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
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.
In a year, roughly a hundred and twenty million cars, eleven million trucks, and eight million shipping containers cross America's borders. According to Flynn, a former Coast Guard commander now at the Council on Foreign Relations, all of them are potential terrorist weapons. Flynn argues that too little has been done since September 11th to safeguard the country's transportation infrastructure and, to prove the point, he charts the journey of a hypothetical Al Qaeda operative who smuggles fissile material from Ukraine into the United States. Because encasing the country in fortifications and checkpoints is unfeasible, Flynn believes that policymakers must draw lessons from the world of corporate safety—a job that requires government and private-sector coöperation. Meanwhile, Americans must learn to regard acts of terrorism as they do acts of God: unavoidable features of everyday life.
Copyright © 2005
The New Yorker
Of the many post-9/11 books evaluating the Bush administration's national security strategies to date, this may be the most pragmatic and the most frightening. From its opening chapter, a hypothetical yet believable sum-of-all-fears account of a terrorist attack on a container port, this book argues against the notion that the best defense against terrorism is a good offense. Imagining we are bringing the fight to the terrorists, says Flynn, has kept us in deep denial about our gaping vulnerabilities at home, particularly our shipping networks, power plants, and other unglamorous yet invaluable potential targets. Such vulnerabilities are not, argues Flynn, simply indigenous to a free society, nor do they require scary violations of liberty to fix. But they do require a mature willingness by government, business, and private citizens to put aside the ideology, stop hoarding duct tape, and attend to the minutiae of security--systematic and technologically streamlined container inspections, for example--before we get hit again. Yes, it's another book telling us to be scared, but it also reminds us that the cure for fear is practical, not ideological. Brendan Driscoll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
“If officials in Washington would read just one book, this is it. It should scare us into action.” (Fareed Zakaria, author of The Future of Freedom)
“America the Vulnerable will grip you, intrigue you, frighten you and inspire you. Flynn is a genuine expert.” (Norman Ornstein, resident scholar, American Enterprise Institute)
“This book had to be written. Flynn’s threat scenarios are chillingly persuasive. His urgent prescriptions are compelling.” (Gary Hart, former U.S. Senator, co-chair, the United States Commission on National Security for the 21st Century)
“Stunningly detailed. Unsettling but necessary reading for all Americans deeply concerned about the future security of our nation.” (Warren Rudman, former U.S. Senator, co-chair, the United States Commission on National Security for the 21st Century)
“A critical read for both our political leaders and every American citizen.” (Jeffrey E. Garten, Dean, Yale School of Management)
“A provocative critique by one eminently qualified to make it.” (Kirkus Reviews)
About the Author
Stephen Flynn is the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow in National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was the lead author of the task force report "America: Still Unprepared, Still in Danger," and his articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs. He spent twenty years as a commissioned officerin the U.S. Coast Guard, served in the White House Military Office during the George H. W. Bush administration,and was director for Global Issues on the National Security Council staff during the Clinton administration.
