Bacevich: West not Exempt from Terrorism
Andrew Bacevich, professor emeritus of International Relations and History at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, argued that terrorist attacks in Boston and Paris show that the West is not exempt from political violence – and that nations must radically change their approach to dealing with threats.
Bacevich made his argument in an opinion piece in the Boston Globe on Jan. 9, titled “Paris Attack Shows the West is not Free from Terrorism.” It was written in the wake of a shooting at the offices of the satirical publication Charlie Hebdo in Paris on Jan. 7, when extremist gunmen killed 12.
In the article, Bacevich writes:
“The events in Paris and Boston seem “big” because they violate widely shared expectations that we in the West should be immune from the sort of violence (not to mention deprivation and dysfunction) afflicting large swaths of the non-Western world. We should not have to put up with such things — so we think.
What is the basis of this expectation? It represents the last remaining vestige of Western imperial privilege…”
You can read the entire piece here.
Andrew J. Bacevich is Professor Emeritus of International Relations and History at Boston University. A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, he received his PhD in American Diplomatic History from Princeton University. Before joining the faculty of Boston University, he taught at West Point and Johns Hopkins. In 2004, Bacevich was a Berlin Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. He has also held fellowships at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and the Council on Foreign Relations.