Why the US was undefended on 9/11

BigRob

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Often conspiracy theorists (read uninformed whack jobs) will scream to anyone that listens about how the United States was unable to defend its own headquarters and cities and therefore it must be a conspiracy. This shows a blatant ignorance of history. So why was the United States so vulnerable to attack on 9/11? The reason lies is how we view nuclear weapons.

When the United States lost its monopoly on nuclear weapons when the USSR joined them, deterrence became a huge issue that dominates the thinking even today as rouge nations like Iran and North Korea pursue, and have already acquired, weapons of their own. Throughout the Cold War there were two lines of thinking on deterrence.

The first was promoted by Thomas Schelling. He argued that in order for deterrence to work, you needed a threat that was left to chance. The mere thought of massive escalation would be enough to deter any potential attack, and every actor in the international system was rational at their core. Schelling promoted the idea of the "balance of terror" which called for no defenses, and left US cities open to attack. If you buy into this line of thinking, this makes perfect sense. He argues that defensive weapons upset the balance of terror and therefore actually would lead to more war as opposed to preventing war.

The other line of thinking was by a man named Herman Kahn. He argued that deterrence would only work if your extended deterrence was credible. The way that you got this credibility was through defensive weapons. Now both of these are simplifications of the theories, and if you want to get more in depth I would be happy to do so. Both lines of thinking are logical and have very good points to back them up. In the United States however, it was Schelling's line of thinking that won out.

You can see this in the 1972 ABM treaty which basically outlawed defensive weapons and codified the balance of terror idea. It was not until the Bush administration that this line of thinking was changed. However, think about this for a moment. The United States had bought into the idea of no defensive weapons to protect its cities for 30 years.

If you look at the size of the NE air defense corridor, it is massive. Since the United States has spent 30 years preparing for no defense, it is not surprising that on 9/11 there was no defense. On that day, only 2 (depending on your source) interceptors were able to get airborne, and the 9/11 Report found that "some" of the interceptors that got up were not even armed. Guess what the plan was? They were going to "bump" the plane in an attempt to bring it down. Bump the plane.

It should surprise no one since we bought into the idea that defensive weapons are not needed and spent 30 years ensuring that we did not build any. It was not some conspiracy that resulted in the slow response to 9/11, it was a culmination of 50 years of Cold War policy and deterrence thinking that eliminated the need for defense to ensure that American cities remained vulnerable to Soviet nuclear weapons to ensure that the "balance of terror" would not be upset.

Good idea? You be the judge.
 
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Boy, I feel better. So there are no defenses for US cities, and strategic sites at all. Joy. :/
 
Boy, I feel better. So there are no defenses for US cities, and strategic sites at all. Joy. :/

This was the line of thinking that dominated the Cold War. Defenses were not needed because it was chance that was going to maintain the balance of terror. Most people are surprised to find out that the government policy of the day was leaving cities open to nuclear strike to promote deterrence.

It was cheap, it did not sound warlike, and it answered the question of "how many weapons do you need." The only problem that it did not answer was what happens if deterrence fails, which is a pretty major oversight in my view. You can still see this line of thinking prevalent today in government. Look at the opposition Bush got to pulling out of the ABM Treaty. The point of the ABM Treaty was to ensure that cities did not get defended to ensure the balance of terror. Pulling out of that to put up a missile defense that would not only save lives but ensure the credibility of our extended deterrent cause Bush to blasted as a "war monger" among other things.
 
It was not some conspiracy that resulted in the slow response to 9/11, it was a culmination of 50 years of Cold War policy and deterrence thinking that eliminated the need for defense to ensure that American cities remained vulnerable to Soviet nuclear weapons to ensure that the "balance of terror" would not be upset.

Good idea? You be the judge.
Very nice cut-'n-paste (by one o' your favorite Right-wing columnists, no doubt).

:rolleyes:

Let's get back to Reality, now.....​

"Sometimes history is made by the force of arms on battlefields, sometimes by the fall of an exhausted empire. But often when historians set about figuring why a nation took one course rather than another, they are most interested in who said what to whom at a meeting far from the public eye whose true significance may have been missed even by those who took part in it.

