Luck or Preparation

Much to my dismay, I haven't linked to Marc Schulman in a while. Marc has a really good September 11th post here. Marc has been another indefatigable blogger, committed to providing sound analysis and a consistent narrative about what is going right with this war.

On a critical note to the lack of preparation at all levels in Gulf Region, I do share Marc's fear:

That’s what scares me now. Here we are on the fourth anniversary of 9/11 and no lives have been lost on American soil to terrorism since that day. Is this happy circumstance attributable to preparation or luck? No one can know for sure, but prior to August 29, I would have given the nod to preparation. Now, I give it to luck.

I share his fear, but I don't know if I take it as far, yet. I think there is a little of both preparation and luck involved. Luck always comes into play, and as I've explained earlier, you can set your strategy on a course to "create" your own luck. Geo-politics and international wars have far too many variables that can be controlled by even a super-power state-actor, and it is even more fluid with democratic countries, but aligning your strategy in the proper direction can cause particular elements to start "falling your way." This does not mean that set-backs and changes that break in the favor of your enemy will not occur.

The essential question now is this: how much do we owe the lack of terrorist attacks since September 11th to preparation versus luck? This is a very difficult question to answer with the subject matter being convoluted by the thinking of our a significant portion of our citizens that continually seeks a homerun solution (instant gratification) and the quantity of hyperbole that is being passed off as "analysis."

Our homeland has many vulnerabilities, and Marc pointed out a big one. What was keeping a well timed terrorist operation aimed at blowing up the levies in New Orleans? This attack could have dwarfed the death and mayhem that we saw in the aftermath of Katrina.

Well, the view of the administration after September 11th was that we would always be vulnerable to attack, and the only way that we can prevent future attacks is to take the fight to them. Sitting back in a defensive posture in a country which, rightfully, protects individual rights is playing to our weaknesses and to al-Qaeda's strengths.

Al-Qaeda has been shifting resources to fighting in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. This does not mean that there aren't operations planned for attacks in the U.S., it just means that a large portion of their resources has been diverted towards fighting in their back yard. Not only have they been diverted, they've been baited into a fight that plays to our strengths (all-out military engagement).

The Saudi wild-card, I think, has been one of the most interesting components to this strategy. The House of Saud supported and fed al-Qaeda for years. After September 11th, we pleaded with the Saudis to cut off and actively resist them. Self-preservation combined with greed and a warped ideology led the House of Saud to balk. However, in the aftermath of the invasion in Iraq, al-Qaeda tried to force the House of Saud's hand against us. In typical al-Qaeda fashion, they tried to "move" the Saud's through bombings and murder. The result of their strategy so far has been this:

All but seven of the top al-Qaeda's most wanted in Saudi Arabia have been killed or captured. Even though I wouldn't trust the Sauds with much, they are clearly fighting back, and doing quite well, in opposition to al-Qaeda. This is an extremely important strategic development since the invasion of Iraq.

It is really hard to quantify all of this, but it is hard to argue that al-Qaeda's operations haven't been significantly interrupted by our strategy, with the help of some unlikely allies in the region.

This leads me to the fear that Marc has. Al-Qaeda doesn't need 100,000 troops with armored divisions to strike a blow against us. They are schrewd, intellegent, resourceful and extremely adept at using our weaknesses against us. My fear is that we citizens are dropping the ball, while al-Qaeda is still far from being rendered a facile organization. Bush hasn't exactly asked us to sacrifice much, but I think this is partly a deflection, as I don't think we'd be very willing to give up much.

Getting hit again is still a high probability, and I don't think there is much substative change that our leaders could pose in the meantime to make that much of a difference without the support of the majority of the population. Some would blame Bush for this rancor which has caused this division, but as someone who has lived in the Bay Area for over five years, the rancor was thick and deep way before the war. The aftermath of Katrina has revealed that most people, on both sides, would rather act like children than step-up, provide solutions and get things done.

So, Marc, we'll see how long our luck lasts.

Posted by 10 fingers 6 strings at September 12, 2005 12:02 PM | TrackBack