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Comment by revscat | Hacker News Reader

> In words, deeds and dollars, intelligence agencies remain fixed on terrorism as the gravest threat to national security, which is listed first among five “mission objectives.”

Why?

I understand the tragedy of 9/11. With that in mind, it is a mistake is to treat terrorism as an existential threat to the state. Perhaps someone with a more formal background in history can speak to this, but I do not think there is an example of a nation falling because of terrorism.

Point: there is a widespread purported belief in western democracies, particularly the United States and Great Britain, that one or more terrorist attacks could cause institutional collapse. This is ridiculous, however well-intentioned it might have started out as being.

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Terrorism is vague enough that you can define it as "anything that opposes the advancement of the state," which is why it appeals so much to policy-makers, war hawks, and anybody invested in ever-expanding government budgets.

It's also why it frightens and disturbs libertarians so much in that "terrorism" can be used to justify any and all expenditures, including the curtailment of individual rights and freedoms. The USG will be undergoing modernization of national infrastructure over the next 3.5 years and they will be quite forceful about capturing control over critical infrastructure (regardless of whether it's privately owned or not).

Indeed, the current threat from terrorism has no significant differences from that of 19th century violent anarchism. Those who argue that "9/11 changed everything" play upon an ignorance of history to achieve their own purposes.

It changed everything in US people minds. Hollywood and TV shows were presenting the US victorious always. 9/11 showed that the homeland isn't safe from everything. That was the second shock wave that is still propagating more than one decade after.

Compare and contrast with European countries (France, GB, Spain) that experienced throughout the end of the 20th century terrorist attacks, including bombings, on their own ground.

Truth is, we don't know what would happen if they strike again. And maybe, perhaps, that's what the US government and its agencies want to avoid at any cost. Does the end justify the means?

> Perhaps someone with a more formal background in history can speak to this, but I do not think there is an example of a nation falling because of terrorism.

Maybe you could make an argument for the Reichstag Fire, but I feel that is probably stretching it in a few ways.

We used to face multi-megaton hydrogen bombs aimed at population centers. We used to face the prospect of thousands of tanks pouring through the Fulda Gap into Western Europe. These were real The End of the World As We Know It threats. Real existential threats.

Had we scaled back the military after the Wall came down, we might not have been tempted to fight optional wars (not to say wars of aggression) that cost trillions of dollars and have yielded literally zero benefit in security.

The only plausible theory of institutional collapse I can think of is the end of the petrodollar, and that will happen anyway. There is no cruise missile that can blow up that threat. It might have been handy to have those trillions spent on war to build our economy in other ways so as to withstand the end of the Oil Age.

> The only plausible theory of institutional collapse I can think of is the end of the petrodollar, and that will happen anyway. There is no cruise missile that can blow up that threat. It might have been handy to have those trillions spent on war to build our economy in other ways so as to withstand the end of the Oil Age.

I wonder what is going to replace the petrodollar. InfoTechnodollar, energydollar, dnadollar, water-dollar, fooddollar ?

the petro-not-dollar, obvs

Probably a rare-metal catalyst that makes energy generation or storage extremely efficient (or, at least, comes nearest to the efficiency of chemical fuels.)

Apartheid South Africa?

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