Published: 1 September 2008
Air & Space Power Journal - Fall 2008

America the Vulnerable: How Our Government Is Failing to Protect Us from Terrorism by Stephen Flynn. Harper Perennial (http://www.harper perennial.com), 10 East 53d Street, New York, New York 10022, 2005, 272 pages, $13.95 (softcover).

“America remains dangerously unprepared to prevent and respond to a catastrophic terrorist attack on US soil” (p. ix). So argues Stephen Flynn in a well-researched book that, while often scathing in its criticism, remains free of partisan axe-grinding. Flynn offers a wealth of creative, practical recommendations to better protect our people, ports, food and water, factories, and transportation networks.

He brings strong operational, academic, and policy-making credentials to the subject. In addition to a 20-year career in the US Coast Guard, he taught at that service’s academy, served on the staffs of the White House Military Office and National Security Council, and was a special adviser to the 2001 Hart-Rudman Commission on National Security. He has provided congressional testimony 17 times since 11 September 2001 and is currently a Senior National Security Fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations. Flynn holds a PhD in inter­national politics from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. His policy proposals reflect this broad experience in government as well as extensive interaction with the private sector.

Raging pragmatism may best describe his approach—the “rage” being directed mainly at bureaucratic inertia. Aware of budget realities and the ineffectiveness of solutions issued from above, he uses a keen eye for incentives that cross the public-private divide to keep his ideas within the achievable realm.

For example, he suggests that investments made to better deal with a biological attack on our food supply would also pay dividends in our ability to manage natural pandemics like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), West Nile virus, foot-and-mouth disease, or mad-cow disease. Similarly, leveraging existing technologies to improve the inspection and tracking of cargo containers could benefit both security and the corporate bottom line. Published before Hurricane Katrina, the book also explains how improvements to terrorism response, such as closer interagency cooperation, could save lives in a natural disaster. On these and a host of other concrete proposals, Flynn masters the details.

His thinking on the larger issues seems equally sound. He advocates a call to service to mobilize Americans’ innate resourcefulness and civic-mindedness. A better informed, engaged public, he argues, will willingly make reasonable sacrifices and hold its elected leaders more accountable for inaction. With much originality, Flynn also proposes a Federal Security Reserve System, organized on a regional basis and comprised of private and public-sector participants. This idea, developed in depth in the book, at least deserves consideration as a way to better attune federal agencies with local needs.

Regarding public concerns about infringements on civil liberties (due to surveillance or profiling, for example), Flynn makes the valid point that deliberate measures, debated and established in advance, will be both more effective and better protect those liberties than policies hastily put into effect in the emotionally charged aftermath of an attack.

This book tackles many big questions, but readers seeking a comprehensive treatment of US antiterrorism policy on a global scale should look elsewhere. This is not about hearts and minds or foreign policy—the text stays focused on active prevention and response at home. Flynn does briefly acknowledge a role for preemptive, offensive actions but remains generally pessimistic of their cost and efficacy on any grand scale. He emphasizes that one day’s expenditure in Iraq approximates what the federal government spends in one year on homeland security.

Although America the Vulnerable is not specifically relevant to the Airman, any citizen wishing to be better informed on these issues need not look elsewhere. For the homeland-security professional, the book should be mandatory reading.

Col Michael D. Hays, USAF
Osan Air Base, Republic of Korea

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academicenvironment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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