America the Vulnerable: How Our Government Is Failing to Protect Us from Terrorism [Hardcover]

Stephen Flynn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 20, 2004

America is living on borrowed time -- and squandering it.

Three years after September 11, we are still dangerously unprepared to prevent or respond to anotherattack on American soil. Faced with this threat, the United States should be operating on a wartime footingat home. But despite the many new security precautionsthat have been proposed, our most serious vulnerabilities remain ominously exposed.

In this powerful and urgently needed call to action, Stephen Flynn offers a startling portrait of the radical shortcomings in America's current plan for homeland security. He describes a frightening scenario of what the next major terrorist attack might look like, revealing the tragic loss of life and economic havoc it would leave in its wake, as well as the seismic political consequences it would have in Washington.

Despite increased awareness, we still offer our enemies a vast menu of soft targets: water and food supplies; chemical plants; energy grids and pipelines; bridges, tunnels, and ports; and the millions of cargo containers that carry most of the goods we depend upon in our everyday lives. The measures we have cobbled together to protect these vital systems are hardly fit to deter amateur thieves, vandals, and smugglers, letalone determined terrorists. Worse still, small improvements are often oversold as giant steps forward, lowering the guard of the average citizen and building an unwarranted sense of confidence.

It does not have to be this way. Flynn carefully outlines a bold yet practical plan for achieving security in a way that is safe and smart, effective and manageable. In a new world of heightened risk and fear, America the Vulnerable delivers a timely, forceful message that cannot be ignored.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The most gripping portion of Stephen Flynn's examination of America's defense shortcomings in the war on terror arrives early. The entire second chapter imagines an elaborate but feasible dirty-bomb attack that brings the nation's transportation system to a halt and presents the President with two dreadful options: reopen borders closed by the emergency and risk further attack, or inspect everything that comes into the country and accept the cataclysmic economic consequences. Flynn, a senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations and veteran of the George H. W. Bush and Clinton administrations, paints a picture of a government that is flailing in its efforts to protect its citizens. We are, Flynn argues, hamstrung by entrenched intelligence bureaucracies and ideological power centers on the right and left, and he isn't optimistic about the near-term likelihood that we'll meet our greatest challenge: "identifying how to formally engage the broader civil society and private sector, not just the federal government, in a national effort to make America a less attractive terrorist target." America the Vulnerable isn't as powerful or contentious as the bestseller Imperial Hubris; Flynn is a practical government veteran who keeps his outrage largely in check. It's clear he aims to have an impact with this expose of a national defense he compares to France's in the days of the Maginot line. And we know how effective that "impenetrable" defense stood up in the face of an unconventional opponent. --Steven Stolder

From Publishers Weekly

Arguing for the primary role of homeland security, Council on Foreign Relations fellow Flynn describes a nation living on borrowed time. He presents a hypothetical scenario of a devastating "next attack" and stresses the difficulty officials have in learning new tricks and politicians have in paying for them. Flynn stresses as well the susceptibility of the food supply to sabotage and the lack of oversight in a vulnerable chemical industry, emphasizing in particular the continuing failure to establish systematic inspection of cargo containers. He is most convincing in arguing the risks of a "silver bullet approach," the assumption that a single innovation will solve a particular security problem. Instead, Flynn proposes a Federal Homeland Security System integrating private and public expertise, funded by levying fees on such activities as the movement of containers and by requiring owners and operators of critical infrastructure to carry antiterrorist insurance. The details of Flynn's proposals are significant in representing a genuinely long-term response to a threat he is convinced will remain serious for an indefinite longterm. Any risks they might pose to civil liberties, he argues, are marginal compared with the likely domestic consequences of being caught unprepared a second time—or a third.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Harper; First Edition edition (July 20, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060571284
• ISBN-13: 978-0060571283
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,285,165 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars We Are Sitting On A Time Bomb, May 19, 2006

By 

Edwin C. Pauzer (New York City) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: America the Vulnerable: How Our Government Is Failing to Protect Us from Terrorism (Hardcover)

That is how one of the chapters starts. It's a matter of when the next terrorist attack will happen, not if it will happen, according to the author, Stephen Flynn.

With absolute simplicity, common sense logic, and an irrefutable argument, he demonstrates how and why our government is failing to protect us from the terrorist threat. Industry and government are not willing to take the time and the money required to provide greater security for a war on terrorism that will never end.

Our water and food supplies, our chemical plants, and our ports are alrmingly unsecure from terrorist attack. Flynn creates a terrorist scenario demonstrating how the terrorist threat can become reality. He asserts our enemies are willing to spend the time to create the act of terror, while we are not willing to spend the time defending ourselves to foil it.

He blames industries which see no benefit in spending the money on security which will be passed on to their consumers, while non-security minded companies will maintain lower prices and take business away from the security-conscious ones.

This means that congress must act. It must set security standards that will be implemented across each industry thus spreading the cost to everyone. So far, congress, not wanting to offend their million dollar contributors have done nothing. Flynn also suggests that Americans must be willing to make the sacrifices necessary for this security.

We are operating on a World War II mentality i.e. the best defense is a good offense by taking the fight to their countries. That is not what Flynn recommends. Terrorists will always be able to get into this country. We must strengthen our security at home which will take years of dedicated preparation and action.

