The extreme example of "everyone in the chain" buying into an extreme form of this thinking came in the form of the "1% doctrine" articulated by then-Vice President Dick Cheney: "If there's a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al-Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response. It's not about our analysis ... It's about our response."
Much of the post-9/11 response to terrorism fits it.
"We captured a bunch of people. Some are harmless unfortunate bystanders. Some are dangerous people who are nevertheless not immune to handcuffs. Still, we'd better lock them up in harsh conditions without trial just in case."
"Iraq probably has no nuclear weapons and no means to deliver one, but we'd better invade the country just in case. We don't want to be wrong and end up with a mushroom cloud over Manhattan."
> Much of the post-9/11 response to terrorism fits it.
Naturally; the "1% Doctrine" was formulated very shortly after 9/11 and, while the quote articulating it addresses Pakistani scientists aiding al-Qaeda, the significance is that it was a critical framing mindset from the highest levels for the Bush Administration policy on terrorism.
>Shortly after September 11th 2001, I thought to myself, and now someone will turn up minor intelligence warnings of something-or-other, and then the hindsight will begin. Yes, I'm sure they had some minor warnings of an al Qaeda plot, but they probably also had minor warnings of mafia activity, nuclear material for sale, and an invasion from Mars.
>Because we don't see the cost of a general policy, we learn overly specific lessons. After September 11th, the FAA prohibited box-cutters on airplanes—as if the problem had been the failure to take this particular "obvious" precaution. We don't learn the general lesson: the cost of effective caution is very high because you must attend to problems that are not as obvious now as past problems seem in hindsight.
