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...