The proposals Clarke developed in the Winter of 2000-01 were not given another hearing by top decision makers until late April, and then spent another four months making their laborious way through the bureaucracy before they were readied for approval by President Bush. It is quite true that nobody predicted Sept. 11—that nobody guessed in advance how and when the attacks would come. But other things are true too. By late Summer, many of those in the know—the spooks, the buttoned-down bureaucrats, the law-enforcement professionals in a dozen countries—were almost frantic with worry that a major terrorist attack against American interests was imminent. It wasn't averted because 2001 saw a systematic collapse in the ability of Washington's national-security apparatus to handle the terrorist threat.

As the new Administration took office, Rice kept Clarke in his job as counterterrorism czar. In early February, he repeated to Vice President Dick Cheney the briefing he had given to Rice and Hadley. There are differing opinions on how seriously the Bush team took Clarke's warnings. Some members of the outgoing Administration got the sense that the Bush team thought the Clintonites had become obsessed with terrorism. "It was clear," says one, "that this was not the same priority to them that it was to us."

The question is, How high a priority did terrorism get? Clarke says that dealing with al-Qaeda "was in the top tier of issues reviewed by the Bush Administration." But other topics got far more attention. The whole Bush national-security team was obsessed with setting up a national system of missile defense. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was absorbed by a long review of the military's force structure. Attorney General John Ashcroft had come into office as a dedicated crime buster. Rice was desperately trying to keep in line a national-security team—including Rumsfeld, Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell—whose members had wildly different agendas and styles. "Terrorism," says a former Clinton White House official, speaking of the new Administration, "wasn't on their plate of key issues."

Some counterterrorism officials think there is another reason for the Bush Administration's dilatory response. Clarke's paper, says an official, "was a Clinton proposal." Keeping Clarke around was one thing; buying into the analysis of an Administration that the Bush team considered feckless and naive was quite another. So Rice instructed Clarke to initiate a new "policy review process" on the terrorism threat. Clarke dived into yet another round of meetings. And his proposals were nibbled nearly to death.

The State Department's South Asia bureau, according to a participant in the meetings, argued that a fistful of other issues—Kashmir, nuclear proliferation, Musharraf's dictatorship—were just as pressing as terrorism. By now, Clarke's famously short fuse was giving off sparks. A participant at one of the meetings paraphrases Clarke's attitude this way: "These people are trying to kill us. I could give a f___ if Musharraf was democratically elected. What I do care about is Pakistan's support for the Taliban and turning a blind eye to this terrorist cancer growing in their neighbor's backyard."

***

It's time you "conservatives" admit....mostly to yourselves....that George Bush had an obligation to his campaign-contributors (i.e. old turn-around artists)....to get Saddam Hussein....but, mostly to get his OIL!
 
This was the line of thinking that dominated the Cold War. Defenses were not needed because it was chance that was going to maintain the balance of terror. Most people are surprised to find out that the government policy of the day was leaving cities open to nuclear strike to promote deterrence.

It was cheap, it did not sound warlike, and it answered the question of "how many weapons do you need."

"In mechanical systems reliability decreases with complexity and performance deteriorates over time. Even if the highly ambitious goal of a 90% 'kill rate' of incoming missiles is achieved, the remaining weapons would still wreak enormous damage.....​

At that time, the Soviets' missile-count was estimated to be 5,000!

Doing the math, for Bush-fans.....a 90% kill-rate would leave an excess of 500 missiles; 10, per U.S.-state.

That's success, huh?

:rolleyes:
 
At that time, the Soviets' missile-count was estimated to be 5,000!

Doing the math, for Bush-fans.....a 90% kill-rate would leave an excess of 500 missiles; 10, per U.S.-state.

That's success, huh?

:rolleyes:

It is better than 100 missiles per state yes. And in terms of deterrence logic, it is a big success. Anyway, what is the count now? US and Russia going to negotiate strategic weapons down to 1,000 to 1,500. Theater weapons will not be touched. The unclassified number of US theater weapons in a few hundred.. the Russians are estimated to have almost 4,000. That number will be unchanged by arms control.

