Personally, in the interests of keeping things in proportion, I never lost one wink of sleep, I never worried, or had any concerns about travelling, throughout the entire duration of what was referred to as the "Cold War". Even after sitting through countless briefings on "The Threat", true, it was taken seriously, but it was known, focused and capable of being countered. As MGOH says - "we lived through" it and prospered. The balance held, until it ultimately ended, because the USSR could no longer keep pace with the USA, the President who did more to convince the Soviet block of this fact than any other was Ronald Reagan.

Not so now. The "threat" we are faced with now is far more dangerous, and as such, has to be confronted. The source of this new "threat" declared it's intentions many years before 9/11. The current President of the United States of America, has done more, than any other President, or national leader, in terms of recognition, and realisation of the extent of this new "threat" and of forging the necessary tools required to effectively counter it. Many might not like it, or be prepared to acknowledge it. Up until the end of the Clinton administration, the west, and the US in particular, responded, rather ineffectually, to international terrorist attacks. The current administration came in with the policy of taking the fight to the aggressor, who now knows that they, themselves, are the targets and that they no longer have things going entirely their own way.