Human imagination is a fertile but misleading tool in assessing real-life dangers and judging the likelihood of impending risks. The 9/11 commission once famously stated that the tragedy was due, in part, to ‘a failure of imagination’. But historical experience also warns of blind spots and shortfalls based on an over-fixation on rhetorical rather than real threats.
Part of the problem is that we base the metrics for ‘success’ on films and fiction. We overstep in dealing with tragedy. We are prone to fits of panic. We try to fight fleas with sledgehammers. We tend to embrace a siege mentality. We are seduced by conspiracy theories. We are entirely reactionary in efforts to prevent the last threat rather than taking positive steps to mitigate or contain existing threats. We have a tendency to focus on improbable, far-removed or hypothetical – albeit spectacular – hazards, like ‘cyber-9/11s’, while underplaying or ignoring the consequences of immediate and steady challenges to human security like climate change, disease, poverty and energy shortages.
In 2013, the program Q&A had Microsoft founder Bill Gates as a guest. The host, Tony Jones, asked Gates if he was concerned about a gloomy future based on technology-generated forms of peril that will endanger people’s lives.
Tony Jones: Including warfare … and indeed we have drones already, these robots flying over different countries, assassinating people. The future, according to futurologists who look at robotics, could be of tiny swarms, insect-sized drones, able to infiltrate people’s houses and kill them. And do you think about the future? Do you think about these kind of things, how it might look?
Bill Gates: Well, today we have real insects invading people’s homes. It’s called malaria and it actually does kill people. So I have a strange obsession with the present.
The above exchange neatly captures a multifaceted psychological and cultural phenomenon – that fears about unknown or random threats and imaginary nightmare conditions appear to easily swamp other types of dangers that are rooted in present realities and remain more likely risks.
Certainly, after the tragic events of 9/11 the Western world, including Australia, has found itself increasingly worried and vulnerable to indistinct threats, including rogue agents, rogue scientists, failed states, cyber-warriors, mad mullahs, fugitive whistle-blowers and so-called ‘boat people’ (‘plane people’ are apparently okay). Again, fear and loathing appear to have played a significant role in shaping the urgent collective need for a more active and vigilant defence. We’ve talked about unconstrained military confrontation – a so-called ‘war on terror’, with no end in sight. As proof of our commitment and patriotism, we joined America’s moral crusade against an incoming ‘axis of evil’ and were covered in blood and dust in locations like Afghanistan and Iraq while turning a blind eye to the use of CIA killer drones to act as judge, jury and executioner in places like Pakistan and Yemen.
Open, democratic societies will always remain vulnerable to threats like asymmetric terrorism. The need for smart and cool-headed defence planning is obvious. But to what extent do modern-day citizens, politicians and the media play the role of Chicken Little? For instance, while the word ‘terrorism’ triggers a range of strong emotional reactions, and despite the horrors of 9/11, a lot more people will die annually from traffic accidents and lung disease than of terrorism. Maybe we should declare a bonus war on cars and cancer (although sending a drone after smokers might be unwarranted overkill).
The manner in which we choose to perceive and address multitudinous security challenges and controversies has the potential to reduce future security breakdown, panic, mismanagement, misconduct and disappointment. These are not simple problems, straightforward dilemmas or easily digestible topics. But honest, evidence-based investigations of complexities – such as notions that the threat of Islamic terrorism is a central security concern for Australia – remain essential to delineate fact from fiction, to filter disinformation and to construct creditable, sustainable and effective national security platforms.
This is an edited excerpt from the introduction to Spooked: The truth about intelligence in Australia, available now from NewSouth.