Strategic analysis of the attacks

Great Debates
1

Seeing that we have some of the best minds I’ve ever encountered posting here on the boards, I thought I’d propose that we collaborate on solving a complex and important problem. I propose a strategic discussion in relation to the terrorist attacks that occurred in the US today.

Given that:

  1. These attacks were carried out in a coordinated, organized, and efficient fashion

  2. Those responsible for the attacks were well-connected, and had considerable resources at their disposal

  3. The targets were chosen carefully

I propose as a tentative conclusion that there was a strategic purpose to this attack. To me, it’s obvious that there is a specific purpose behind these actions, and a strategic mind in charge. There is a specific goal to all of this; if this is not simply to inspire terror in our souls, then it is to achieve… what?

The question:

What was the strategic purpose of these attacks?

And then the next question is, when we have determined the strategic goal of these attacks, what is the next logical step for our attackers in order to further these goals?

2

I would say the goal of these attacks was, in large part, to simply strike at “symbols” of the United States - the Pentagon: Symbol of Our Military Might, the World Trade Center: Symbol of Financial Strength, and, if suppositions about the fourth plane are correct, Another Symbol (the top potential targets, I believe, were Camp David - Symbol of U.S. Meddling in the Middle East, or the White House - Symbol of, well, Everything American).
The strike on the Pentagon, in particular, I think lends the most evidence to this view. A determined, strategic strike with a military objective would probably have hit a more “vital” area. As it was, none of the major offices were involved (as far as I know).

That the attacks were coordinated is meant to send The Message - “We can strike your Symbols, and we can do so with impunity.”

In other words, we are meant to feel fear because they can cause mayhem, damage, destruction and death.

It seems to me that terrorist attacks are believed by the perpetrators to be something akin to “object lessons”. However, it has been my experience that object lessons rarely have the desired effect…

I’m wondering if the total destruction of the WTC was their goal however. I’m guessing (completely) that they intended only to dive a plane into each tower, and the resulting destruction would have been sufficient for The Message. I doubt very much they counted on their collapse (but, again, I have no evidence to support this), and, for all we know, this has caused a fair amount of panic on the part of the organizers of this atrocity.

3

As a secondary goal, it might have been to also make some money by shorting the global stock markets. It would be easy to set up accounts offshore, take some positions and easily make millions without attracting any attention.

4

Another possibility is that the attacks where ment to provoke the United States into bombing or invading some Middle East country, hoping that this will turn other countries in the region against Israel, assuming that a Middle Eastern group is responsible (which seems likely).

5

Yes, I believe the attackers wanted this attack to be as “Hollywood” as possible.

The truly scary part of this equasion is the attackers willingness to attack. We all know that the US is quite vulnerable to this type of attack and has been for some time. If the attackers were willing to go this far, then it is not a very large leap for them to use chemical, biological, or nuclear weaponry next.

6

Just my WAG (well, duh, could it be anything else?), but it seemed They wanted the Towers to go down. The first one hit rather high, but no horribly major obvious damage. So I guess it could be mildly probable the second plane flying in saw two towers, and went as low to the other one he could trying to make it topple over so as to smush people and buildings and whatnot.

7

Point to consider:
The normal airline pilots did not fly those planes into the targets. Those planes were flown by inexperienced pilots. The targets may quite well have been chosen as easy targets for an inexperienced pilot to find and hit. Symbols of America those buildings might be, but they were also large, easy to hit, targets.

8

If these attacks were set up to implicate some person or nation… who would benefit?
WAG: Could China benefit from this type of conflict? Their statement seems rather odd- "China said it was “horrified” and Chinese President Jiang Zemin expressed “grave concern for the safety of Chinese in the U.S.”

9

Mont Furd: consider this: THe targets might seem large, but the terrorists were flying PASSENGER JETS. I think it might be harder to hit a target with one that it might first appear.

I’m not refuting your point, mind. I just think that the terrorist who took those planes over were not inexperienced. Assuming the killed the flight crews, they knew enough to redirect these flights, navagate them directly to the target’s cooerdinates, and then hit the WTC and the Pentagon almost simultaniously.

Considering that hijacked passenger planes were used, I’m amazed that the Pittsburg crash was apparentily the only “failed mission”.
China Guy: That’s a possibility I din’t even think of, but it sounds plausible.

Strategic theory: The attacks were all on the East coast against high profile targets. There a possibilty that the terrorists have other lower profile targets elsewhere, and were hoping to draw attention to the East Coast.

10

Well, I kinda disagree with the original posts’ points.

-Coordinated, organized and efficient, yes.

But I wonder how much was efficiency and coordination from a massive group with equally massive resources, and how much was simple flight-schedule checking on something like Expedia.com.

