So is radicalization a major issue that warrants the U.S. to think twice before pursuing a preferred policy, or is it a small threat that doesn’t warrant sweeping government changes? It seems to me you can’t argue that on the one hand, the threat from terrorism is rather small and manageable, and on the other that it is so grave that we need to make major changes to American foreign policy. ~Greg Scoblete

I’m not sure that the two arguments are quite as incompatible or contradictory as Greg suggests, but I welcome the call for thinking through these questions. I have made both arguments over the years, so let’s examine the assumptions behind them. Non-interventionists and realists argue that terrorism is a relatively small threat when compared to other, far more significant security threats that the U.S. has faced in the past. We also argue that terrorism is mainly a response to U.S. policies abroad with the aim of changing those policies. If the second argument is right, that implies that the incidence of terrorist attacks could be reduced or virtually eliminated if the U.S. did not pursue hegemonic and intrusive policies.

It isn’t that the threat is huge. The threat isn’t huge. What matters is that it is avoidable. When calculating the costs and benefits of U.S. policies, it becomes important then to consider whether these policies are doing enough to serve the national interest that they merit the risk of incurring regular attacks on Americans at home and around the world. Whether the threat is relatively large or small, there is no reason to expose the United States to needless dangers. The threat is nowhere near as dire as warmongers make it out to be, but it is much greater than it has to be, and the threat exists in no small part because the people demagoguing and exaggerating the threat frequently prevail in seting policy.

The latest round of interventionist foreign policy over the last ten to thirteen years has focused heavily, though not exclusively, on countering the threat from jihadist terrorism, and everyone would acknowledge that many of the major policy decisions of the last ten years were made politically viable by the 9/11 attacks. Arguments for all of the policies connected to the “war on terror” lean heavily on the idea that terrorism, and specifically jihadist terrorism, represents a major or even an “existential” threat. Any reasonable assessment of the threat shows this to be absurd, and along with those overblown claims goes a large part of the rationale for pretty much every “war on terror” policy.

It seems to me that non-interventionists and realists make blowback arguments to focus on the consequences of current policy, and to point out the flaw in a national security and warfare state that actively makes America less secure by creating enemies where none should exist and provoking attacks that need not happen. It is also a rhetorical move to appeal to public concerns about security without endorsing standard authoritarian and jingoist responses to threats. I can’t speak for anyone else, but what non-interventionists and realists should be trying to do is to channel the public’s appropriate moral outrage over terrorist atrocities towards reforming the policies that create these unintended, avoidable consequences. To that end, there doesn’t need to be any exaggeration of the nature of the threat or the power of jihadism, but there should be a steady stream of arguments that the threat can be significantly reduced or possibly eliminated by reforming U.S. policies so that they actually minimize the risks to the nation rather than generate new dangers. The threat from terrorism isn’t all that great, but it could be greatly reduced. All that it will cost us is our undesirable pursuit of hegemony.