NEW HAVEN—Perhaps a simple distinction can help resolve many of the perplexities of life in our brave new world. Despite the panic of the moment, our domestic problems are manageable, if not completely solvable. But our international problems are utterly intractable, and the sooner we recognize this, the better.
These facts should shape our basic response. We should be seriously engaged in antiterrorism efforts at home but we should satisfy ourselves with limited victories abroad, because ridding the world of terrorism is quite another matter.
It would be a mistake to exaggerate the long-term threat on the home front. In contrast to Israel, Ireland or Spain, we are not confronting a group of terrorists with significant support in our society. Al Qaeda is in the unenviable position of projecting a small number of its partisans into a distant and uncongenial place.
This is a more difficult task than the one taken on by the Soviet Union during the cold war. Soviet agents were probably more numerous on our shores then than agents working for Al Qaeda are now, and the K.G.B. could offer them much greater support. Yet the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation managed to contain that grave threat. These agencies can do it again. The accompanying challenge — difficult but not impossible — is to preserve civil liberties in the process.
In other countries, members of left-wing cells have been willing to risk their lives while engaging in high-visibility acts of terror. One example was the group that kidnapped and killed Aldo Moro, one of Italy’s leading politicians. Yet Western societies showed a remarkable capacity to endure these shocks without permanent damage. Moreover, the terrorists of the last generation could at least appeal to old-time Marxists, while almost nobody in the West thrills to the prospect of an Islamic republic.
I do not mean to minimize the attacks of Sept. 11. And I do not deny that other attacks may well occur — perhaps committed by home-grown extremists. But with serious effort, the domestic war on terrorism seems relatively winnable. We will never return to the days of precious invulnerability we knew before the World Trade Center towers fell. But we will learn to live with the new risks, much as Londoners have learned to live with acts of terrorism by the Irish Republican Army over the past quarter-century. In time, we will learn how to minimize these risks.
In contrast, the international prospect is very grim. Even if we catch and kill Osama bin Laden, others will take his place. While we will undoubtedly disrupt Al Qaeda over time, other networks will fill the vacuum. The truth is that there are millions of fundamentalist sympathizers in the Islamic world, and there is nothing we can do to change this in the short run.
Nor will it be enough for us to force one or another government to crack down on its terrorists. At most, this will simply cause terrorists to move elsewhere. And it is beyond our power to induce a government crackdown everywhere at once. The West is too addicted to Arab oil to sustain such a strategy. No less important, crackdowns could reinforce the autocrats of the Islamic world, making it easier to crush emerging forces of democracy. Our long-run strategies will have to take more comprehensive and constructive forms.
When state-sponsored terrorists strike, it is right and proper for us to retaliate. By all means, bring Osama bin Laden to justice and weaken or destroy the Taliban. But we should not fool ourselves. We should figure out clever ways to declare victory at the first decent opportunity and remove our troops. Lengthy military engagement against shifting targets will simply increase the number and tenacity of the bin Ladens of the future.
This cautious approach has gained a foothold in our law. In responding to the attack on New York and Washington, Congress did not give President Bush carte blanche. To the contrary, it only authorized “all necessary and appropriate force” against those who “aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001.”
We should not lose sight of the narrowness of this Congressional mandate. Congress has not authorized the president to expand the battle to include rogue states unless they are clearly linked to the Sept. 11 attacks. Nor has it given him a mandate for further military exercises in Afghanistan once the Taliban are ousted from power. The administration should not be preparing for years of militarized state building in Afghanistan, or taking the war to other rogue states. We should be focusing our energies on securing the home front. That will be challenging enough.
Bruce Ackerman is a professor of law and political science at Yale.