Terror, Security, and Money

In the years following 9/11, the United States spent billions and billons on powerful surveillance and security systems and created a massive new government agency, the Department of Homeland Security. John Mueller, one of America's most trenchant critics of America's drive for enhanced security at all costs, has argued that while these measures have largely been unnecessary, the public succumbed to an alarmist media and a shrewd governmental scare campaign and came to support these measures. The price, Mueller has contended, has been a massive misallocation of resources. In previous books, Mueller focused on why national security threats are 'overblown,' but in Terrorism, Security, and Money, he teams up with Mark Stewart, a civil engineering professor and recognized authority on risk assessment for the built infrastructure, to put forth a more rational and cost-effective approach to managing domestic security. Instead of offering a critical account of the situation we're in, Mueller and Stewart instead focus on providing solutions based on the risk assessment science. After cataloguing the mistakes that the US has made (and continues to make), like spending wildly on ill-considered plans to mitigate unlikely threats, they offer tools-based probabilistic risk assessment that have the potential to redirect our efforts toward a more productive--and far more cost-effective--course.