Just to pile onto what Betty is saying below:
Western civilization survived two global wars and nuclear brinkmanship. (And McVeigh who killed 168 with a truck). https://t.co/pfLez1olLh
— Zeynep Tufekci (@zeynep) July 15, 2016
Nice is a tragedy for the people who died, their families and friends but it is not an inherently system transforming threat unless we make it so.
A poorly piloted Airbus will produce more deaths than Nice. Ebola killed more people in a week and repeated itself week after week than those who died in Nice.
Terrorism, especially symbolic, mass casualty soft target terrorism is a strategy of weakness used to promote over-reaction and stupid thinking in a powerful and resilient opponent. Creating a stupid and hysterical response is the aim of an attack. Not being stupid and not being hysterical while taking reasonable precautions defeats the intended effect of an attack.
If the West was facing an opponent with 10,000 nuclear weapons and thirty Category A divisions within six hours of a shared border that is a significant threat. Instead we are facing opponents who can creatively improvise weapons to attack soft targets where their theory of change is based on opposition stupidity. A problem, a tragedy, but not a civilization threat.