Professors Discuss U.S. Response

In light of Tuesday’s rattling attacks on the nation’s security, Harvard international affairs experts are stressing the importance of a response that sends a message of American stability abroad while preserving a sense of democracy at home.

As cries for revenge echo in some quarters across the country, Executive Dean of Radcliffe Louise Richardson, a government professor who has taught a course on terrorism in years past, cautioned the U.S. government not to rush to judgment. Acknowledging that federal officials will be under a great amount of pressure to respond swiftly, she said she hopes that the government will resist the pressure for immediate action and focus on formulating a plan only after the complete nature of Tuesday’s attacks have been divulged.

“It is the nature of democracy that it cannot fully protect itself from an attack of this kind, at least not without becoming a fortress and thereby undermining democracy,” she said.

Ashton Carter, a Kennedy School professor and former assistant secretary of defense, said he thinks the government must think about fighting all types of terrorism, not just air traffic, in a “calculated and deliberate way.” He advocated improving intelligence by merging domestic and international efforts, improving response programs and developing better strategies to reduce the appeal of terrorist organizations.

“We need this president to do what no president has done before, and that is to implement a national security program that includes all these things,” Carter said.

Harvard experts advocated different strategies for an appropriate response.

Arnold Howitt, director of the Kennedy School’s Executive Session on Domestic Preparedness for Terrorism, sees developing a set of flexible plans to implement in emergencies as a key to prevention.

“New York has done a remarkably good job,” he said. “They had a severe wake-up, but to Giuliani’s credit, they were well ready.”

Howitt stresses, however, that while the nation demands retaliation, they must realize that “this is not the last time that this country will face a terrorist attack.”

Many Harvard experts predicted that increasing national security measures while maintaining Americans’ sense of freedom is one of the greatest challenges that lies ahead. The debate for how this must be accomplished centers on whether the attacks were the result of human error among security personnel or practical limitations of the system.

“I would hazard a guess that this was not a failure of physical security. So eliminating curb-side check-ins, better training for x-ray machine guards, bomb-sniffing dogs, and other proposed remedies are unlikely to prevent this sort of crime,” said Andrew Moravcsik, a government professor at the Center for European Studies.

Moravcsik said he advocates bolstering intelligence-gathering despite the fact that “Americans have traditionally eschewed such measures, which we associate with totalitarianism.”

Jim Walsh, a postdoctoral fellow in the Kennedy School of Government’s International Security Program, said the country’s response “should and must be driven by the facts of the case.”

“Every plan we consider must be weighed in terms of the costs to the United States, the cost of civilians, and the regional and political costs,” Walsh said. He stressed that there are a variety of options ranging from military action to basic law enforcement and that only time and the facts will deem which are appropriate.

Robert Rotberg, a lecturer in policy at the Kennedy School, said the nation must focus on prevention rather than revenge.

“A response of sending cruise missiles is more symbolic than affective,” he said. “We must and will make air traffic safer and this will change America as we know it.”