Boston bombing reveals a new American maturity toward insecurity

Though law enforcement is likely to come in for criticism no matter how it deals with terrorism, counterterrorism efforts in Russia have come in for particularly harsh condemnation. To experts, they are an example of too heavy a hand. For many Russians, they are seen to be as threatening as the acts of terrorism themselves.

In 2002, when Chechen separatists stormed the Dubrovka Theater in Moscow and held the audience hostage, Russian authorities fed a special gas into the theater to knock everybody out before rushing in and gunning down all the terrorists. Unfortunately the gas also killed about 130 of the hostages. Then in 2004, Chechen militants seized a school in Beslan with about 1,200 hostages, including almost 800 children. On the third day, Russian special forces stormed the school, using tanks, heavy weapons, and rocket launchers, killing 334 people, 186 of whom were children.

Yekaterina Moryeva was a hostage at the Dubrovka Theater – a musician who lost her husband, also a musician, in the siege. She was left with three children and no answers.

"I was in shock and had to take tranquilizers for the first half a year after the theater siege," she says. "I remember living as if in a fog for the first five years. For the first half year I slept with my husband's old shirt."

"But my questions to the Russian state remain," she adds. "If my son asks me why his father died, I cannot answer. Until now it is not clear to me why it happened the way it did, why my healthy, strong, beloved husband died. Nobody has ever explained in a satisfactory way to me. If he had been killed by a terrorist's bullet, it would not be quite so painful."

More broadly, Russia has been seen as slow to increase security despite repeated terrorist strikes. In 2004, two Chechen bombers penetrated Moscow's Domodedovo Airport and blew up two jetliners in midair, killing hundreds – but despite investigations that showed multiple security failures at Domodedovo, security measures were not instituted.

In 2010, a double suicide bombing by "black widow" terrorists – wives of rebels killed by Russian security forces – left 40 people in the Moscow subway system dead, while another suicide bombing at Domodedovo in 2011 killed 35.

Initially, then-President Vladimir Putin used terrorism to further his political agenda, changing electoral law in 2004 so regional governors would be appointed by the Kremlin, not elected. It's only since 2011 that the strict security meas-ures standard at Western airports have been adopted in Moscow.

"We've all noticed that security in the airports is much better," says Gennady Gudkov, a former KGB officer and Duma deputy, now a security expert. "A lot has been done lately to put us ahead of the curve, in case fresh terror strikes occur."

Treating terrorism like crime

Before Boston, the zest to be vigilant against terrorism had perhaps begun to wane in the US. As years passed without a major attack against a civilian target, officials in metropolitan areas of the US were beginning to lean away from counterterrorism.

On one hand, it brought results. "Part of the reason we haven't been seeing plots succeed is the amount of resources that were thrown at it," says LaFree, at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism.

But it was expensive.

"A lot of politicians are asking us, 'Why are we spending so much on [preparations] for terrorism?' " says Seth Jones, a terrorism analyst at RAND Corp. in Arlington, Va. "There has been a growing trend toward focusing less on terrorism as a problem and focusing on other security issues" like crime or cyber-espionage.

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