I am intrigued by an opinion article in today's NYT entitled "The Big Thought Is Missing in National Security":
http://www.nytimes.com/...
which posits the strange disconnect between our heighten national security and the lack of any apparent "big science" projects to address the crisis. During WWII, thousands of scientific avenues were pursued to counter the threat of global fascism, yet today there doesn't even seem to be a national agenda to solve the casualties due to IEDs and the obvious limitations of body armor. The author goes on to present some reasons, including patent/profit motivations and lack of leadership. In addition, the telling quote is, "There is no single threat you can identity and rally people around". This article should have been cross-linked to recent discussions of the intelligence community to combine all intel science into a single mega-department called IARPA (Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency), obviously patterned after DARPA. IARPA's greatest challenge is the difficulty in identifying intel targets, as today they are small, numerous, scattered and hard to distinguish from "background".
On the other hand, am looking at the recent so-called major terror threats here and in the UK, I have come to a different conclusion. There is no clear reason to mount a multi-headed national effort because there is no real threat from terror that can be countered by massive government spending. The war on terror lately has been more than adequately countered by standard law enforcement and alert citizens. All it takes is an ambulance driver who sees an SUV smoking, or a photo store clerk who notices training pictures among supposed amateur surveillance, or a snitch that tells a cop about some crazy dude with a bad attitude.
As the news media breathlessly reports on the latest "terror" incident, we are to shake and worry and give up even more of our civil rights (and hard earned cash), all for a handful of knuckleheads that can't shoot or even drive straight. In the meantime, millions of us are victims of an overpriced health care system and decayed public education. The casualty lists between 'victims of terror attacks' vs. 'victims of our leader's backwards policies' simply do not add up.
In summary we do not have a all-out national war on terror because there is no logical way to aim the forces of our national industry and intellect on a microscopic target. Any major effort in the public eye would soon show the fallacy of attacking mosquitoes with hammers. Of course a sensible alternative would be to wage a war on ignorance, but that would necessitate a leadership capable of understanding their own apparent and damning limitations.
The worst sensation that overcame me as I watched the UK-Glasgow incidents this weekend was that we have been striped our most precious freedoms because of a handful of incompetent, misguided persons.