Politics & Power Quote by Theodore C. Sorensen

Safety, Sorensen insists, is not a hardware problem. It is a reputation problem. Coming from a lawyer who spent his career near the levers of American power (most notably as JFK's counsel and speechwriter), the line reads less like idealism and more like a brief against the national security state’s favorite syllogism: bigger arsenal equals smaller risk. His specific intent is to reframe counterterrorism away from spectacle and punishment toward legitimacy, the slow currency that actually buys cooperation, intelligence-sharing, and the willingness of other governments to police threats before they metastasize.

The subtext is an indictment of fear as a foreign-policy tool. Fear can deter rival states, but it also recruits enemies, especially non-state actors whose entire strategy depends on turning grievance into identity. Sorensen’s phrasing sets up a tight moral contrast - “values” versus “weapons” - but the move is strategic, not sanctimonious. He’s arguing that credibility is a force multiplier. If your values are seen as conditional, invoked at home and suspended abroad, then “respect” collapses into compliance, and compliance evaporates the moment your attention shifts.

The context is the post-9/11 debate, when “security” became a blank check for kinetic solutions and expansive surveillance. Sorensen offers a different metric: not how feared we are, but how believable we are. It’s also a subtle critique of empire’s comfort food - the assumption that dominance can substitute for consent. In his view, it can’t; it just incubates the next threat.