March 14, 2016
The fear driving Trump's success is tying America's hands in war on terror
Donald Trump is riding a wave of fear to electoral victory across the country. One of the greatest fears driving supporters to Trump is that of the global jihad, led today by ISIS and al Qaeda. This fear is entirely at odds with reality. But its impact has not been limited to the U.S. presidential race. Indeed, this fear has become a danger in itself by tying the hands of America’s leaders in the fight against ISIS and al Qaeda.
U.S. officials and analysts have often described the global jihad as an “existential threat,” and many Americans seem to agree. Today, 70 percent of Americans rate ISIS as a major threat to the U.S. homeland and 47 percent fear being victims of terrorism themselves. Trump has drawnsignificant support from these segments of the population by convincing them that he will do whatever it takes to keep them safe, from monitoring mosques to barring Muslims from entering the country.
Read the full op-ed at The Hill.
More from CNAS
-
Bombshell: Come What May
Podcast
Erin, Radha, and Loren invited Dr. Lindsay Cohn of the U.S. Naval War College to join their posse and explain America’s history of employing the military for domestic purposes...
By Loren DeJonge Schulman, Lindsay Cohn, Radha Iyengar & Erin Simpson
-
Loren DeJonge Schulman on The Smell of Victory Podcast
Podcast
On The Smell of Victory Podcast, Bob Hein and Phil Walter sat down with Loren DeJonge Schulman of the Center for a New American Security to discuss the draft. Listen to the f...
By Loren DeJonge Schulman
-
Susanna V. Blume on Defense & Aerospace Report Podcast
Podcast
On this Roundtable episode of the Defense & Aerospace Report Podcast, sponsored by Bell, a Textron company, our guests include Bob Hale,(who now advises Booz Allen Hamilton &m...
By Susanna V. Blume
-
CNAS’ Colby on Nuclear Strategy, Deterrence, Developing New Capabilities, INF Treaty
Video
Bridge Colby, the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force planning — one of the authors of the Pentagon’s National Defense Strategy — n...
By Elbridge Colby
