Regardless of whether the threat of terrorism is still real and eminent, bureaucratic inertia will keep the so-called war on terror on auto-pilot for years to come, says John Mueller, professor of political science at Ohio State University.

Author of the book, Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats and Why We Believe Them, Mueller spoke at Cato’s January Counterterrorism conference. In Tuesday’s Cato Daily Podcast, he discusses why terrorism is no longer the prominent issue in the nation and how the government should react to the perceived threat:

My concern is that the threat that we’re trying to protect ourselves against has been massively exaggerated. Al Qaeda consists of about 150 people riding around in the hills in Pakistan…It’s not clear, in fact, that Al Qaeda has done anything really since 9/11 except put out a lot of videos…Mostly, Al Qaeda has not really done much of anything except do a lot of publicity for itself.