Terror is a tactic, you can't wage war on it. We're at war with Al Qaeda and its allies. Terror will be with us after Al Qaeda is beaten.
Terror will be with us from now on because terror works extremely effectively for entities that are weak in traditional power. A large part of its effectiveness comes from surprise. It is hard to defend against surprise attack by enemy you may not know exists and an enemy who has the initiative.
Defense against people using terror as a weapon will depend on intelligence and force, but these aren't always going to be successful. We also need to change the way we live in order to create a society that can absorb an attack and minimize its results so far as possible. There is work here for city planners, architects, economists, political scientists, and many other disciplines.
This rant was prompted by a short article in the July Wired by Noah Shachtman: "Protected Air Space in the Workplace". Shachtman reports on efforts by DARPA (the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) to develop buildings that can sense things that shouldn't be there (anthrax) and can be begin to defend themselves (using "ultraviolet light to kill bacteria, and venting the dangerous stuff away from occupied areas").
I had a post on a similar topic last summer: "What to do about electricity shortages"
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