Terrorist attacks do not come with the warning of a major hurricane. Even when they are over, no one really knows whether follow-on attacks may be in the offing and where they are likely to be directed. This is an important difference from natural disasters. While an earthquake or tsunami may come with little or no warning, it has a clear beginning and end. But an act of catastrophic terrorism inevitably generates a wider and more enduring sense of vulnerability. Should the next attack on the US look something like the scenario outlined above, mayors and everyday citizens of port cities will ask themselves, “If it could happen to Boston and Long Beach, why couldn’t it happen to us?
Sadly, despite the passage of time since the 9/11 attacks, Washington is unlikely to provide a satisfying answer. As it has barely gone through the motions of improving protective measures on the home front, especially within ports and at facilities that can handle dangerous substances, there is not much to point to that can reassure local elected officials or the general public. Further, the persistent problems that continue to afflict US intelligence efforts, both abroad and at home, do not bode well for early detection and interception of terrorist operations. The challenge is compounded by the fact that terrorists can come from friendly countries that make it easy to fly to and from the US. They may have backgrounds like Khalid’s that are not likely to earn them a place on a watch list. And they can align themselves with what appears to be a growing number of American citizens who are willing to be radicalized out of a sense of shared grievance with Muslims in the Middle East.
Outside the Middle East, in the five years since 9/11, there have been terrorist attacks carried out in Bali, Mumbai, Casablanca, Madrid, and London. As evidenced by the June 2006 arrests in Toronto and the August 2006 arrests in London, the formal links with Al Qaeda have become increasingly tenuous, yet the pool of radical jihadists is growing. We will be attacked again, despite our overseas exertions. It is as inevitable as a hurricane, earthquake, or major flood. And as with those recognized disasters, there are things we can be doing right now to reduce our exposure to the catastrophes.
So where do we go from here? Americans need to make building resiliency from within as important a national enterprise as confronting dangers from without. When it comes to terrorism, it’s important to remember that terrorists are interested in carrying out attacks where they have near-certain odds of generating the maximum consequences. We are not talking about an unbounded problem. There are a finite number of meaningful targets worth attacking. Chemical and energy facilities near urban population centers have the potential to inflict the greatest casualties; attacks on the electric grid, oil and gas facilities, major ports, and the food-supply system have the potential to create the greatest cascading economic effects, at a price tag that would be in the billions. Defending the targets that would be most appealing to terrorists and investing adequate resources in safeguarding them are worth doing. Unbelievably, the Department of Homeland Security did not even have a good working list of the nation’s most critical structures until late 2006 — and most of the items on that list are a long way from being protected.
