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Terrorizing Ourselves dismantles much of the flawed thinking that dominates U.S. counterterrorism policy today and lays out alternative approaches informed by experience, deliberation, and the well-established norms of a free society.

Leading experts in the field contributed to this important new book, which shows that politicians use fear for political purposes and spend vast sums of money on dubious security measures. These experts explore the nature of modern terrorism, explain and decry our panicked responses to it, and offer sober alternatives.

Beyond specific proposals for disrupting terror cells and improving homeland security efforts, Terrorizing Ourselves documents the many ways in which a climate of fear-mongering exacerbates the threat of terrorism.

Terrorists, the authors note, get their name for a reason. Fear is their chief tactic. Political forces push U.S. policymakers to hype this fear, encouraging Americans to believe that terrorists are global super villains who can wreck American society unless we submit to their demands. This book shows that policies based on this fantasy are self-defeating and bring needless war, wasted wealth, and less freedom. The authors explore strategies to undermine support for these policies. They also sketch an alternative counterterrorism and homeland security strategy—one that makes us safer and plays to Americans’ confidence rather than our fears.

Terrorism is a product of interactions between individual choices, organizational choices, and the environmental dimensions that influence those choices. Combining the two analytical frames when analyzing terrorism reinforces the critical importance of information battleground and the need to develop a supreme ability to conduct influence warfare.

Jim Harper

Jim Harper is the Director of Information Policy Studies at the Cato Institute and a member of the Department of Homeland Security’s Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee.

Benjamin H. Friedman

Benjamin H. Friedman is a research fellow in defense and homeland security studies. His areas of expertise include counter-terrorism, homeland security and defense politics, with a focus on threat perception. He is co-editor of a book on U.S. military innovation since the Cold War, US Military Innovation since the Cold War: Creation Without Destruction. His work has appeared in Foreign Policy, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Baltimore Sun, Washingtonpost.com, Defense News, and several other newspapers and journals. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College and a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science and an affiliate of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Christopher A. Preble

Cristopher A. Preble is the vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. He is the author of three books including The Power Problem: How American Military Dominance Makes Us Less Safe, Less Prosperous and Less Free (Cornell University Press, 2009); and John F. Kennedy and the Missile Gap (Northern Illinois University Press, 2004); and he co-edited, with John Mueller, A Dangerous World? Threat Perception and U.S. National Security (Cato Institute, 2014); and, with Jim Harper and Benjamin Friedman, Terrorizing Ourselves: Why U.S. Counterterrorism Policy Is Failing and How to Fix It (Cato Institute, 2010). Preble has also published articles in major publications including the New York Times, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, the Financial Times, National Review, The National Interest, and Foreign Policy, and is a frequent guest on television and radio. In addition to his work at Cato, Preble teaches the U.S. Foreign Policy elective at the University of California, Washington Center (UCDC). Before joining Cato in February 2003, he taught history at St. Cloud State University and Temple University. Preble was a commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy, and served onboard USS Ticonderoga (CG-47) from 1990 to 1993. Preble holds a Ph.D. in history from Temple University.