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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
39
hardly much of a "sacrifice," would be to go out and buy a refrigerator or to take an airplane to a vacation resort. The war imagery suggests we should be cutting back; but cutting back actually helps the terrorists.
Fear and anxiety as a goal of terrorists. In fact, the reduction of fear, anxiety, and
overreaction is in fact actually quite central to dealing with terrorism. The revolutionary, Frantz Fanon, reportedly held that "the aim of terrorism is to terrify." And the inspiration of consequent overreaction seems central to bin Laden's strategy. As it put it mockingly in a videotaped message in 2004, it is "easy for us to provoke and bait....All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin...to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaeda in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses." His policy, he extravagantly believes, is one of "bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy," and it is one that depends on overreaction by the target: he triumphally points to the fact that the 9/11 terrorist attacks cost al-Qaeda $500,000 while the attack and its aftermath inflicted, he claims, a cost of more than $500 billion on the United States.
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Since the creation of insecurity, fear, anxiety, hysteria, and overreaction is central for terrorists,
they can be defeated simply by not becoming terrified and by resisting the temptation to overreact: as Friedman aptly puts it, "one way to disarm terrorists is to convince regular Americans to stop worrying about them" (2004, 32). The 2001 anthrax attacks, Hoffman argues, suggest that "five persons dying in mysterious circumstances is quite effective at unnerving an entire nation" (2002, 313). To the degree that is true, policie s for limiting terrorist damage should focus on such unwarranted reactions.
Putting risks in context. The shock and tragedy of 9/11 does demand a dedicated program to
confront international terrorism and to attempt to prevent a repetition, of course. But part of this reaction should include an effort by politicians, bureaucrats, officials, and the media to inform the public reasonably and realistically about the terrorist context instead of playing into the hands of terrorists by effectively seeking to terrify the public: in Friedman's words, "policies that encourage fear are a self-inflicted wound" (2004, 29). That is, instead of inducing hysteria, which seems to be one of the terrorism industry's central goals, officials and the media should responsibly assess probabilities and put them in some sort of context rather than simply stressing extreme possibilities so much and so exclusively. What is needed, as one statistician suggests, is some sort of convincing, coherent, informed, and nuanced answer to a central question: "How worried should I be?" Instead, the message, as one concerned Homeland Security official puts it, is "Be scared. Be very, very scared. But go on with your lives" (Gorman 2003a, 1461-62).
One element of a sensible policy approach for confronting terrorism might be to stress that any
damage terrorists are able to accomplish likely can be absorbed, and that, while judicious protective and policing measures are sensible, extensive fear and anxiety over what at base could well prove to be a rather limited problem is misplaced, unjustified, and counterproductive. In risk analyst Howard Kunreuther's words, "More attention needs to be devoted to giving people perspective on the remote likelihood of the terrible consequences they imagine."
79
That would seem to be at least as important as
boosting the sale of duct tape, issuing repeated and costly color-coded alerts based on vague and unspecific intelligence, and warning people to beware of Greeks, or just about anybody, bearing almanacs.
80
What we need, then, is more pronouncements like the one in a recent book by Senator John
McCain: "Get on the damn elevator! Fly on the damn plane! Calculate the odds of being harmed by a
78
"Full transcript of bin Laden's speech," algazeera.net, 30 October 2004.
79
Kunreuther 2002, 663. For a rare instance in which this is attempted, see Dyer 2004.
80
On the almanac menace, see Eggen 2003.
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Mueller: Terrorism and the Dynamics of Threat Exaggerstion August 2, 2005
39
hardly much of a "sacrifice," would be to go out and buy a refrigerator or to take an airplane to a vacation
resort. The war imagery suggests we should be cutting back; but cutting back actually helps the terrorists.
Fear and anxiety as a goal of terrorists. In fact, the reduction of fear, anxiety, and
overreaction is in fact actually quite central to dealing with terrorism. The revolutionary, Frantz Fanon,
reportedly held that "the aim of terrorism is to terrify." And the inspiration of consequent overreaction
seems central to bin Laden's strategy. As it put it mockingly in a videotaped message in 2004, it is "easy
for us to provoke and bait....All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin...to raise a piece of cloth on
which is written al-Qaeda in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human,
economic, and political losses." His policy, he extravagantly believes, is one of "bleeding America to the
point of bankruptcy," and it is one that depends on overreaction by the target: he triumphally points to the
fact that the 9/11 terrorist attacks cost al-Qaeda $500,000 while the attack and its aftermath inflicted, he
claims, a cost of more than $500 billion on the United States.
78
Since the creation of insecurity, fear, anxiety, hysteria, and overreaction is central for terrorists,
they can be defeated simply by not becoming terrified and by resisting the temptation to overreact: as
Friedman aptly puts it, "one way to disarm terrorists is to convince regular Americans to stop worrying
about them" (2004, 32). The 2001 anthrax attacks, Hoffman argues, suggest that "five persons dying in
mysterious circumstances is quite effective at unnerving an entire nation" (2002, 313). To the degree that
is true, policie s for limiting terrorist damage should focus on such unwarranted reactions.
Putting risks in context. The shock and tragedy of 9/11 does demand a dedicated program to
confront international terrorism and to attempt to prevent a repetition, of course. But part of this reaction
should include an effort by politicians, bureaucrats, officials, and the media to inform the public reasonably
and realistically about the terrorist context instead of playing into the hands of terrorists by effectively
seeking to terrify the public: in Friedman's words, "policies that encourage fear are a self-inflicted wound"
(2004, 29). That is, instead of inducing hysteria, which seems to be one of the terrorism industry's central
goals, officials and the media should responsibly assess probabilities and put them in some sort of context
rather than simply stressing extreme possibilities so much and so exclusively. What is needed, as one
statistician suggests, is some sort of convincing, coherent, informed, and nuanced answer to a central
question: "How worried should I be?" Instead, the message, as one concerned Homeland Security official
puts it, is "Be scared. Be very, very scared. But go on with your lives" (Gorman 2003a, 1461-62).
One element of a sensible policy approach for confronting terrorism might be to stress that any
damage terrorists are able to accomplish likely can be absorbed, and that, while judicious protective and
policing measures are sensible, extensive fear and anxiety over what at base could well prove to be a
rather limited problem is misplaced, unjustified, and counterproductive. In risk analyst Howard
Kunreuther's words, "More attention needs to be devoted to giving people perspective on the remote
likelihood of the terrible consequences they imagine."
79
That would seem to be at least as important as
boosting the sale of duct tape, issuing repeated and costly color-coded alerts based on vague and
unspecific intelligence, and warning people to beware of Greeks, or just about anybody, bearing
almanacs.
80
What we need, then, is more pronouncements like the one in a recent book by Senator John
McCain: "Get on the damn elevator! Fly on the damn plane! Calculate the odds of being harmed by a
78
"Full transcript of bin Laden's speech," algazeera.net, 30 October 2004.
79
Kunreuther 2002, 663. For a rare instance in which this is attempted, see Dyer 2004.
80
On the almanac menace, see Eggen 2003.
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