American policy has long been driven by a quest for a grand strategy that neatly encapsulates raison d'etre of American raison d'etat. In many ways, this aspiration is not unique to American experience: most diplomats and scholars, regardless of nationality, take comfort in unifying policy doctrines. However, United States has retained a particularly strong fixation on grand strategic doctrines, from George Washington's 1796 farewell address warning of dangers of entangling alliances, to Monroe doctrine in early igth century, to containment in mid-2Oth. In an era characterized by a marked self-consciousness of American power and influence in world, presidents who concoct policies outside of grand strategic frameworks are derided for their lack of what George H.W. Bush memorably called the vision thing. Thus, American policy in post-Cold War era was famously reprehended by realist critics like Michael Mandelbaum as being foreign policy as social work because it lacked a grand strategic doctrine to prevent country from becoming adrift, mired in problems unrelated to its national interest.It is for this reason that George W. Bush's assertive response to attacks of n September 2001 was met with widespread approval among those pundits who had excoriated policies of his predecessor: for first time in years, American policy had a clear mission carved out for it-to fight, and win, on terror. And yet, soaring rhetoric aside, defining parameters of war on terror has proven a contentious and difficult task. It is relatively easy to claim, as Bush did, that either you are with us, or you are with terrorists, but somewhat more difficult to explain what happens afterwards.1This essay examines war on terror as articulated in three interrelated paradigms: counterterrorism as law-enforcement doctrine used by Clinton administration, counterterrorism as national-security doctrine exemplified by Bush administration, and counterterrorism as counter-insurgency doctrine now being trumpeted by various critics in both academic and policymaking circles.2 It will be argued here that these paradigms can best be understood as evolving from perceived weaknesses of their predecessors, based upon two different understandings of what it means to be serious about tackling terrorism. Before examining counterterrorism paradigms themselves, however, it is important first to look at what seriousness means in a national security context.SERIOUSNESS AND NATIONAL SECURITYThroughout western political thought, providing security and order has been seen as one of most important responsibilities of state. Most variants of realist international relations theory assume a priori that states pursue their national interest-axiomatically defined as protecting their security. For Thomas Hobbes and other contractual theorists, security is fundamental reason that individuals abandon their natural rights and consent to be governed in first place. The ramification of Weberian view of state as an entity with a monopoly on legitimate use of force is that governments unable to protect security of their people are delegitimized by their incapacity. When a country comes under attack, its government is judged by its response, and must be seen as taking threat seriously, both for electoral purposes-on display in 2004 when Bush implicitly ran for re-election on rationale that another 9/11 had not happened on his watch-and for broader reasons of prestige.To this end, security breaches are often followed by formal investigations into what went wrong: bombing of Pearl Harbor was investigated by Roberts commission, which found base's commanders guilty of dereliction of duty, a charge later reversed by senate resolution a half-century later. The September n attacks were followed by hearings and investigations by senate judiciary committee, joint report by senate select committee on intelligence and house permanent select committee on intelligence, and, most importantly, 9/11 commission report. …