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Terrorism and the Dynamics of Threat Exaggeration
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Mueller: Terrorism and the Dynamics of Threat Exaggerstion August 2, 2005
19
we needed desperately to blast somebody somewhere "on a moment's notice" even without adequate evidence in order to avoid looking like the indecisive "Hamlet of nations" (Gwertzman 1984). He apparently preferred the King Lear approach. Normally, however, only lunatics and children rail at storms; sensible people invest in umbrellas and lightning rods (see also Simon 2001, 180-86).
Eager to "do something" about terrorism, Ronald Reagan finally bombed Libya in 1986 after
terrorists linked to that country had blown up a Berlin discotheque killing two people. This raid apparently led to the blowing up of an airliner by Libya-associated terrorists two years later. In the crash, 270 were killed and the airline company was toppled into bankruptcy.
28
Fear of Japan. As the Cold War was dissipating, there emerged a dangerous new enemy on the
economic front: insidiously peaceful Japan. In a major best seller, historian Paul Kennedy confidently listed a set of reasons why Japan was likely to expand faster than other major powers, stressed the country's "immensely strong" industrial bedrock and its docile and diligent work force, and predicted that, unless there were a large-scale war, an ecological disaster, or a world-wide slump like the 1930s, Japan would become "much more powerful" economically (1987, 461-67). Those of the then-fashionable America-in-decline and FLASH! JAPAN BUYS PEARL HARBOR! schools were quickly arguing that a need had suddenly arisen to fear not "missile vulnerability" but "semiconductor vulnerability." And "economics," they apparently seriously warned us, "is the continuation of war by other means" (Huntington 1991, 8, 10).
29
For example, there were danger signals, Samuel Huntington assured us, in the fact that
Japan had become the largest provider of foreign aid and because it shockingly endowed professorships at Harvard and MIT (Huntington 1993a, 77, 80). One book of the time was even entitled, The Coming War with Japan (Friedman and LeBard, 1991).
Such concerns soon evaporated as Japan's "threatening" economy stagnated. Huntington quickly
decided that, as it turned out, the real problem was actually a "clash of civilizations" which didn't have much to do with economics at all (1996), and Kennedy deftly moved on to warn of the dangers from global warming, job-stealing robots, and population explosions (1993).
5. After the Cold War
In his farewell address upon leaving the Presidency in January 1953, Harry Truman looked to the
future with confidence. He considered the "menace of communism" and "our fight against it" to be the "overriding issue of our time." But he had no doubt that "as the free world grows stronger, more united, more attractive to men on both sides of the Iron Curtain--and as the Soviet hopes for easy expansion are blocked--then there will have to come a time of change in the Soviet world."
He also looked forward, and with great pleasure, to the "world we hope to have when the
Communist threat is overcome." It would be a "new era," he suggested, "a wonderful golden age--an age when we can use the peaceful tools that science has forged for us to do away with poverty and human misery everywhere on the earth. Think what can be done, once our capital, our skills, our science--most of all atomic energy--can be released from the tasks of defense and turned wholly to peaceful purposes all around the world. There is no end to what can be done." With "peace and safety in the world under the United Nations, the developments will come so fast we will not recognize the world in which we live" (1966, 378).
28
Simon 2001, 197-200.
29
The concept of economic war comes close to being oxymoronic. There are times when it may make some sense
(as when the world coordinated to embargo Iraq in 1990), but war is substantially zero (or negative) sum while economic exchange, although not always fully fair or equal, is generally positive sum--both parties gain. See Jervis 1993, 57-58.
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Mueller: Terrorism and the Dynamics of Threat Exaggerstion August 2, 2005
19
we needed desperately to blast somebody somewhere "on a moment's notice" even without adequate
evidence in order to avoid looking like the indecisive "Hamlet of nations" (Gwertzman 1984). He
apparently preferred the King Lear approach. Normally, however, only lunatics and children rail at storms;
sensible people invest in umbrellas and lightning rods (see also Simon 2001, 180-86).
Eager to "do something" about terrorism, Ronald Reagan finally bombed Libya in 1986 after
terrorists linked to that country had blown up a Berlin discotheque killing two people. This raid apparently
led to the blowing up of an airliner by Libya-associated terrorists two years later. In the crash, 270 were
killed and the airline company was toppled into bankruptcy.
28
Fear of Japan. As the Cold War was dissipating, there emerged a dangerous new enemy on the
economic front: insidiously peaceful Japan. In a major best seller, historian Paul Kennedy confidently listed
a set of reasons why Japan was likely to expand faster than other major powers, stressed the country's
"immensely strong" industrial bedrock and its docile and diligent work force, and predicted that, unless
there were a large-scale war, an ecological disaster, or a world-wide slump like the 1930s, Japan would
become "much more powerful" economically (1987, 461-67). Those of the then-fashionable
America-in-decline and FLASH! JAPAN BUYS PEARL HARBOR! schools were quickly arguing that a
need had suddenly arisen to fear not "missile vulnerability" but "semiconductor vulnerability." And
"economics," they apparently seriously warned us, "is the continuation of war by other means" (Huntington
1991, 8, 10).
29
For example, there were danger signals, Samuel Huntington assured us, in the fact that
Japan had become the largest provider of foreign aid and because it shockingly endowed professorships at
Harvard and MIT (Huntington 1993a, 77, 80). One book of the time was even entitled, The Coming War
with Japan (Friedman and LeBard, 1991).
Such concerns soon evaporated as Japan's "threatening" economy stagnated. Huntington quickly
decided that, as it turned out, the real problem was actually a "clash of civilizations" which didn't have
much to do with economics at all (1996), and Kennedy deftly moved on to warn of the dangers from global
warming, job-stealing robots, and population explosions (1993).
5. After the Cold War
In his farewell address upon leaving the Presidency in January 1953, Harry Truman looked to the
future with confidence. He considered the "menace of communism" and "our fight against it" to be the
"overriding issue of our time." But he had no doubt that "as the free world grows stronger, more united,
more attractive to men on both sides of the Iron Curtain--and as the Soviet hopes for easy expansion are
blocked--then there will have to come a time of change in the Soviet world."
He also looked forward, and with great pleasure, to the "world we hope to have when the
Communist threat is overcome." It would be a "new era," he suggested, "a wonderful golden age--an age
when we can use the peaceful tools that science has forged for us to do away with poverty and human
misery everywhere on the earth. Think what can be done, once our capital, our skills, our science--most of
all atomic energy--can be released from the tasks of defense and turned wholly to peaceful purposes all
around the world. There is no end to what can be done." With "peace and safety in the world under the
United Nations, the developments will come so fast we will not recognize the world in which we live"
(1966, 378).
28
Simon 2001, 197-200.
29
The concept of economic war comes close to being oxymoronic. There are times when it may make some sense
(as when the world coordinated to embargo Iraq in 1990), but war is substantially zero (or negative) sum while
economic exchange, although not always fully fair or equal, is generally positive sum--both parties gain. See Jervis
1993, 57-58.
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