The government's and terrorist's idea of vulnerable is fundamentally different. In Russia they were securing gas pipes, nuclear stations, cabbage sorting plants and whatnot, but terrorist hit apartment buildings, theaters, hospitals and schools.
It just so happens that attacks involving large numbers of civilians are particularly effective for this, because the political pressure to protect the public is high. In the case of targets on this list, there is a similar pressure to protect them, but in general they won't be as expensive to guard because their nature makes it easier to restrict access.
If I were on the Chinese politburo, though, this leak would read like a literal shopping list.
People are less emotional about shut down plants than they are about dead children.
> If I were on the Chinese politburo, though, this leak would read like a literal shopping list.
You bring a point here. This list makes sense (and is obvious) if you have a strategic bomber command in your disposal. Otherwise a few of those isolated attacks will fail to shatter the economy. Remember how many bombs were unleashed on German industry in WW2 before it started showing any effect.
Attacking population on the other hand is accessible and effective, that's the whole idea behind the terror. So a proper, realistic list should be "dense urban areas of the United States". Of course it's not what the embassies were assigned to find out, so they really did an honest, if mostly useless, job.
Either way, the list could be just as easily compiled by Chinese self as it was by the U.S. missions, most of it is based on public knowledge and open sources.
It's not that I suggest leaking it made any practical sense, but IMO the dangers of it are greatly exaggerated.
That nobody has done this stuff underscores just how much of a non-threat terrorism is.
You mean like the train and bus bombings in Israel, Spain, England?
That have slowed down and largely stopped after the military campaigns in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and other parts of the Middle East?
There has been nothing in the US. Are you seriously telling me that of all the tens of thousands of angry, disaffected people in the US, those who have contemplated doing such attacks decided not to because they realized that the act would cause more destruction in Afghanistan?
Similarly, there have not even been any machine gun attacks at malls or airports -- imagine what even a few dozen shots fired at the crowds on black friday would have done to holiday retail numbers. Surely someone thought of this in the past 9 years.
So you are arguing that of the tens of thousands of people in the US who ostensibly want to commit such acts, a) none have thought of it, b) they are working on some far more diabolical plot, or c) they have been dissuaded by the US bombing of the middle east?
On the contrary, I think the truth is that life is good, people are friendly, etc., but most importantly, people care far more about their next meal than they do about abstract concepts, political struggles, etc.
They also got a few cruise missiles in response to the first two attacks, and they got a massive war in response to 9/11. That kind of speaks to how much more effective hitting big civilian targets is for the terrorists than the military and economic ones, but I don't think we can just shrug this off because they've changed course a bit.
(I don't personally believe that hitting Iraq was a good response to 9/11, but you can't argue that if 9/11 hadn't happened Bush would have had any public support to invade Iraq. Without 9/11 there is no Iraq war. With 9/11 and a different president, I doubt there is an Iraq war then either)