The author's book is a siren song. The beginning of his fourth chapter bears repeating as a end to this review. "When it comes to dealing with the new security agenda, Americans need to grow up....Terrorism is simply too cheap, too available, and too tempting ever to be totally eradicated. We must have the maturity both to live with the risk of future attacks and to invest in reasonable measures to rein in that risk."

For those who use the argument that we haven't been attacked since 9/11, remember, it took five years of planning. 9/11 is now more than five years ago. Truly, American apathy and complacency are the terrorists' greatest allies.

41 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "The" Book on Domestic Security, August 29, 2004

By 

Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: America the Vulnerable: How Our Government Is Failing to Protect Us from Terrorism (Hardcover)

Edited 20 Dec 07 to add links.

Some will say this book aids the enemy, pointing out with shocking clarity the extreme vulnerabilities of our transportation, communications, and other core systems. I happen to agree with the author's core point, as Thomas Jefferson would agree: politicians will continue to ignore these vulnerabilities and lie to the public until the public achieves its own appreciation of the threat.

This is a double-spaced book, an easy read from Tampa to Dulles (2.5 hours), and well-worth any thinking person's attention. For those who disparage this book as "gloom and doom": go back to your vodka martinis.

THE fundamental point of this book, and one that I happily endorse on the basis of my other 493 reviews of national security non-fiction, is that how we spend the federal tax dollar is completely out of balance. We are spending $500 billion on a "hard power" military that can barely contain terrorism, crime, genocide, revolution, and war between states, while we are letting our states and cities go begging, and refuse to fund just 16,000 Customs inspectors, among other vital initiatives.

This is the single best book I have found that points out that in the era of asymmetric warfare, where non-state actors have both explosive and nuclear-biological-chemical power at their disposal, it is the "soft targets", the non-military infrastructure targets, which will be most attractive to the "sleeper" agents of Al Qaeda and others. Washington continues to deceive America about its vulnerability, and about Washington's feckless irresponsibility in failing to redirect funds from hard power only relevant to fighting major states, to a combination of homeland defense of soft targets, which is this book's focus, and soft power projection such as Joe Nye recommends in his various books, but especially The Paradox of American Power: Why the World's Only Superpower Can't Go It Alone,

The author's first line is a block-buster: "If September 11, 2001 was a wake-up call, clearly America has fallen back asleep." He is right. I deal with those responsible for the "Global War on Terror" and most of them are working 9-5, spending half their day gossiping or browsing the Web. [This is still true as of 20 Dec 07, besides which, terrorism is a tactic, you cannot make war on a tactic].

In my view, the author, a former Coast Guard commander and also a National Security Council staff member, is right on target when he says that the Pentagon is guilty of an "escapist" perspective in thinking they can defeat terrorism "over there." It was this point that caused me to both buy this book in an airport, and to review it concurrently with General Tommy Franks' book American Soldier General Franks is both a superb officer, and a naive escapist, and reading this book drives that point home in a way that would make any intelligent person pleased to have spent time with the author.

There is a "seam" between our homeland security and our overseas capabilities, and there is no one in charge of any coherent program to decide how best to protect BOTH our neighborhoods AND our overseas investments.

This is a nuanced book, one that makes the point that security must become as embedded as safety has been, and the further point that security properly embedded is actually PROFITABLE! He's right. Green lanes for containers that have proper GPS and content authentications will SAVE dollars by saving time. Bio-chemical detection across all herds and food supplies will detect "natural" threats such as we have seen with SARS, monkey pox, bird flu, West Nile virus, etc.

Finally, security and openness can help reduce fraud, especially import/expert tax fraud, where containers loaded with priceless equipment are mis-labeled as low-cost machinery, or vice versa, an advanced form of money laundering that is costing the U.S. taxpayer over $50 billion a year in lost tax revenues.

Of the 1000+ books or so that I have reviewed here at Amazon, this book easily makes it into my top ten list of books relevant to getting national security right in the near term. Beyond five stars.

See also, with reviews:
Open Target: Where America Is Vulnerable to Attack
American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America
THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The `MUST' read for maritime intel..., October 31, 2004

By 

M. Conrad Hunter (Southern California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: America the Vulnerable: How Our Government Is Failing to Protect Us from Terrorism (Hardcover)

Dr. Flynn provides meaning to the issues of national security, which is the essence of intelligence. By `adding value' to the sea of raw data, telltale signs, and signals America the Vulnerable becomes the indispensable volume for everyone interested in maritime intelligence matters.

The current series of terrorist atrocities, along with the plague of transnational threats including, drug trafficking, illegal immigration, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction gives concern for reading information correctly. Beyond that there is a call for action. The oceans are no longer our primary mechanism for defense. These issues and more are brilliantly discussed in America the Vulnerable.

Because Dr. Flynn possesses that rare combination of experience at sea as a United States Coast Guard Officer and academician there is no better authority on the subject of maritime intelligence, national and homeland security/defense, and the best means for expending precious U.S. resources. Not one to define a problem without a solution, Dr. Flynn provides insight, candor, and imagination to solving U.S. security issues. I recommend this work as the keystone to a Maritime Intelligence course.