By most measures, the war against Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda terror network is going well. Close collaboration among security agencies has resulted in the arrest of high-ranking operatives and the cracking of terrorist cells around the world. Yet fear persists -- and with good reason. In 2003, the high-water marks in the fight against terrorism will not be attacks averted, but the fanaticism that prevailed in Bali, Moscow and Mombassa. Terrorism has been a scourge throughout human history; it will not be defeated anytime soon.

Accepting that bitter fact does not mean conceding to fear. Nor does it mean ignoring the risks that arise. It does mean that citizens must accept new inconveniences and be alert to new dangers. Just as critically, citizens must refuse to give up the freedoms that the terrorists despise; we must not give away that which makes us better than our enemies.

During the first several months, the war against terror was a distant affair. Although outraged citizens around the world proclaimed their solidarity with the United States in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, the truth is that it was "someone else's war." The battlefields were faraway places -- Afghanistan, Israel, Kashmir. Even when the terrorists were spotted closer to home, as in the Philippines, there was little sense that it could happen here. That sense of security was denial: It could happen here -- and did in March 1995, when Aum Shinrikyo declared war against the Japanese state.

In 2002, that "distance" disappeared. The discoveries that terrorist cells are dotted through Southeast Asia and that local Muslim groups were nodes in the al-Qaeda network were pointed reminders that "no man's land" was a myth. The suicide bombers in Bali and Mombassa targeted vacationing tourists, shattering the illusion that ordinary citizens somehow were shielded from danger. To some extent, the success of governments in protecting "hard targets" -- military and government facilities -- has encouraged terrorists to focus on softer, civilian targets. More such attacks are to be expected.

In 2002, the world awakened to the danger of weapons of mass destruction, or WMD, and terrorist attempts to procure them. Although terrorists have been more likely to use conventional weapons -- and are likely to continue to do so due to the costs involved in buying or developing WMD -- the possibility of WMD proliferation has focused international attention on the vast arsenals of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons that are poorly protected. The chain of contact that runs from established nuclear weapons states, like Russia, to gray and "rogue" states like Pakistan, Iraq and North Korea, and on to al-Qaeda, has made abundantly clear the need for more stringent international controls on WMD technology, materials and knowhow.

The terrorist challenge has forced us to face new moral issues as well. In a foretaste of how future wars will be fought, new technologies have enabled the U.S. government to target specific victims, a practice that comes dangerously close to assassination. On one hand, this lessens the risk of collateral damage to innocent civilians. On the other, government-sanctioned killing crosses a dangerous moral line.

The recognition that terrorists do not respond to the traditional tools of foreign policy has prompted governments to consider turning to "pre-emption" in place of deterrence, putting traditional notions of state sovereignty under attack. Governments have a responsibility to ensure that their territory is not used as a base for attacks on other countries -- as the Taliban failed to do. The chief concern about Iraq, meanwhile, is that it will develop weapons of mass destruction and then give them to terrorists to strike at Baghdad's enemies without leaving a trail that leads back to Iraq.

In either case, the dangers are real, and the traditional tools of statecraft are unlikely to work. Yet the world is unlikely to be safer if other governments are to decide when a state has failed to act responsibly and when pre-emption is justified. The only solution is ensuring that the United Nations authorizes any action against a member state.

Finally, we must always be vigilant toward the erosion of human rights. There are suspicions that governments have been willing to turn a blind eye to human rights violations by other countries in return for support in the war on terrorism. Just as troubling is the fact that groups formerly considered to be "separatists" are now labeled as terrorists.

More worrisome still is the readiness of governments to whittle down the protections provided to their own citizens in order to fight terror. In each case, the fight against terrorism concedes a little to the terrorists. That is no way to fight a war; it is certainly no way to win one.