Matthew Yglesias makes some interesting points about MANPADS, but I'm not sure he goes far enough:
Zach Phillips at Government Executive reports on efforts to guard American airplanes from MANPADS -- shoulder launched missiles originally conceived to allow infantry to gain protection against air strikes, but that pose extreme threats to civilian aircraft that are "relatively slow and fly predictable routes, emit large heat signatures and descend to low altitudes miles away from the airport."
The whole concept, however, seems fundamentally misguided... We're talking about spending billions of dollars to protect airplanes against a threat that, so far in human history, has taken down zero civilian aircraft (once two missiles "narrowly missed an Arkia Israeli Airlines flight taking off from Mombasa, Kenya.") What's more, not only does the price seem high relative to the risk, but the payoff sounds minimal....Insofar as there's a real MANPAD problem out there, it seems like it needs to be addressed by preventing the flow of unauthorized missiles into the US, not by equipping planes with inordinately expensive countermeasures.
Matt is right: not once have MANPADS been used to carry out a successful attack on civilian aircraft. And this is true despite the fact that the weapons are easy to conceal, transport, and - with a bit of training - use. They are, it would seem, the ideal weapon for a low budget, high impact terrorist attack.
And yet they have never once been used. This really is quite extraordinary when you think about it. Imagine, for a moment, the terror that would be created if a series of simultaneous attacks were conducted at major airports around the United States. Given the close proximity of most major airports to equally major highway systems in this country, the human and economic costs would be staggering. And yet it has never (knock on some serious wood here) happened. If the "evil doers" really do want to destroy our society... if their goal really is to bring western civilization to its knees, then why not? Is it lack of capability? Interest? Imagination? What?
If we are honest with ourselves, the answer to this question shouldn't just tell us something about the threat posed by MANPADS. It should tell us something about the threat posed by terrorism in general. What matters isn't the threats we can imagine, but the ones we actually face.
UPDATE: And by the way, if we are going to worry about real rather than imagined threats, can we please start paying more attention to home-grown terrorists like these? Please?
UPDATE II: And this is what happens when you allow fears, rather than facts, to guide public policy.
Repeat after me: Mooninites are not terrorists. Alarm clocks are not bombs. That is all.
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