Military

DATE=9-10-03

TYPE=INTERVIEW

NUMBER=3-789

TITLE= U-S / 9-11

BYLINE=DAVID BORGIDA

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

CONTENT=

INTRODUCTION

Jessica Tuchman Mathews, President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace discusses changes in America since 9/11 attacks.

MR. BORGIDA

And earlier today I spoke with Jessica Tuchman Mathews, President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, here in Washington. And I asked her to reflect on what has changed since the 9/11 attacks.

MS. TUCHMAN MATHEWS

The biggest change is the American psyche. The attacks tore apart the illusion that we lived under, and it was an illusion but it was a profound one, that we were separate and apart from the troubles of the world and protected by the two great oceans. We believed that all our national lives, and it was taken away on 9/11. And that hasn't changed yet. Americans still feel unsafe.

Policy has changed profoundly, and our lives have changed. Our enemy has changed. We were in the midst of a new round of bad relations with China. That turned around 180 degrees. Russia changed its policy and reached for an embrace with us, which we took. We had new allies in Pakistan. We have a new presence in Central Asia, where we had never been before.

Our whole posture towards the world was transformed on that day.

MR. BORGIDA

What has not occurred that perhaps you expected two years ago?

MS. TUCHMAN MATHEWS

The economic impacts of the attacks were much less, as it turned out. The Enron scandal and its aftermath had a much bigger effect on the economy than the attacks did. One would have expected, I think, that~-- in fact many pundits wrote it in the immediate aftermath of the attack -- that this would be if not the end of globalization at least a real barrier to further global integration.

Because it is clear that computers and everything make possible international terrorist networks, but there has been no glimmer of effort to turn back the clock and regulate the technology at all. That has been surprising to me really. There was a lot of writing -- not by myself but the people that one admires -- saying it was the end of globalization. No. Globalization, there hasn't been any hesitation in the continuing integration of the world.

MR. BORGIDA

I want to follow up on your answer about the psyche of Americans has changed. Because when one talks, as we have on our program, to security experts, defense experts, and indeed to people from the Homeland Security Office, they say, virtually to a person, that the security of Americans is at a higher degree; we are in fact safer now. Has that, in your view, not trickled down to the average American, who still feels, two years later, as scared or more scared, they're not getting that message, or is it just a more fragile psychology at play here?

MS. TUCHMAN MATHEWS

Well, the message hasn't been very clear. Because remember, there was the whole business some months ago of the orange and red alerts, and go buy plastic and tape yourself into your house. And that left Americans really very taken aback. "Really, what am I supposed to do?" And of course it remains the case that the perpetrator of the anthrax attacks has never been found.

I think Americans are aware, and rightly so, that there could be another terrorist attack at any time. That said, there has been a great deal of success on the international front in apprehending leaders of al-Qaida. What we don't know is whether others have just stepped up to take their place.

So I think certainly what the polls say is that Americans don't feel safer than they did on, let's call it, October 11th of 2001.

MR. BORGIDA

So should our public leaders and our politicians be doing a better job of convincing Americans, however vulnerable they feel emotionally and psychology, that the fact of the matter is that on the borders we have tighter security?

MS. TUCHMAN MATHEWS

I think that probably would be a mistake. And probably the reason we don't is that there could be an attack any time. I mean it is I think a fact of life of living in a world where there is a lot of hate and where this has become a mode of expressing that. So I think no politician would take the risk of going on television and saying "You are safer."

But there is a real effort to take the steps that need to be taken, to do more careful work on our immigration policies, to follow up leads internally that were missed before, et cetera. And that is being done. It is just an awful long list of things that have to be done -- training all the first responders, et cetera. It's going to take a long, long time.

So it's a mixed situation. And partly it will be time, as Americans learn to live with this different appreciation of the world and of their vulnerabilities.

MR. BORGIDA

Thank you for your thoughts today.

MS. TUCHMAN MATHEWS

Thank you.

MR. BORGIDA

That was my interview earlier today with Jessica Tuchman Mathews, President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, here in Washington.

(End of interview.)

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