Different Kinds of Threats
by Joseph Rowlands

The word 'threat' gets used in a lot of different ways which can often obscure facts. This is particularly true when it comes to foreign affairs. If a country declares their intent to destroy another country, you might think this is a clear example of a threat. But many people will ignore these declarations and determine that the country is not really a threat, meaning that they don't think that the threatening country has the capability of destroying the other country.

This is switching the meaning of the word from a description of an intent to harm to a description of an ability to harm. This is quite common when discussing threats to the United States. It is unlikely that any other country can win in a direct conflict with the US, so the threats are ignored. The intent is seen as meaningless if they can't follow through.

There are actually several different meanings for the word threat, and it's important to recognize their differences.

One kind of threat is the coercive threat. It is when someone tells you that you must perform some action for them or they will harm you in some way. The threat is conditional. They declare an intent to harm you unless you satisfy them in some specified way.

A different kind of threat is the promised threat. Unlike the coercive threat, this declaration of intent is not conditional. For whatever reason, they have decided that they want to use violence against you. Why would they let you know ahead of time? It could be to strengthen their conviction to act. Or it could be to scare you. Maybe they want you to worry, or feel regret for whatever they think you did to deserve the attack. Or maybe they have no intention of following through on the promise, but they hope the threat worries you enough to punish you to some extent. Or maybe they are just speaking out in anger without a clear motive.

Of course, they won't always come out and say it directly. Countries may chant "Death to America", but they may hide behind the fact that they never said that they intended to take action. Iran has said they want Israel destroyed, but then said that they never said who would do the destroying. Deniability is the goal.

So a different kind of threat is the implicit threat. This is when they want to harm you, maybe they even hinted at it, but they never state it outright. This kind of threat is ignored by diplomats. As long as a country can deny ever outright making a threat, it is viewed as necessary to pretend to believe the illusion that they are not hostile. You can say "Death to America" without consequence because there is some doubt, however implausible, that you don't really mean it.

These three kinds of threats all express an intent to harm. These threats are routinely ignored if the last kind of threat doesn't exist. We can call this threat the security threat. It is when someone has the capability of harming someone else. A country is viewed to not be a real threat if they don't have the capability of conquering another.

There's a flip side to the security threat. If someone has the capability of harming others with ease, they may be called a threat even when no intent is there. Someone swinging a gun in public would be considered a threat no matter how law-abiding they are. The fact that they can do harm, even unintentionally, is considered a threat.

We can imagine another kind of threat as well. When someone works to convince others to use violence, this is a kind of threat as well. They not only show intent, but they are working to make their threat real. When someone encourages a mob to use violence, or when a religious leader declares it is the duty of his followers to use violence, it is a threat. He may not be indicating that he will commit the crime, but he is showing intent and creating a danger. We can call this an incitement threat.

For whatever reasons, we live in a culture that can only deal with straightforward threats backed by real capabilities. So a coercive threat or a promised threat, backed with the means to follow through on the threats, are recognize as serious. But almost every other form of threat is ignored.

Perhaps its the fear of using violence except as the last possible resort. Or perhaps its the fear that others will question the morality of the violence, so they feel it can only be used when the evidence is indisputable. There could be many reasons for it. But the results are the same. Threats are ignored as long as possible, often waiting until damage is done or a situation has gotten much worse than it otherwise would have.

At a minimum, we should stop ignoring threats just because we believe they don't appear to have the means to follow up on it. If a person threatens the life of another, it should be taken seriously even if you think they are too weak or timid to follow up on it.

The goal of moral judgment is to identify the decision-making process that people use in order to anticipate their future actions. If someone values instant gratification and doesn't value honesty, it tells you a lot about him and how much you can count on him. And if you find that someone hates you and wants you dead, you shouldn't dismiss it. He may not be able to carry out his wishes entirely, but having declared himself an enemy to you, it is likely that he will find ways to hurt you.

The same is true of nations. It's easy to dismiss threats to the United States as unimportant because no country has the capability of conquering us. But the intent to harm can be implemented in many different ways, including the murder of civilians or military personnel. The government should take seriously any threat to its citizens, not just those that endanger the government itself.

While taking threats seriously despite the apparent means of acting on those threats is important, we should also be able to recognize threats that aren't explicitly stated. The implicit threats or incitement threats are all too common and dangerous to be ignored. And if a country can simply change their language in some subtle way where everyone still knows what they're talking about but people aren't able to act on that knowledge, we should expect everyone to start doing that.

Maybe that requires a level of moral courage that we can't expect at this point. The problem is compounded by the fact that some politicians find it in their interest to dismiss threats and to attack anyone who takes the threats seriously.

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