The Intellectual War on Terrorism

Many Baby Boomers have noted that, from an intellectual point of view, the American national response to Islamic radicalism has been shockingly sluggish and uninspired, especially as compared with the vast mobilization of the Cold War. After the Sputnik embarrassment, for instance, the entire math and science curriculum was radically reworked and improved. As far as I am aware, no remotely comparable initiative has been taken in the wake of September 11.

Because we’ve spent the past several years arguing about the justice and effectiveness of the invasion of Iraq, we tend to forget that the most crucial part of the struggle against terrorism does not involve conventional military operations at all.

To fight terrorism effectively you must not only know how to decisively interrupt complex international flows of money without stopping up the arteries of prosperity. You must not only familiarize yourself with languages, geography, national and ethnic histories and religious schools. You must also try to understand why and how ideas are spread—an engrossing psychological and sociological exercise.

The French, for instance, have belatedly recognized the need to carefully study the spread of Islamic radicalism in their Muslim-dominated prisons. Is it better to bind extremists together in clusters, allowing them to plot, or to disperse them throughout the prison population, allowing them to proselytize? And what effect would it have to introduce a greater number of moderate Muslim chaplains into the prison environment?

I think that, if given a push, many of us would find wrestling with such important questions fascinating and rewarding. Perhaps the next president will find a way to give them that push.