CATEGORY

The most gripping portion of Stephen Flynn's examination of America's defense shortcomings in the war on terror arrives early. The entire second chapter imagines an elaborate but feasible dirty-bomb attack that brings the nation's transportation system to a halt and presents the President with two dreadful options: reopen borders closed by the emergency and risk further attack, or inspect everything that comes into the country and accept the cataclysmic economic consequences. Flynn, a senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations and veteran of the George H. W. Bush and Clinton administrations, paints a picture of a government that is flailing in its efforts to protect its citizens. We are, Flynn argues, hamstrung by entrenched intelligence bureaucracies and ideological power centers on the right and left, and he isn't optimistic about the near-term likelihood that we'll meet our greatest challenge: "identifying how to formally engage the broader civil society and private sector, not just the federal government, in a national effort to make America a less attractive terrorist target." America the Vulnerable isn't as powerful or contentious as the bestseller Imperial Hubris; Flynn is a practical government veteran who keeps his outrage largely in check. It's clear he aims to have an impact with this expose of a national defense he compares to France's in the days of the Maginot line. And we know how effective that "impenetrable" defense stood up in the face of an unconventional opponent. --Steven Stolder