America the Vulnerable

Stephen E. Flynn

From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2002

Article preview: first 500 of 5,080 words total.

Summary:  September 11 revealed the soft underbelly of globalization: trade and travel lanes so open that they allow terrorists to do their worst. The need for greater oversight of the goods and people that flow into the United States is obvious. But draconian border-control measures would cripple the U.S. economy. Washington must work with other governments to make international trade safe -- or else close the book on globalization.

Stephen E. Flynn is Senior Fellow in the National Security Studies Program at the Council on Foreign Relations and a Commander in the U.S. Coast Guard. This article is adapted from his chapter in "How Did This Happen? Terrorism and the New War," published by PublicAffairs and Foreign Affairs with the support of the Council on Foreign Relations.

THE UNGUARDED HOMELAND

It is painful to recall that, prior to September 11, Washington's singular preoccupation when it came to protecting the U.S. homeland was national missile defense. That urgency about guarding the United States from a potential missile attack now stands in stark contrast to the government's complacency about policing America's transportation networks and land and sea borders. On September 10, just over 300 U.S. Border Patrol agents supported by a single analyst were assigned the job of detecting and intercepting illegal border crossings along the entire vast 4,000-mile land and water border with Canada. Meanwhile, after a decade of budgetary neglect, the U.S. Coast Guard, tasked with maintaining port security and patrolling 95,000 miles of shoreline, was forced to reduce its ranks to the lowest level since 1964 and to cannibalize its decades-old cutters and aircraft for spare parts to keep others operational. While debates over the merits of new missile-intercept technologies made headlines, the fact that America's terrestrial and maritime front doors were wide open did not rate even a brief mention.

Until the World Trade Center towers were reduced to rubble and the Pentagon was slashed open, most Americans, along with their government, were clearly in denial about their exposure to a terrorist attack on their own soil. Oceans to the east and west and friendly continental neighbors to the north and south had always offered a healthy measure of protection. And Americans have generally disapproved of extensive efforts at domestic security. They were willing to staff and bankroll the defense and intelligence communities to contain the Soviet Union and to deal with conflicts "over there," but the quid pro quo was supposed to allow civilians at home to enjoy the full extent of their accustomed freedoms.

As Americans now contemplate the road ahead, they need to accept three unpleasant facts. First, there will continue to be anti-American terrorists with global reach for the foreseeable future. Second, these terrorists will have access to the means -- including chemical and biological weapons -- to carry out catastrophic attacks on U.S. soil. And third, the economic and societal disruption created by both the September 11 attacks and the subsequent anthrax mailings will provide grist for the terrorist mill. Future terrorists bent on challenging U.S. power will draw inspiration from the seeming ease with which the United States can be attacked, and they will be encouraged by the mounting costs to the U.S. economy and the public psyche exacted by the hasty, ham-handed efforts to restore security.

STOPPING THE PENDULUM

The campaign in Afghanistan has commanded the bulk of the waking moments of the senior leadership at the White House, the Pentagon, and the State Department. But at the end of the day, even if all goes well in this fight, only the terrorists of the moment will have been defeated. Places will always exist for terrorists to hide, especially before they have committed large-scale atrocities, and new adversaries will eventually arise to fill the shoes of those ...

End of preview: first 500 of 5,080 words total.