Foreign Policy and the Center for American Progress recently released their Terrorism Index. The Index surveys 100 of America's leading policy experts on a range of topics. Some key results:
- 86% believe the world today is more dangerous than it was before 9/11.
- 84% believe the U.S. is not winning the war on terror.
- 8 out of 10 respondents believe that the U.S. is likely to face a terrorist attack within the next 10 years that is of the same magnitude of 9/11.
I recently had the opportunity to see Michael Scheuer comment on the Index at the Center for American Progress. For those that haven't read Scheuer's Imperial Hubris, one of his core arguments is that U.S. foreign policy (i.e., continual interventions in a wide range of areas abroad) is a key driver behind the 9/11 attacks as well as the current terrorist threat. In his comments on the Index, Scheuer argued that the U.S. should disengage from the Middle East (Afghanistan, Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) because these interventions are not in the "national interest."
While I agree with Scheuer's conclusion, the "national interest" motivation is ultimately unsatisfying because an argument can (as has been) be made that these endeavors are in America's national interest. I prefer pursuing the line of argument that the means available to U.S. policymakers and military forces are not suitable to engineer the desired, or at least stated, ends. In short, even if establishing liberal democracy in the Middle East is in our national interest, we lack the necessary means to accomplish this end.
As a side note I will be giving a talk, open to the public, on my forthcoming book on the topic of exporting liberal democracy this Thursday at the Mercatus Center (5:00pm, 4th floor).