How to Protect the Homeland

How to Protect the Homeland

by Joseph S. Nye
September 25, 2001
Reprinted from the New York Times

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Five years ago, with James Woolsey, former
director of the Central Intelligence Agency, I headed a government
study that found a lack of preparedness to face catastrophic terrorism.
Our warnings and those of similar groups went largely unheeded. On Sept.
11, complacency was wiped away, but the fragmented bureaucratic
structure and procedures of our government remain a barrier to action,
despite President Bush''s decision to name Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania
to head a new Office of Homeland Security.

By using the rhetoric of war to frame our response to the terror attacks,
President Bush has marshaled the public''s patriotism and persuaded
Congress to provide financing. But the danger in the rhetoric is that the
new office may be structured like a military organization.

There are many types of terrorism and many kinds of terrorist weapons.
Even if we succeed in eliminating Osama bin Laden, we have to remember
that Timothy McVeigh was home-grown. And as we succeed in battening
down the cockpits to prevent civilian aircraft being used again as giant
cruise missiles, terrorists will be exploring other vulnerabilities in our open
society and investigating even more devastating weapons.

Fortunately, nuclear and biological weapons are not as easy to make as
popular fiction suggests, but there have been reports that Mr. bin Laden
and others have tried to purchase stolen nuclear weapons from the former
Soviet inventory. We also know that a few years ago the Japanese Aum
Shinrikyo cult killed people with both chemical and biological agents.

Suppressing terrorism is very different from a military campaign. It requires
continuous, patient, undramatic civilian work and close cooperation with
other countries. And it requires coordination within our government.

The C.I.A. and F.B.I. must improve their ability to work together on
detection and must reconcile their different authorities and programs in
intelligence and law enforcement. The F.B.I., the Immigration and
Naturalization Service, the Customs Service, the Defense Department and
other agencies must improve their cooperation. Because of poor
coordination, two suspects were able to enter this country even after
their names had been placed on a watch list, and the jet fighters that
scrambled after the Federal Aviation Administration notification of the
hijackings arrived too late.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has to work with local
governments on domestic responses. New federally funded research and
development programs are needed to address each phase of a crisis, as
well as to accelerate new technologies and devise special training and
testing exercises.

It would be a mistake if the Office of Homeland Defense merely added
another layer of bureaucracy. Instead, Governor Ridge should head a
committee of deputy secretaries from the agencies with control over
budgets and programs involved with terrorism defense. He should create a
small staff that works closely with the Office of Management and Budget
to monitor plans to be carried out by existing agencies.

His office should be supported by new research corporations created to
deal with terrorism, as the RAND corporation was created in the cold war
to deal with the nuclear threat. These groups should not be bound by the
rigidities and inadequate salaries of the federal bureaucracy. Their
independence should allow them to plan an antiterror system that can find
gaps and overlaps in government agencies'' antiterror efforts and examine
weaknesses in private systems like computer networks.

Planners should conduct regular exercises with teams simulating terrorists
and defenders, trying to outsmart each other. Had we done this for our
airport security system, we might have realized that it was designed to
detect guns and bombs but not to stop suicide pilots armed with knives
and box cutters.

As recently as last spring, a commission on national security headed by
former Senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman also warned of our lack of
preparedness. Sadly, the commissioners were right. Now we must organize
ourselves effectively to combat terrorism.

Joseph S. Nye, dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard,
was chairman of the National Intelligence Council and an assistant
secretary of defense in the Clinton administration.