We’re in a new world. We’re in a world in which the possibility of terrorism, married up with technology, could make us very, very sorry that we didn’t act.

Rice used this formulation in the early months of the George W. Bush administration, as senior officials argued that the United States faced novel security threats from non-state actors who could exploit modern technology. The line is associated with the administration’s pre‑9/11 warnings about catastrophic terrorism—often framed around the prospect of terrorists acquiring advanced weapons capabilities—and was later cited in post‑9/11 debates about whether the government had acted urgently enough on such warnings. In that setting, the quote functions as a call for preemptive attention and action in national security policy, emphasizing the perceived consequences of delay in a changed strategic environment.

The quote frames the post‑9/11 era as a qualitative break (“a new world”) in which traditional deterrence and reactive policing are inadequate. Rice’s key claim is about asymmetric risk: when the potential harm is enormous (terrorism “married up with technology”), the cost of inaction may outweigh the cost of acting on incomplete information. Rhetorically, it appeals to prudence through fear of regret—imagining a future in which leaders are “very, very sorry” for failing to act in time. The line thus encapsulates a preventive-security logic that prioritizes anticipation and disruption over waiting for threats to fully materialize.