I remember an Adam Curtis documentary called The Power of Nightmares, in it, there are examples of making people scared, threats and anxiety to achieve political ends. Neoconservatives believed that making people scared about threats not only helps in actions against the perceived threat but helps increase social cohesion. They wanted people to come together in their worry, to form new social bonds shared by being scared about a common enemy.
The documentary gives the examples of Neocons's hyping up the threat about Islamic terrorism and Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction. It's really rather good.
I'm always wary of earnest calls for people to be scared. Scared people are scary.