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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
3
THREAT EXAGGERATION AND OVERREACTION BEFORE SEPTEMBER 11
2. Japan, Pearl Harbor...and 9/11
When the terrorist assault of September 11, 2001, took place, many commentators looked for
parallels in American history, and the one most commonly embraced was the experience of Pearl Harbor some 60 years earlier in which about the same number of Americans were sent to their deaths by foreign attackers.
The comparison is flawed in a number of respects, of course--the strike in 1941 was carried out
by a state with massive military forces, and it directly triggered formal declarations of war. However, the reactions (or overreactions) to the attacks were similar. The shock, outrage, and fury they inspired impelled an intense desire to lash out militarily at the source of the assault without regard to cost. Moreover, in both cases the results of the reaction proved to be far more costly for the United States than those suffered in the attack itself. And there was little or no examination of alternative policies and a lack of systematic , careful thinking. The spasm of rage ignited by Pearl Harbor inspired, I will argue, a policy of overreaction that resulted in a great number of needless deaths of Americans and others. And, I will argue in section 7, much the same could be said for the reaction to 9/11.
The damage at Pearl Harbor. Postmortems of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on
December 7, 1941, generally describe it in dramatic, almost apocalyptic, terms. The Joint Congressional Committee that investigated the event after the war labeled the attack "the greatest military and naval disaster in our Nation's history" (U.S. Congress 1946b, 65), and leading students of the attack use similar language. John Toland has characterized Pearl Harbor as a "catastrophe" (1961, 38) and as "the worst military disaster in [American] history" (1970, 237), while Samuel Eliot Morison calls the attack "devastating" and an "overwhelming disaster" for the United States (1963, 68, 70). Gordon Prange dubs the attack a "debacle" (1986, 534) and "one of the worst defeats the United States suffered in its 200 years" (1988, xiii). Ronald Spector, Roberta Wohlstetter, and Louis Morton call it a "disaster" as well, and Spector and Wohlstetter also agree on "catastrophe" (Spector 1985, 93; Morton 1962, 144; Wohlstetter 1962, 3, 398). Melvin Small finds it a "crushing blow" and "our worst military disaster" (1980, 234, 253).
In a direct military sense these dramatic characterizations are excessive: militarily, the attack on
Pearl Harbor was more of an inconvenience than a catastrophe or disaster for the United States. The destruction inflicted by the Japanese was not terribly extensive, and much of it was visited upon military equipment that was old and in many cases obsolete or nearly so. In addition, much of the damage was readily and quickly repaired, and its extent was soon made all but trivial by the capacity of America's remarkable wartime industry to supply superior replacements in enormous numbers. Moreover, the attack did not significantly delay the American military response to Japanese aggression, nor did it importantly change the pace of the war: the United States was unprepared to take the offensive at that time in any case, and the damage at Pearl Harbor increased this unpreparedness only marginally (Mueller 1995, 86-97).
The Pearl Harbor policy shift. However, the attack utterly closed off careful thought within the
United States and propelled the country heedlessly into a long, ghastly war in Asia when the United States might have rolled back the Japanese empire at lower cost to all involved if it had continued its pre-Pearl Harbor policies of containment and harassment. And in broadest focus, the war triggered by Pearl Harbor may have been a disaster in that the vicious international overlordship it demolished in Asia at great cost was replaced with a set of local tyrannies that in many cases, especially China, were even worse.
Before Pearl Harbor, American policy toward Japanese expansion was essentially one of
containment--although, as Paul Schroeder observes, after the summer of 1941 American policy became more dynamic, demanding that Japan not merely stop its expansion, but that it withdraw from China (1958, ch. 8). American tactics stressed economic pressure, a military buildup designed to threaten and deter, and
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Mueller: Terrorism and the Dynamics of Threat Exaggerstion August 2, 2005
3
THREAT EXAGGERATION AND OVERREACTION BEFORE SEPTEMBER 11
2. Japan, Pearl Harbor...and 9/11
When the terrorist assault of September 11, 2001, took place, many commentators looked for
parallels in American history, and the one most commonly embraced was the experience of Pearl Harbor
some 60 years earlier in which about the same number of Americans were sent to their deaths by foreign
attackers.
The comparison is flawed in a number of respects, of course--the strike in 1941 was carried out
by a state with massive military forces, and it directly triggered formal declarations of war. However, the
reactions (or overreactions) to the attacks were similar. The shock, outrage, and fury they inspired
impelled an intense desire to lash out militarily at the source of the assault without regard to cost.
Moreover, in both cases the results of the reaction proved to be far more costly for the United States than
those suffered in the attack itself. And there was little or no examination of alternative policies and a lack
of systematic , careful thinking. The spasm of rage ignited by Pearl Harbor inspired, I will argue, a policy of
overreaction that resulted in a great number of needless deaths of Americans and others. And, I will argue
in section 7, much the same could be said for the reaction to 9/11.
The damage at Pearl Harbor. Postmortems of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on
December 7, 1941, generally describe it in dramatic, almost apocalyptic, terms. The Joint Congressional
Committee that investigated the event after the war labeled the attack "the greatest military and naval
disaster in our Nation's history" (U.S. Congress 1946b, 65), and leading students of the attack use similar
language. John Toland has characterized Pearl Harbor as a "catastrophe" (1961, 38) and as "the worst
military disaster in [American] history" (1970, 237), while Samuel Eliot Morison calls the attack
"devastating" and an "overwhelming disaster" for the United States (1963, 68, 70). Gordon Prange dubs the
attack a "debacle" (1986, 534) and "one of the worst defeats the United States suffered in its 200 years"
(1988, xiii). Ronald Spector, Roberta Wohlstetter, and Louis Morton call it a "disaster" as well, and Spector
and Wohlstetter also agree on "catastrophe" (Spector 1985, 93; Morton 1962, 144; Wohlstetter 1962, 3,
398). Melvin Small finds it a "crushing blow" and "our worst military disaster" (1980, 234, 253).
In a direct military sense these dramatic characterizations are excessive: militarily, the attack on
Pearl Harbor was more of an inconvenience than a catastrophe or disaster for the United States. The
destruction inflicted by the Japanese was not terribly extensive, and much of it was visited upon military
equipment that was old and in many cases obsolete or nearly so. In addition, much of the damage was
readily and quickly repaired, and its extent was soon made all but trivial by the capacity of America's
remarkable wartime industry to supply superior replacements in enormous numbers. Moreover, the attack
did not significantly delay the American military response to Japanese aggression, nor did it importantly
change the pace of the war: the United States was unprepared to take the offensive at that time in any
case, and the damage at Pearl Harbor increased this unpreparedness only marginally (Mueller 1995,
86-97).
The Pearl Harbor policy shift. However, the attack utterly closed off careful thought within the
United States and propelled the country heedlessly into a long, ghastly war in Asia when the United States
might have rolled back the Japanese empire at lower cost to all involved if it had continued its pre-Pearl
Harbor policies of containment and harassment. And in broadest focus, the war triggered by Pearl Harbor
may have been a disaster in that the vicious international overlordship it demolished in Asia at great cost
was replaced with a set of local tyrannies that in many cases, especially China, were even worse.
Before Pearl Harbor, American policy toward Japanese expansion was essentially one of
containment--although, as Paul Schroeder observes, after the summer of 1941 American policy became
more dynamic, demanding that Japan not merely stop its expansion, but that it withdraw from China (1958,
ch. 8). American tactics stressed economic pressure, a military buildup designed to threaten and deter, and
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