Steven Taylor has a copy of a column he wrote on seeing Mikhail Gorbachev speak recently at Auburn University. In my youth I found Gorbachev a very interesting figure and read a couple of his books—for some odd reason, they had copies of them at the dinky base library at RAF Fairford. Of course, it probably didn’t hurt that the leggy brunette I had a thing for was a fan of Gorby as well. (Ah, my misspent youth…) Anyway, back from the digression… like Steven, I’m stunned by how much things have changed since then. And I think Steven has it more-or-less on the mark when he says:

The ironic thing about this new era, which in many ways is less threatening in absolute terms than the Cold War Era (terrorist are rather unlikely to destroy large parts of the world), it is more threatening to us in specific, personal terms (the odds of being on a plane, or being in a building that might be bombed has increased). And, aside from a perception of enhanced personal risk, the world itself is more unstable.

One thing I would note, however, is that global terrorism was alive and well during the Cold War too; ask the Israelis in Munich, American servicemen in Berlin and Beirut, West German politicians, the people who died on Pan Am 103 (and on the ground at Lockerbie), the people of Latin America, the Quebecois, or the British (both in Ulster and in Britain proper). I think the main difference from then and now is that the global projection capabilities of terror groups have improved, although I don’t think anything has really changed that makes terrorism more feasible—9/11, or its equivalent, could have happened in 1980. The important difference is that now there’s a group that simultaneously has the audacity,* motive, capability, and opportunity to carry out large-scale attacks on U.S. soil.