Your logic amounts too, "I will take no steps to defend myself because I might still get hurt." That is lunacy.
 
......it is not surprising that on 9/11 there was no defense.


9/11 wasn't a failure of defence it was a lack of security and a failure of intelligence. US Aviation was based on the concept of "getting on a bus"; people wanted unrestricted air travel so security was compromised to make travel simple. Result, they exploited a flaw in the system. If someone had told the NORAD guys that they had Islamic friutloops on board planes then the aircraft would have been zapped out of the sky forgetting that they shouldn't have even got near the aircraft in the first place. Gotta love that 20/20 hindsight huh!

......It should surprise no one since we bought into the idea that defensive weapons are not needed and spent 30 years ensuring that we did not build any.

I would have thought that the US defensive capability was its pure and simple offensive might! One US battle group has more power than most countries - thats' gotta be a pretty potent anti-f**k with me argument!
 
9/11 wasn't a failure of defence it was a lack of security and a failure of intelligence.

A lack of "security" is exactly a failure of defense. We did not have the mentality that we had to protect anything based on 50 years of Cold War deterrent logic.

US Aviation was based on the concept of "getting on a bus"; people wanted unrestricted air travel so security was compromised to make travel simple. Result, they exploited a flaw in the system. If someone had told the NORAD guys that they had Islamic friutloops on board planes then the aircraft would have been zapped out of the sky forgetting that they shouldn't have even got near the aircraft in the first place. Gotta love that 20/20 hindsight huh!

I am not talking about security to get on the airplane, I am talking about security post hijacking. If someone had told NORAD that these people were on planes all NORAD could do is scramble fighters. We had 2 that were able to respond because we do not believe in "upsetting the balance of terror." As I pointed out, we bought 100% into the notion that we simply did not need defense, because our offensive nuclear capability was enough. We were proved wrong.

I would have thought that the US defensive capability was its pure and simple offensive might! One US battle group has more power than most countries - thats' gotta be a pretty potent anti-f**k with me argument!

In terms of nuclear weapons that is exactly what it was, and that is a huge mistake. Further, one US battle group does not do you much good when you are staring down the business end of 40,000 nuclear weapons that the USSR had pointed at us. We chose (as a matter of bipartisan policy) not to defend ourselves and bought into the logic that the chance of retaliation with our offensive capabilities was enough to prevent war. When the world changed as the USSR collapsed, our line of thinking did not, and that is why we had nothing available that could stop 9/11, even after we knew the planes were hijacked.
 
It is better than 100 missiles per state yes. :confused: And in terms of deterrence logic, it is a big success. Anyway, what is the count now? US and Russia going to negotiate strategic weapons down to 1,000 to 1,500. :confused: Theater weapons will not be touched. The unclassified number of US theater weapons in a few hundred.. :rolleyes: the Russians are estimated to have almost 4,000. That number will be unchanged by arms control.

Your logic amounts too, "I will take no steps to defend myself because I might still get hurt." That is lunacy.
Try re-reading this little blurb....and, then try to convince me you (actually) composed the opening-paragraph. (Still struggling with that ol' to..too..two issue?

:rolleyes:
 
Hi mate....what are you trying to compare? Nuclear deterence based on cold war thinking versus the 9/11 attack or just the number of weapons during the 60s versus the number of weapons in the ought 20s?

If its numbers of weapons then yes the US has 10% of what it had during the height of the cold war but the significance is no less - its just the the threat has changed.

If you're just looking at 9/11 and terrorism well I guess the hi-jacking is a function of airline security, internal and overseas intelligence and law and order failures ?

You've brough a lot to the table mate! :)
 
A lack of "security" is exactly a failure of defense. We did not have the mentality that we had to protect anything based on 50 years of Cold War deterrent logic.
Gimme a break!!

It was a battle of EGOS!!!!!!!!!!!!

"The winter proposals became a victim of the transition process, turf wars and time spent on the pet policies of new top officials. The Bush Administration chose to institute its own "policy review process" on the terrorist threat."​
 
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