ABSTRACT
Besieged by insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq and gripped by mounting pressure to enhance security and public safety at home, officials in Washington are confronting a serious homeland security dilemma:
The greater the financial costs, public sacrifice, and political capital invested in security, the higher the public's expectations and corresponding standards for measuring performance, the more significant the public's sense of insecurity after each failure, and, paradoxically, the higher the pressure on governments and citizens to sacrifice even more to achieve perfect security.
