Fear Itself:
The Institutionalization of Fear in US Foreign Policy
Neta C. Crawford
Brown University
Not for citation or quotation without permission.
Paper Presented at the International Studies Association
Annual Meeting, Montreal Canada, March 2004
Great harm has been done to us. We have suffered great loss. And in our grief and anger
we have found our mission and our moment. Freedom and fear are at war.
George W. Bush, 20 September 2001, to a Joint
Session of the United States Congress.
And after 9/11, there is no longer any doubt that today America faces an existential threat to
our security — a threat as great as any we faced during the Civil War, the so-called "Good
War," or the Cold War.
Condoleeza Rice, 1 October 2002, to the
Manhattan Institute.
[T]he theme that comes through repeatedly for me is that 9/11 changed everything. It
changed the way we think about threats to the United States. It changed about our recognition
of our vulnerabilities. It changed in terms of the kind of national security strategy we need to
pursue, in terms of guaranteeing the safety and security of the American people.
Dick Cheney, 14 September 2003, on NBC's
Meet the Press.
The United States is the most militarily powerful country the world has ever seen. Yet, its
citizens have become extremely fearful. Not surprisingly, polls taken in the US immediately after
the attacks of September 11th and over the next several months found that many Americans —
even those far from lower Manhattan, Washington, DC, and the Pennsylvania crash site of one of
the hijacked planes — were fearful. A Gallup poll for CNN and USA Today taken on the day of
the attack found 58 percent of Americans interviewed were "somewhat" or "very worried" about
being victims of another terror attack. Also, that same day, 71 percent of those polled said that
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