Wrongheaded Frameworks Posted by David Shorr

I posted about the Marc Sageman book before finding Matt's post on the Marc Sageman book (silly me). I have a couple of answers about the challenge of reframing the terrorist threat. First, it's very plaiin and simple what we have to do about terrorists: find them, catch them, stop them. We have agencies, agents, and international partners to do this, and we need to keep doing it. But none of that work requires us to psyche ourselves up for a global generational struggle.

Meanwhile, we might notice that we have a lot of other international challenges. So here's the question, if we prevent terrorist attacks but fail to make progress on nuclear proliferation or global poverty, will we think our national security and foreign policy is succeeding? I raised this question in a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel op-ed recently. (Note: there was a bit of clumsy editing. The section on nonpro was supposed to talk about the importance of a global taboo on nuclear weapons.)

In other words, counterterrorism is fairly straightforward, but we've noticed what has been happening with the rest of America's interests and values while we've been wrapped around the axle of the terrorist threat. All of which you can say without denying or downplaying the reality of the threat.