In 1984, while completing my undergraduate degree, I took electives titled “China Today”, “Russian Literature,” and “International Terrorism.” I lay no claim to deep expertise in any of them, but at the time, the terrorism course proved the most compelling. It was a full classroom with bright, sometimes sleepy faces — an atmosphere abruptly interrupted several weeks into the term.
One day, two classmates wearing backpacks walked in late, brandished pink water pistols, and announced that if everyone cooperated, nobody would get hurt. One held his water pistol to the professor’s head while the professor, surprised but fully participating in the unsanctioned exercise, pleaded with the class to comply. The other guarded the door.
Although it was obviously a mock hostage scenario, the effect was stunning. People react differently, but my immediate feeling was anger — and the wish that I had a pink water gun of my own. I was young, and the times were very different. That shift in time is what this essay is about.
The methods and objectives of terrorism have changed dramatically over the past four decades. During the 1970s and 1980s, organizations such as the Baader-Meinhof Group, the Red Brigades, and Black September often relied on hijackings, kidnappings, and hostage-taking to gain publicity, leverage political concessions, or secure the release of imprisoned comrades. These groups could be extraordinarily violent, but hostage negotiations were frequently part of the expected sequence.
For Americans, that assumption effectively ended on Sept. 11, 2001. Nineteen hijackers armed with little more than box cutters transformed commercial airliners into guided weapons, demonstrating that ordinary civilian systems could be repurposed to produce catastrophic effects. Terrorism was no longer primarily about bargaining or spectacle. It had become an instrument of mass casualties.
In the years that followed, decades of mass shootings conditioned an entire generation to expect violence that is fast, brutal, and indiscriminate.
Then came Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas launched a coordinated assault on civilian communities in southern Israel, demonstrating how surprise, speed, and simultaneous strikes can overwhelm sophisticated security systems. The strategic lesson was clear: small, agile units operating in tandem can exploit structural chokepoints, paralyze first responders, and leave ordinary citizens isolated during those critical initial minutes.
The United States is not Israel; our geography, borders, and security environment are distinct. Yet our open society relies heavily on vulnerable, interconnected infrastructure. Consider how determined bad actors could adapt those same tactical principles against our own open systems — exploiting daily commuter bottlenecks, creating artificial chokepoints, and inflicting rapid violence against trapped civilians before law enforcement can even navigate the gridlock.
History has a habit of reinforcing its own lessons. As I was finishing this essay, authorities in Berlin were investigating an attack at a public gathering that they said was ideologically motivated. The names, places, and motives evolve; the underlying vulnerability does not. Determined attackers need not defeat a nation’s military — they need only exploit a structural bottleneck long enough to inflict catastrophic harm.
Imagine that same 1984 classroom exercise playing out today.
The reaction would not be stunned curiosity or youthful indignation. Within seconds, students would quietly dial 911 or trigger campus emergency alerts. Faculty and students would instinctively apply the protocol they have practiced for years: Run. Hide. Fight. Buildings would lock down automatically. Law enforcement would arrive expecting an active shooter, not a hostage negotiator. Tactical teams would move in immediately to eliminate the threat, not establish a perimeter and wait.
If the students carrying those plastic water pistols survived the initial response, the institutional fallout would be swift. They would almost certainly be expelled and face felony charges for terrorism or inducing panic. The classroom would become a crime scene, trauma counselors would be deployed, and national news networks would set up outside.
That contrast says less about the legal system than it does about how profoundly American society has transformed. Forty years ago, terrorism was something most Americans associated with distant conflicts on the evening news. Today, schools, universities, houses of worship, shopping centers, and public gatherings routinely drill for mass violence. What was once unthinkable is now standard operational planning.
“Run. Hide. Fight” is more than a security slogan. It reflects a stark reality: in the opening moments of an attack, when exit routes are constrained and help is still miles away, survival depends entirely on the choices of ordinary citizens before first responders arrive.
My memory of that 1984 classroom reminds me how completely our fundamental assumptions have broken down. We once believed violence could be contained through negotiation. Yet history proves that systemic stability — whether threatened by kinetic attacks, cyber disruptions, currency collapses, or sudden supply shocks — is remarkably fragile. Terrorists and hostile actors have shown that they will use every vector available, non-kinetic and kinetic alike, to disrupt open societies.
FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD ARRESTED IN CONNECTION WITH SEATTLE SHOOTING
Car and homeowners’ insurance exist to manage low-probability, catastrophic-impact events. Most people never lose a home to a fire, yet we accept insurance as basic prudence because the alternative is complete ruin. Preparing for a grid outage, a cyber blackout, or a localized kinetic attack requires that exact same logic.
Run. Hide. Fight. Those remain essential in the moment. But before any of them comes something even more fundamental: prepare. Preparation is not paranoia. It is a sober recognition that while we cannot eliminate every threat, we can learn from history before it repeats itself in a form we failed to anticipate. It is a necessary insurance policy for a society that can no longer afford to be caught by surprise. The time to prepare is now.
Andrew Moore is a small-business owner and author of the Primus Aeternus series.