact to foreign threats,
something that seems to be continuing with current concerns over international terrorism.
This paper assesses threat exaggeration and overreaction from Pearl Harbor to the
post-Cold War period and applies that experience to post-9/11 fears of, and policies
toward, international terrorism. Alarmism and overreaction can be harmful, particularly
economically. And, in the case of terrorism, they can help create the damaging
consequences the terrorists seek but are unable to perpetrate on their own. Moreover,
stoked by the terrorism industry, many of the forms alarmism has taken verge on hysteria.
The United States is hardly likely to be facing an existential threat in the sense that it will
be toppled by dramatic acts of terrorist destruction, even extreme ones. The country can,
however grimly, readily absorb considerable damage if necessary, and it has outlasted
more potent threats in the past. A reasonable policy might be to seek to reduce fears
about what may well prove to be quite a limited problem.
1. Introduction
"At the summit of foreign policy," Warner Schilling once observed, "one always finds simplicity
and spook" (1965, 389).
This paper deals with two results of that proposition as it pertains to American foreign policy over
the last several decades: the tendency to exaggerate threats and then, partly in consequence, to overreact
to them. Of particular interest is the way this proclivity seems to be continuing with current concerns over
international terrorism. To carry this out, I consider threat exaggeration and overreaction from Pearl
Harbor to the present day and apply the experience before September 11, 2001, to the current era and,
specifically, to the extravagant, sometimes even hysterical, fears international terrorism has fostered and to
the expensive policies those fears have inspired.
Section 2 of the paper begins the discussion by assessing the Pearl Harbor experience, an event
often taken to have parallels to 9/11. It suggests that the trauma and fury triggered by the Pearl Harbor
attack impelled the country to overreact by cascading impetuously into a savage, revenge-oriented war
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