How Far Should Societies Go to Prevent Terror Attacks?

After the terrorist attack in Manchester, England, David French, the conservative writer and Iraq War veteran, published an article at National Review that harkens back to the Bush administration in several ways—most objectionably in its attempt to use a kind of political correctness to advance the counterterrorism policies that he prefers.

The article, “The World Is Too Comfortable With Terror,” eventually offers substantive arguments for those policy preferences. And they are worth grappling with on the merits: the author is an intelligent commentator opining earnestly on an important subject.

But the article begins by priming the reader as follows:

Make no mistake, there is an emerging bipartisan consensus that a certain amount of terrorism is just the price we have to pay to live the way we want to live. Now, to be clear, very few people will come out and say this explicitly, and national-security establishments do their best — within certain, limited parameters — to stop every single terror attack, but more than 15 years after 9/11 it’s clear that there are prices our societies aren’t willing to pay. And neither our nation nor any of our European allies is willing to pay the price to reduce the terror threat to its pre-9/11 scale.

Consequently, an undetermined number of civilians will die, horribly, at concerts, restaurants, nightclubs, or simply