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As the United States makes itself less vulnerable to conventional attack, our enemies will seek unconventional means to strike us-as the attack on the Cole (DDG-76) has shown. But the chances for success against terrorism are excellent, if the Navy has the right preparation and resolve.
In 1997 the Navy energized its antiterrorism program. The report on Khobar Towers had been released, J34 Force Protection Directorate had been created, and civilian and military leaders declared combating terrorism a priority. Today, the antiterrorism effort is on the cusp, equally likely to succeed as it is to fail. The problems are paradox, prejudice, and lack of situational awareness.
Paradox
The primary paradox is that terrorism is an unconventional psychological operation that the Navy confronts with conventional security means. The terrorist is involved in extended operations to achieve his organization's longterm goals, but the Navy is defending an infinite number of single moments, with that short-term achievement as the only defined goal. The Navy is fighting a strategy with tactics. As a result, it is very difficult for the Navy to "win" an engagement-where the outcome is visible to the world, and it looks like both a victory for the United States and a defeat for the terrorist. Anything less leaves the terrorist's strategy unaffected. Say, for example, the Navy reinforces a pier area to deter a terrorist attack. The reinforcement does deter an attack, but if that "win" is not made public as a defeat of the terrorist, does not result in the compromise of the terrorist organization, etc., there is no win; only no loss.
Second, the probability that a person will be subject to a terrorist attack, even in forward areas, is low, but the impact of an attack on both the person involved and the United States is high. The Navy has dealt with low probability/high impact situations before-e.g., nuclear weapon and reactor safety-but in an era of limited resources, actively countering this kind of threat is a harder sell.
The third paradox is vulnerability versus threat. The vulnerability camp believes that as long as the Navy has vulnerabilities, it is unnecessarily at risk. The threat camp believes that if there is no indication and warning (I&W) of a threat then there is...