Chasing Ghosts: The Policing of Terrorism

by John E. Mueller, Mark Stewart

Since 2001, the United States has created or reorganized more than two counterterrorism organizations for every apprehension it has made of Islamists apparently planning to commit terrorism within the country. Central to this massive enterprise is what the FBI frequently calls "ghost-chasing"-the efforts by police and intelligence agencies to follow up on over ten million tips. Less than one alarm in 10,000 fails to be false-the rest all point to ghosts. And the vast majority of the leads deemed to be productive have led to terrorist enterprises that are either trivial or at most aspirational. As John Mueller and Mark G. Stewart suggest in Chasing Ghosts, it is often an exercise in dueling an extremist has delusions about changing the world by blowing something up, and the authorities have delusions that he might actually be able to overcome his patent inadequacies to do so. Chasing Ghosts systematically examines this expensive, exhausting, bewildering, chaotic, and paranoia-inducing process. It evaluates the counterterrorism efforts of the FBI, the National Security Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, and local policing agencies. In addition, it draws from a rich set of case studies to appraise the capacities of the terrorist "adversary" and to scrutinize "the myth of the mastermind." Mueller and Stewart also look closely at public opinion, a key driving force in counterterrorism efforts. The chance that an American will be killed by a terrorist within the country is about one in four million per year under present conditions. However, poll data suggest that, although over a trillion dollars has been spent on domestic counterterrorism since 2001, Americans say they do not feel safer. No defense of civil liberties is likely to be effective as long as people and officials continue to believe that the threat from terrorism is massive, even existential.The book does not argue that there is nothing for the ghost-chasers to find-the terrorist "adversary" is real and does exist. The question that is central to the exercise-but one the ghost-chasers never really probe-is an important and rather straight-forward is the chase worth the effort? Or is it excessive given the danger that terrorism actually presents? As Chasing Ghosts shows in vivid detail, standard evaluative procedures suggest that the costs often far outweigh the benefits.

Genres: Nonfiction, Terrorism, Politics

401 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 8, 2015

About the author

John E. Mueller (born June 21, 1937) is an American political scientist in the field of international relations as well as a scholar of the history of dance. [Wikipedia]

Reviews

[Donna Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I suspect just about everyone in the USA, or who frequently has to travel to the USA, is heartily sick of the extreme security measures that raise our taxes through the roof and cause so many delays, inconveniences, and even the confiscation of ordinary products that cost us a fair amount of money, on those occasions that we foolishly forget not to take them with us on the plane. The racial profiling makes it even worse. And so I requested this DRC from Net Galley and Oxford University Press with the expectation that I would agree with it wholeheartedly and immediately form the virtual simpatico with its writers that readers form with their favorite authors. Alas, not so much.

It’s not a terrible book, but it’s also not a great one. The writing style comes across as strangely antagonistic, odd given that I was ready to agree with them when I began the book. They make a lot of good points, particularly in comparing the expenditures of the Federal government to the amount that was spent on the Cold War and the anti-communist hysteria of the 1950’s. But whenever I read scholarly nonfiction, I am inclined to check out the end notes early on, and I was struck by the large number of times Mueller and Stewart quoted themselves (or sometimes one or the other of themselves separately). Their other sources were more likely to be newspapers and magazines rather than primary documents, which were used sparingly.

My sense is that if you’re going to challenge the status quo, you have to roll up your sleeves and do it right. In this case, a worthy thesis, at least to some extent, is less credible than it might have been with more diligent research and more legitimate scholarship.

My gut was inclined to rate this book two stars rather than three, but then I realized that my gut was responding to the ISIS mass killings in France. For the writers, it’s just pure dumb bad luck that the real terrorists created such tremendous outrage and heartfelt sympathy throughout the Western world, and in doing so underscored the reason such stringent security measures are in place, just as their book was nearing publication.

The most compelling argument against the Patriot Act and all of its associated agencies and agents is that when someone is willing to die in order to commit a mass killing, nobody and nothing can really stop them. The security measures being utilized are effective against people that want to enter an establishment or a vehicle and kill as many people in it as possible, then walk away and live to kill more people another day. This wasn’t the primary argument Mueller and Stewart rolled out. Their main argument, that the Bill of Rights is being trampled by the very government that was invented to uphold the Constitution, is a good one and I think would have been easier to get behind had events not unfolded as they did, and of course, had the source material been more impressive; yet the safety of all of us will always preclude individual liberties. So in a sense, ISIS gives the conservative, locked-down wing of the ruling class a red-carpet invitation to clamp down on civil liberty; but that would not have made a book that would sell, and perhaps that is why the authors didn’t make this their focus.

If this is an area of interest to you, you can get a copy November 30. I wouldn’t pay hard cover price for it unless you have tremendous interest and very deep pockets, though.
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[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Regretfully for me) a very balanced treatment. No clean moral. Hard to tell if it's comprehensive. Useful for sure.

[Patrick F · Rating 4 out of 5]

The most cost-effective counterterrorism measures is not to overreact.

A great book.

[Andréa]

Note: I received a digital review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.

[Tyler Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book tries to quantify the terrorism threat in the United States as well as the domestic counterterrorism approaches taken by our government. This includes many cost-benefit analyses to evaluate measures like the NSA's surveillance programs, the Federal Air Marshall Service, the FBI's counterterrorism budget, etc.

For the most part, I found Mueller's arguments to be convincing, especially when taken as a whole. He shows all of his work and avoids oversimplified conclusions. At times, he is likely guilty of over-extrapolation from limited data, but in the author's defense, he is conservative in his analysis, and I would rather someone make use of limited data rather than ignore it completely.

Overall, this is a detailed book about a topic that hopefully public opinion will shift on in the future. I would encourage anyone to look into the book or Mueller's other writings.

[George Hodgson]

A decent read. The authors do a pretty good job of explaining manufactured fear. It seems a lot of the money spent on the terrorism could be better spent in areas where more lives would be saved.