2. Misoverestimating Terrorism

While it is not true that 9/11 “changed everything,” the tragedy did have a powerful impact in some areas. Terrorism’s apparent incidence and intensity, and therefore its seeming importance, has been multiplied by effectively conflating it with insurgency. Accordingly, the category may be going out of existence—and the same could even happen for civil war much international war. In addition, extrapolating wildly from the apparent capacities of the 9/11 hijackers, some have greatly exaggerated the threat presented internationally by small bands of terrorists, sometimes even to the point of deeming it to be existential—a process that may be repeating itself with the vicious group called ISIS or the Islamic State. This chapter examines what might be called the misoverestimation of terrorism—playing on a verbal invention of George W. Bush. It also assesses the limited importance of the terrorism phenomenon more generally.