The Architecture of Government in the Face of Terrorism

Abstract

On September 11, 2001, the post-Cold War security bubble finally burst. In the preceding ten years, the United States and its major allies failed to identify and invest in the prevention of "A-list" security problems that could affect their way of life, position in the world, and very survival. Instead they behaved as if gulled into a belief that the key security problems of the post-Cold War era were ethnic and other internal conflicts in Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti, East Timor, and Kosovo. Peacekeeping and peacemaking in these places, although engaging important humanitarian concerns, never addressed the vital security interests of the United States, and none of these conflicts could begin to threaten its survival.