Chasing Ghosts
The Policing of Terrorism
John Mueller and Mark Stewart
Reviews and Awards
"Does civilization face an existential threat of terrorism? Politicians and security bureaucrats have a vested interest in answering 'yes,' while blowing off the costs (in money, opportunities, and lives) of responding to their exaggerated and sometimes hallucinated threats. This evidence-based exposé of the counterterrorism industry is witty and eye-opening, and offers a sound basis for intelligent policy and for our conception of the world we live in."-Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of The Better Angels of Our Nature and The Sense of Style
"In their provocative and well-informed book, Mueller and Stewart evaluate the policies and the politics of counterterrorism. Chasing Ghosts challenges the fundamental premises on which the post-9/11 counterterrorism framework is built, finding that the overall terrorism threat is limited, that many would-be terrorists are incompetent amateurs, and that much of the spending on counterterrorism is wasted."-Daniel Byman, Senior Fellow, Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution
"This terrific book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the U.S. War on Terror. Mueller and Stewart show that America's national security elites were so spooked by the events of 9/11 that they started seeing imaginary terrorists everywhere. To deal with these ghosts, the Bush and Obama administrations spent huge amounts of money and unnecessarily grew the national security state to the point where it is now a potential threat to our civil liberties. When future historians look back someday at this period, Chasing Ghosts will stand out as a rare example of measured thinking about a threat that has been inflated to absurd proportions."-John J. Mearsheimer, Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago
"This book comes as more and more evidence is emerging that the real 'terror' on our streets is being created by those who have been charged with eradicating it!"-Lowell Bergman, Distinguished Chair in Investigative Reporting, University of California, Berkeley