20 Years of Cato Research on the Global War on Terror

Before embracing a policy of nation building, America should at least have a meaningful debate over whether that approach to security policy is the best course. As seen above, failed states are almost always no or a negligible security threat.

The Middle East, from a military point of view, is little more than a waste of time.

Ousting Saddam would make Washington responsible for Iraq’s political future and entangle the United States in an endless nation‐​building mission beset by intractable problems.

America’s security interests do not require the existence of a stable, democratic government in Kabul, and such a regime is not likely to emerge in any case.

The world is a dangerous place, the upcoming anniversary of 9/11 reminds us. And that is true, though not, paradoxically, so much for the U.S. At least, if Washington didn’t attempt to reign over everyone else.

A poll conducted asked the 83 percent of its respondents who said they closely followed news stories about ISIS whether the group presented ‘a serious threat to the existence or survival of the US.’ A full 77 percent agreed—more than two‐​thirds of them strongly. That’s got to be sweet music to alarmist ears.

Assessed in broad but reasonable context, terrorism generally does not do much damage. The costs of terrorism very often are the result of hasty, ill-considered, and overwrought reactions.

A case can be made that rather than foreshadowing the future, the attacks may turn out to have been a statistical outlier, a kind of tragic blip in the experience of American national security.

Twenty years after the event, I can recall with perfect clarity where I was the morning Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda suicide hijackers changed all our lives.

Perhaps the real value of these leaks… is making clear how thoroughly the intelligence community’s appointed watchdogs have become its most devoted lap dogs.

September 11th has changed America radically — and not for the better.

If you think the Bill of Rights is just so much scrap paper, and the separation of powers doctrine has outlived its usefulness, then the USA PATRIOT Act is the right recipe to deal with terrorists.