HINDSIGHT can sometimes see the past clearly - with 20/20 vision.
But the path of what happened is so brightly lit that it places
everything else more deeply into shadow...
The 9/11 attack was an event of surpassing disproportion. America
had suffered attacks before - Pearl Harbor is one well-known case,
the 1950 Chinese attack in Korea another. But these were attacks by
major powers.
While by no means as threatening as Japan's act of war, the 9/11
attack was in some ways more devastating. It was carried out by a
tiny group of people not enough to man a full platoon. Measured on
a governmental scale, the resources behind it were trivial. The
group itself was dispatched by an organisation based in one of the
poorest, most remote, and least industrialised countries on
earth...
To us, Afghanistan seemed very far away. To members of Al-Qaeda,
America seemed very close. In a sense, they were more globalised
than we were.
If the government's leaders understood the gravity of the threat
they faced and understood at the same time that their policies to
eliminate it were not likely to succeed any time soon, then
history's judgment will be harsh. Did they understand the gravity
of the threat?...
Imagination is not a gift usually associated with
bureaucracies. For example, before Pearl Harbor the US
government had excellent intelligence that a Japanese attack was
coming, especially after peace talks stalemated at the end of
November 1941. These were days, one historian notes, of
'excruciating uncertainty'. The most likely targets were judged to
be in South-east Asia. An attack was coming, 'but officials were at
a loss to know where the blow would fall or what more might be done
to prevent it'. In retrospect, available intercepts pointed to
Japanese examination of Hawaii as a possible target. But, another
historian observes, 'in the face of a clear warning, alert
measures bowed to routine'.
It is therefore crucial to find a way of routinising, even
bureaucratising, the exercise of imagination.
--ST
think this has got great implications, not only in the military
arena, but in governance in general. there are many lessons to be
drawn, and the failure of imagination could well be one of our
greatest pitfalls. hopefully someone up there is pondering and
mulling over this right now...