The Soft Underbelly of American Primacy

Tactical Advantages of Terror

Dados Bibliográficos

ID4290789
AutoresRichard K Betts (Institute for Security Studies, autor correspondente)
Ano2016
Volume131
Fascículo2
Páginas449-469
Data de publicação2016-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoPolitical Science Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0032-3195 • E-ISSN: 1538-165X
EditoraOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1002/polq.12473
OpenAlexW2468575756
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas36

In given conditions, action and reaction can be ridiculously out of proportion.... One can obtain results monstrously in excess of the effort.... Let’s consider this auto smash-up.... The driver lost control at high speed while swiping at a wasp which had flown in through a window and was buzzing around his face.... The weight of a wasp is under half an ounce. Compared with a human being, the wasp’s size is minute, its strength negligible. Its sole armament is a tiny syringe holding a drop of irritant, formic acid.... Nevertheless, that wasp killed four big men and converted a large, powerful car into a heap of scrap. —Eric Frank Russell1 TO GRASP SOME IMPLICATIONS OF THE NEW FIRST PRIORITY in U.S. foreign policy, it is necessary to understand the connections among three things: the imbalance of power between terrorist groups and counterterrorist governments; the reasons that groups choose terror tactics; and the operational advantage of attack over defense in the interactions of terrorists and their opponents. On September 11, 2001, Americans were reminded that the overweening power that they had taken for granted over the past dozen years is not the same as omnipotence. What is less obvious but equally important is that the power is itself part of the cause of terrorist enmity and even a source of U.S. vulnerability

Citation · Commission · Computer security · Epistemology · Foreign policy · Hard power · Heap (data structure · Library science · National security · Omnipotence · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Terrorism · Computer Science · European and Russian Geopolitical Military Strategies · Law · Military History and Strategy · Philosophy · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence