ABSTRACT
Skyscrapers on Stilts
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_eye/...that_could_have_wiped_out_the_skyscraper.html
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1995/05/29/the-fifty-nine-story-crisis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citicorp_Center_engineering_crisis
EFFECT
Tackling the New Danger: Foundation for the War on Terror
https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/catastrophic-terrorism-tackling-new-danger
CAUSE
Machiavellian Behind the Veil
https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/993329.html
Skyscrapers on Stilts
But all of this happened in secret, even as Hurricane Ella was racing up the eastern seaboard.
Hurricane Ella never made landfall. And so the public—including the building’s occupants—were never notified. And it just so happened that New York City newspapers were on strike at the time.
no litigation ever ensued
The story remained a secret until writer Joe Morgenstern overheard it being told at a party, and broke the story in The New Yorker in 1995.
Hurricane Ella never made landfall. And so the public—including the building’s occupants—were never notified. And it just so happened that New York City newspapers were on strike at the time.
no litigation ever ensued
The story remained a secret until writer Joe Morgenstern overheard it being told at a party, and broke the story in The New Yorker in 1995.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1995/05/29/the-fifty-nine-story-crisis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citicorp_Center_engineering_crisis
EFFECT
Tackling the New Danger: Foundation for the War on Terror
December 1998, By Ashton Carter, John Deutch, and Philip Zelikow
A successful attack with weapons of mass destruction could certainly take thousands, or tens of thousands, of lives. If the device that exploded in 1993 under the World Trade Center had been nuclear, or had effectively dispersed a deadly pathogen, the resulting horror and chaos would have exceeded our ability to describe it. Such an act of catastrophic terrorism would be a watershed event in American history. It could involve loss of life and property unprecedented in peacetime and undermine America's fundamental sense of security, as did the Soviet atomic bomb test in 1949.
Like Pearl Harbor, this event would divide our past and future into a before and after. The United States might respond with draconian measures, scaling back civil liberties, allowing wider surveillance of citizens, detention of suspects, and use of deadly force. More violence could follow, either further terrorist attacks or U.S. counterattacks. Belatedly, Americans would judge their leaders negligent for not addressing terrorism more urgently.
Because most of the government functions addressing the danger of catastrophic terrorism apply to other purposes as well, the people making decisions about these capabilities against terrorists should be the same people who consider the other missions and can reconcile competing demands. The U.S. government must create unglamorous but effective systems for accountable decision-making that combine civil, military, and intelligence expertise throughout the chain of command; integrate planning and operational activity; build up institutional capacities; and highlight defensive needs before an incident happens. This strategy has four elements: intelligence and warning; prevention and deterrence; crisis and consequence management; and coordinated acquisition of equipment and technology.
A successful attack with weapons of mass destruction could certainly take thousands, or tens of thousands, of lives. If the device that exploded in 1993 under the World Trade Center had been nuclear, or had effectively dispersed a deadly pathogen, the resulting horror and chaos would have exceeded our ability to describe it. Such an act of catastrophic terrorism would be a watershed event in American history. It could involve loss of life and property unprecedented in peacetime and undermine America's fundamental sense of security, as did the Soviet atomic bomb test in 1949.
Like Pearl Harbor, this event would divide our past and future into a before and after. The United States might respond with draconian measures, scaling back civil liberties, allowing wider surveillance of citizens, detention of suspects, and use of deadly force. More violence could follow, either further terrorist attacks or U.S. counterattacks. Belatedly, Americans would judge their leaders negligent for not addressing terrorism more urgently.
Because most of the government functions addressing the danger of catastrophic terrorism apply to other purposes as well, the people making decisions about these capabilities against terrorists should be the same people who consider the other missions and can reconcile competing demands. The U.S. government must create unglamorous but effective systems for accountable decision-making that combine civil, military, and intelligence expertise throughout the chain of command; integrate planning and operational activity; build up institutional capacities; and highlight defensive needs before an incident happens. This strategy has four elements: intelligence and warning; prevention and deterrence; crisis and consequence management; and coordinated acquisition of equipment and technology.
CAUSE
Machiavellian Behind the Veil
The Economist identifies Strauss as the latest in a long list of alleged "puppeteers" pulling the strings of President Bush. Jeet Heer in the Boston Globe informs us: "We live in a world increasingly shaped by Leo Strauss, who is 'the thinker of the moment' in Washington." In an article entitled "The Long Reach of Leo Strauss," William Pfaff assures us that "Strauss's followers are in charge of U.S. foreign policy." Even though he is among those who explicitly note Strauss's apparent remoteness from politics, James Atlas takes seriously the claim that the Iraq War "turns out to have been nothing less than a defense of Western Civilization—as interpreted by the late classicist and philosopher Leo Strauss.