U.S. counterterrorism officials are expert at defending against the last terrorist attack, hence the obsession with water bottles and other liquids at American airports. That’s not to say that the Department of Homeland Security shouldn’t correct weakness and defend against threats. The West cannot let its guard down because the terrorists are barbarians both at and potentially within the gates, willing to cause death and destruction not out of anger at some grievance but rather in pursuit of a murderous and nihilistic ideology.

Still, while it is necessary to protect civilian air traffic—the disruption to air travel caused by the 9/11 groundings cost the airline and travel industries hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars—very little is being done to address the potential for terrorism at sea. Certainly, U.S. ports have recognized the need for port security so that dirty bombs or other lethal contraband is not smuggled in among the tens of thousands of containers offloaded every day. But, the Islamic State has shown recently a new tactic to take advantage of civilization’s humanitarian impulse in order to kill those who seek to help.

On July 16, 2015, the Islamic State’s Sinai affiliate crippled an Egyptian navy frigate responding to a distress call by striking it with a missile. News of that attack broke because of an ISIS twitter feed, but there have been other attempts in recent months. On a few occasions, sailors and Marines say the U.S. Navy has received suspicious distress calls off the coast of Africa where they felt they might be lured into an ambush.

There has been a great deal of talk in recent months about the flow of migrants into Europe and across the southern border of the United States and concern that the Islamic State might use refugees or economic migrants for cover in order to insert their own cells into the West. But, it may be wrong to assume that terrorists will wait until getting onshore.

Numerous ships—both military and civilian—have intercepted refugees, often floundering in the Eastern Mediterranean in floundering and unseaworthy ships. It may not be long before the Islamic State uses those refugees as bait. The question for policymakers, then, is whether the centuries-long practice of responding to distress calls at sea will come to an end, or whether conversely the United States will recognize that it must defeat the Islamic State not only in Iraq and Syria, but also among the ports the terrorist group and its affiliates control.

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