Resilience is Leadership Posted by James Lamond



There has been a lot of undo fuss over an excerpt in the Bob Woodward’s new book that quotes President Obama during a discussion about terrorism.  Apparently the president believes that the American people are a strong and resilient people.  In an interview with Woodward, he said: "We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever . . . we absorbed it and we are stronger."

For some reason the right has gone nuts over this.  To me it seems like a perfectly logical –and true – statement.  I am not sure exactly what the criticism is.  Do they think that the American people are not able to “absorb” an attack, that we are a weak and fragile country?  Should we instead cower in fear? Disrupt our entire way of life? Seems that we are stronger than that.

First let’s be clear. Terrorism experts saythat the recent efforts have put al Qaeda central under a great deal of pressure and reduced its capabilities to conduct large scale attacks.  Earlier this year Richard Clarke wrote, “It is an objective and undeniable fact that U.S. counterterrorism efforts have reduced the overall threat from what it was a few years ago.” More recently Peter Bergen described the threat faced by terrorism as “real but not catastrophic.”  And part of a comprehensive approach to combating terrorism is preparing the readiness and the resilience of a nation. 

The common criticism regarding this quote that has been coming from people like Gretchen Carlson is that it invites an attack.  How exactly? If terrorists don’t achieve what they want – fear, overreaction and disruption from the target population – then why exactly would that encourage an attack? In fact it’s the opposite that’s true.  As Stephen Flynn, an expert on homeland security and President of the Center for National Policy, testified last week before the House Armed Services Committee: “If how we react—or more precisely, when we overreact—elevates the appeal of carrying out these attacks on U.S. soil, it follows that there is an element of deterrence by denying these terrorist groups the return on investment they hope to receive.”

And a recently released report from 9/11 Commission chairs Kean and Hamilton that was written by Peter Bergen and Bruce Hoffman says that:

If any attack can succeed in generating significant political and economic fallout, then there is a greater motivation for undertaking these attacks. Alternatively, terrorist attacks that have limited potential to inflict serious casualties or cause disruption become less attractive if Americans display a greater degree of resilience by being better prepared to respond to and recover from these attacks. Since as a practical matter it is impossible to prevent every terrorist attack, the United States should be working in any event to improve the capacity of its political system, along with citizens and communities, to better manage how America deals with such attacks when they occur.

Others, like FP’s Blake Hounshell have put it in the "true but not a good idea to say," category.  But isn’t it the role of the president to face the hard choices and do what is good for the country? To, show the president is smart enough, and responsible enough, to realize that some would spin this for political reasons, but that the truth of the matter is that it needs to be said.  As John Brennan told an audience at the CSIS, “For even as we put unrelenting pressure on the enemy, even as we strive to thwart 100 percent of the plots against us, we know that terrorists are striving to succeed only once.” If we continue to create unrealistic expectations, then what happens if or when there is an attack?  Brian Michael Jenkins, a terrorism and homeland security analyst at the Rand Corporation, says in a recent report that:

“Needless alarm, exaggerated portrayals of the terrorist threat, unrealistic expectations of a risk-free society, and unreasonable demands for absolute protection will only encourage terrorists’ ambitions to make America fibrillate in fear and bankrupt itself with security... Panic is the wrong message to send America’s terrorist foes.”

Planning for readiness and strenght not only okay, but it is required of a commander-in-chief. As my colleague Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton told me today, “We planned to survive general thermonuclear war.”

Of course, the knee-jerk reaction from the right wing is to paint Obama as weak.  But isn’t living in fear and willing to roll over from the slightest disruption – all the while providing our enemies with exactly what they want – the definition of weakness?

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