ESSAY
Clear and Present Safety
The United States Is More Secure Than Washington Thinks
Micah Zenko and Michael A. CohenMICAH ZENKO is a Fellow in the Center for Preventive Action at the Council on Foreign Relations. MICHAEL A. COHEN is a Fellow at the Century Foundation.
Last August, the Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney performed what has become a quadrennial rite of passage in American presidential politics: he delivered a speech to the annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. His message was rooted in another grand American tradition: hyping foreign threats to the United States. It is “wishful thinking,” Romney declared, “that the world is becoming a safer place. The opposite is true. Consider simply the jihadists, a near-