This alleged plot is a sign of weakness by those who would do Australians harm, not strength.
Like the brutal slaying of a soldier on a British street last year, random executions in public would be brutal to behold and doubtless instil widespread fear.
But this is not the type of mass casualty atrocity the extremists most dearly want to see carried out.
These arrests tell us something important. The police believe there are fanatics in Australia who hold malevolent intent, but the accused appear to lack the skills to match the desire for violence.
It takes specialised knowledge to build a homemade bomb, for example, like the one that destroyed nightclubs in Bali.
Or training and access to weapons to conduct an armed rampage in a shopping mall, as happened in Kenya.
Instead, the allegation in Australia is a plot of far more mundane violence but carried out in an intensely political fashion.
Tony Abbott spoke of exhortations from abroad for "demonstration killings" and what is alleged here appears to fit with that demand.
Random attacks are incredibly difficult to anticipate or stop. Sharp weapons can never be truly regulated – be it kitchen knives or garden tools, or the awful prospect of a simple can of petrol and a match.
The early terrorists, the "Thugs" in India, strangled random victims over centuries until a brutal crackdown during colonial times put an end to the death cult.
It comes back to intent.
Security measures are only a stopgap to the harder and urgent task of tackling the vicious ideology and warped religiosity that spurs such violence.
