Update: Dr. Gottlieb’s comments generated several other letters from readers, which have been posted on the New York Times’ web site. Dr. Gottlieb provides a brief response to them on the last page of the section.

Saltzman Institute Member and Stuart Gottlieb, who teaches counterterrorism and US foreign policy at Columbia and Yale, has had a letter to the editor published in the New York Times. The letter, which Dr. Gottlieb wrote in response to Bill Keller’s article, “Falling in and out of War”, points out the important element of public opinion in American military actions. When a long time has gone without a major incident demonstrating a threat to US national security, Dr. Gottlieb argues, the American public is less likely to support an aggressive military policy – risking a return to “a 1930s or 1990s complacency”.

The letter is available on the NYT’s website.