Paradoxical Terror

Political science professor John Mueller asks a provocative question in the pages of the last issue of Foreign Affairs: what if there’s no longer any substantive threat from al Qaeda and similar terrorist groups?

A fully credible explanation for the fact that the United States has suffered no terrorist attacks since 9/11 is that the threat posed by homegrown or imported terrorists—like that presented by Japanese Americans during World War II or by American Communists after it—has been massively exaggerated. Is it possible that the haystack is essentially free of needles? [...]

Intelligence estimates in 2002 held that there were as many as 5,000 al Qaeda terrorists and supporters in the United States. However, a secret FBI report in 2005 wistfully noted that although the bureau had managed to arrest a few bad guys here and there after more than three years of intense and well-funded hunting, it had been unable to identify a single true al Qaeda sleeper cell anywhere in the country.

This is, in effect, the “Fermi’s Paradox” argument for terrorism.

Mueller makes some strong points about the meaning of the lack of al Qaeda (or related) activity in the US in the years since 9/11, as well as the lack of evidence of al Qaeda (etc.) groups even existing in the US. And while high-profile events like the bombings in Madrid and London remain seared into our consciousness, the reality is that they are one-off events. Mueller further argues that these high-profile attacks are signs of al Qaeda’s (and so forth) weakness, not strength.

I’m not entirely convinced by his overall argument, largely because of the old saw that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” Although Mueller is undoubtedly right that no single typical explanation for the lack of subsequent attack is itself valid, it’s possible that the combination of factors has some explanatory value. Still, it’s clear that AQ (etc.) are nowhere near as pervasive and dangerous as they were described in the months and years following 9/11.