Remora

There's an outstandingly dumb op-ed piece in the nyt today The 40-Year War Someone named Bill Keller has grabbed the wrong analogy and rides it to its frothing conclusion.

The analogy is that we are in the New Cold War. He gets rid of the inconvenient fact that, really, we aren't this way "There is, of course, no Soviet Union of terrorism, but as John Lewis Gaddis, the dean of cold-war historians, has been telling his classes at Yale since Sept. 11, there are striking parallels."

Striking parallels between a world wide clash between two nuclear armed nations and a disparate group of terrorists scattered about the Middle East with, at most, maybe 10 to 15,000 agents? Right. The striking parallel is between the thirst for some grand, unified thing like a Cold War among deans of cold war history and Georgetown cocktail diplomats. Actually, there is a parallel with an earlier 'war' in American history. That war, against the Barbary Pirates, was an easy victory. America's confrontation with terrorists is, similarly, a confrontation with a loosely organized group that relies on a context of sympathizers to retreat, and the low tech advantages of ambush to attack. The war against the pirates, in the Western Hemisphere, lasted two hundred years. It was never completely won, but piracy diminished because it became inconvenient for the states that had once sponsored it -- England and France -- and the object of piracy -- mainly the Spanish gold fleet -- became more of a cost to attack.The Barbary Pirates fell because they were easily located and routed.
Of course, piracy is ultimately driven by economics. Terrorism is driven by ideology. In that sense, only, one can find a Cold War parallel. As for the current salivating over the 'coming security state' -- I'll believe it when I see it. So far, we haven't even agreed to secure, at a minimum level, airports, although we were quick to secure the finances of airlines. I do sometimes wonder at the hysteria of intellectuals, who so much want there to be a moment beyond which 'everything is changed,' whether to satisfy their libertarian nightmares or their authoritarian daydreams. Those moments happen, no doubt. So far, though, the indicators are that the WCT attack wasn't one of them. Compare it to, say, the war on drugs, which kicked into high gear in the 80s after the death of basketball star Len Bias. You might think this is a grossly distorting comparison -- the WCT attack is certainly one of the great atrocities of our time. Alas, the shadows thrown by historic events can't be predicted by their gross emotional weight. While Bias' death kicked-started a disasterous set of laws punishing drug use, which in turn had a massive effect on American society, giving us proportionately one of the highest percentages of incarcerated people on earth, what has the WCT assault done? I see no comparable change in the domestic political landscape. TThere is a great desire for some great change, that is true. We want, somehow, to do something tthat is appropriately monumental as a sign of respect for the 6000 who died. But desire, here, has not yet found an object. As for the international landscape, Afghanistan can not long stay at the center of the world. All bets are off if Ben Laden is not captured or killed, but I'd certainly be cautious about predicting a forty year "Cold War."