Hammer the Terrorists

“Give a small boy a hammer and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding” – formally known as the Law of the Instrument, the maxima formulated by the American philosopher Abraham Kaplan is often attributed to Mark Twain. Another version of it says: “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”

Kaplan used to study human behavior and possible ways of predicting it. I thought about him last week while the American media, celebrating the first anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death, was busy discussing whether the threat of large-scale terrorist acts against the homeland had diminished. One of the most influential writers on that subject, Peter Bergen, published “Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden – from 9/11 to Abbottabad.” The CIA announced the unraveling of a plot that intended to use a new and better version of the infamous underwear bomb.

The last time a bomb of that nature came to attention, it was worn by a beginner bomber who fortunately did not succeed in taking down a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Eve 2009. Reportedly, the new design of the bomb, already disposed of by the CIA, features an upgraded detonation system. No further details were provided. To catch up with their CIA co-workers, FBI agents warned of a possible development of bombs being implanted in the bomber’s body.

To what extent the threats are real and to what extent they have been more or less exaggerated to prove a job well done is a matter left unattended by the media. We know that numerous highly qualified professionals work around the clock to track terrorist links around the word and to foresee the next attack. Eavesdropping alone provides employment to 30,000 people. The Department of Homeland Security, founded in 2002, has more than 230,000 employees – I read recently that it may open an office in Bulgaria. It has grown to become the third biggest administration after the Pentagon and the Department of Veteran Affairs.

Still, no one defines what would be considered a final victory over the terrorists threatening the U.S. and Western Europe. What we know for sure, though, is that the subject will continue to draw funding and employment; no local or national politician would dare to appear weak when it comes to security and public safety.

As a result of increased vigilance, now almost all police stations in the U.S. have a department dealing with terrorist threats. When and whether its employees are indeed needed is a different matter. Additionally, the number of special squads called SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics), who have sniper rifles and explosive specialists at their disposal, have tripled since 2001. Would you think that this is because bank robberies or kidnaps have tripled?

When he first came to power, President Barack Obama had the ambition to answer the thorny question of the final goal of the war on terror. His first step was to abandon the stupid term “war on terror” used during the Bush era. Then, he turned his attention toward possible scenarios of ending the war in Iraq and was able to put one of them into practice. Closing the final chapter of the Afghanistan odyssey turned out to be more difficult, but it looks like it is headed toward the homestretch. The mountain of victims and financial resources taken by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be matched by even the most horrific terrorist attack.

Even in the U.S., the security measures hurt the economy – not only with the money spent abroad, but also with the complicated visa regulations that reduce the number of students and qualified professionals immigrating to the country.

What event would signal a victory over terrorism, or what is the minimal risk that the U.S. could afford to take? Obama did not find an acceptable answer to this question. The still-open Guantanamo Bay detention camp has become an emblem of his hesitations on the matter. The president of the United States – Obama or someone else – has been left with few resources to stop the well-established flow of public funds toward the needs of national security, regardless of whether these needs are real or fictitious.

Once you start hammering, it’s not easy to switch to a screwdriver.