Stephen Gale: Lessons to teach, but more to learn

Over the past 20 years, I have taught a course called "Topics in Terrorism." Each semester I try my best to introduce Penn's undergraduates to the world of modern terrorism: passion, commitment, belief, alienation; the accessibility of weaponry, new organizational capabilities, available financing; growing cultural fragmentation, the political ambiguity in the aftermath of the Cold War. And each semester, I receive my share of good papers but little recognition of what it really meant.

Parallel to my educational efforts, for the past 10 years I have also worked with a Washington-area firm specializing in security and intelligence to develop a method for analyzing security for low probability, high consequence events (read: terrorism). As with my classes, I made any number of presentations on terrorism to the various government agencies responsible for security. And, as with my classes, what was learned somehow never changed behaviors.

Perhaps it is simply that my personal paranoia was never infectious. Or maybe there were other, hidden, agendas. The bottom line, however, is that, in neither case, have I felt that I got my point across -- that there are passionate, committed groups that are fully prepared to use terrorism to achieve political and social goals; that terrorism is a low-cost means for achieving the leverage needed for political and social change; and that the model of security depends less on legal measures than on instituting the kinds of procedures used by Israel.

My guess is that, in the future, September 11, 2001 will be seen as the day when America's beliefs and attitudes toward terrorism changed -- radically. In my discussions with students, I sensed very little openness to the view that terrorism was a legitimate -- though extreme -- form of political expression. Nor did I hear much about self-determination, historical injustices or legal due process. What I did hear was a commitment to national security supported by a willingness to live with whatever political and legal changes were necessary.

Perhaps Americans have been living in a sort of political vacuum, more or less personally divorced from the major regional conflicts around the world. Maybe we have taken our way of life for granted and assumed that we were generally immune from these conflicts -- or at least protected by the vision of immense U.S. financial and military clout. And, Pearl Harbor notwithstanding, throughout the 20th century we certainly seemed to have lucked out. Assumption, however, is dangerous without intelligence and vigilance, and the events of September 11 will surely serve to renew the view that national security requires a commitment to vigilance, internal political integration and the power and will to respond.

Unlike the limited scope of the various acts of terrorism that touched the lives of Americans in the past several decades, the events of September 11 were of such magnitude -- so up close and personal and executed with extraordinary organizational efficiency -- to convince virtually the entire nation that we need to take terrorism and security seriously. And while in the near term the nation's attention will be on focused on determining just who was responsible for the events of September 11 and exacting retribution, it is the effect of today's events on America's future that is ultimately at issue.

Just how will we begin to restructure our private and public affairs to account for low probability, high consequence events? What types of changes in our legal, intelligence and military systems will be needed in order to maintain an American social order? What changes are required to make our executive, legislative and judicial branches sufficiently decisive and flexible to be responsive to this new class of security threats?

For the past decade, the "new world order" has come to be synonymous with U.S. financial and military power. The "New New World Order" initiated on September 11 will undoubtedly follow the old model, but with two added features: a perspective on national security that is grounded and reinforced by far greater internal cohesion and support; and the will to enforce a Pax Americana internationally.

Except for its brief moments in the hero's limelight, security has never been all that sexy. Soldiers are honored in victory and relegated to the woodshed in peacetime. The police share the spotlight when crooks are caught and the lost are found. If nothing else, the events of September 11 should help the nation to rediscover the value of national security, the critical roles of intelligence and vigilance and the rationale for power in maintaining peace.

Of course, I can also think of easier ways to relearn this very elementary lesson. Try as I might, though, I do not believe that I will ever be able to forget the pictures of the Twin Towers collapsing -- and, given the events of the day, maybe that is a good thing. At the least, I imagine that I will not have as much difficulty in teaching about terrorism. Now it is personal, real, touching each of our lives, giving perspective to what is important and what we can put off till later.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.