Seems to me that one guy with a laptop and a fast connection could have checked schedules and even booked seats in maybe a few hours at worst.

-Well connected and considerable resources?

Well connected? As above, it seems if they had some way to get into the US, and enough cash to buy some utility knives and two or three seats on a couple of flights, that’s all that was needed. Resources? Again, several hundred for the tickets, about a dollar each for some blades. Seems to me the only real telling clue as to resources was the fact they had from eight to fifteen dimwits who were just bright enough to learn how to fly, but not bright enough to question why.

-Targets were chosen carefully?

I’m not so sure. If you think about it, the targets might just as easily have been chosen for their ability to be identified at speed and at altitude.

Chosen? Why the Pentagon and not the White House? Why the Trade Centers and not the Stock Exchange? Why not the Statue Of Liberty? (Other then potential death toll, of course.)

I’d say that the choice of targets were determined simply by size and ease of visual identification, possibility of high casualty counts, and within a bare few minutes of any number of major, high-traffic airports.

Further, I doubt the hits on the Trade Centers were as “precise” as some news sites have been claiming. I doubt the plan called for anything more than “hit it up where people all over the City can see it!”

Further still, I doubt that actually collapsing the towers was an intent. Yes, the intent was major damage, but I’d wager that the resulting total collapse was little more than the “best” possible, if least likely, outcome. “They”, I’m sure, would have been just as happy with the already-massive damage from just the impacts- though it can surely be argued that the near-maximum fuel loads were certainly part of the plan.

The bottom line? Organized, yes, coordinated, yes. But it seems to me that fewer than twenty persons were likely involved, and probably spent less than a quarter-million at the outside, including passports and whatnot. Depending on the circumstances around their flight training, that is.

11

I saw some on TV who thought about this. The White House could have been the target, they said, but it is hard to identify from the air. The Pentagon is very easy to identify from the air.

12

There was a very important aspect of hitting the World Trade Center. While every TV camera in Manhattan was trained on the first fire, they caught the second crash on tape.

I visited the Hindenburg crash site this past summer. The death toll from that crash was actually not very high, but it was caught on film. Pictures are infinitely more scary than numbers.

I don’t know if the terrorists thought of that when selecting the target, but it serves their end for us all to see it happen.

13

I apologize if this has been discussed elsewhere on the board. But I’ve personally been wondering if the pilots were aware that a 767 flown into the top of a building would cause its collapse.

I’m wondering if anyone knows enough about architecture to explain why this happened. And if it was possible that the terrorists knew enough about architecture to count on this event.

Doc Nickel is probably right…that the intention was only to smash up as much stuff as possible and that the building collapse was just a “bonus” from the terrorists’ point of view. However, could it be that this is some simple function of architecture that everyone is aware of? Perhaps it wouldn’t have taken much planning or smarts for some asshole to know what type of weight/disaster would cause collapse.

-L

14

Mr. Visible asked an important question which was overlooked in most follow-on posts:

What was the strategic purpose of these attacks?

**Srategic ** means what is the intended, long term effect of these attacks. It doesn’t mean how & why the targets were chosen, how the attack was executed, at which height the plane impacted, or how the most horrifying footage was made possible. As awful as it may sound, these are all tactical questions.

The strategic question asked is the age old “cui bono?” Who gains?

It is a complex question with no easy answers. The US is a mighty country with many enemies. One could hide behind the other. Some could even be used by others without their knowledge. It’s a complicated shell game.

Maybe history will tell. Maybe not.

15

I was glad to see Doc Nickel post what my wife and I had been wondering. Why did everyone assume this was some massive conspiracy?

The main requirement was for 4 pilots. But they didn’t even need to take off or land.

I think many people will be disappointed if this ends up being a small terrorist cell operating out of the US, instead of sponsored by a foreign state.

I wonder how successful hijackers will be in the future at commanding a plane with small knives, if the passengers figure they are likely to die anyway.

16

SexyWriter:

This was covered in a GQ thread yesterday. I don’t recall the title or poster, but the gist was that the planes hit each tower 20 or 30 floors below the top. The damage and resulting fire destroyed the support beams at the impact floors, so then you essentially had the weight of a 20-30 story building falling down onto the rest of the building, which was enough to bring them down.

I don’t know if the terrorists knew that would happen, but given the level of sophistication of the operation it seems like a reasonable guess they did.

17

Sexy Writer, it has been stated that it is no secret about what the towers were designed to withstand impact-wise, and that, being built in '73, there have been changes in both the construction in aircraft and skyscrapers. Also, I err on the side that even though the designers knew a building that size could survive such an impact, they failed to consider the added stresses of massive, uncontrolloed fires weakening the structures. I tend to think that if the designers didn’t realize it, the terrorists probably didn’t either.
I do have to say, though, that I think this plan was inspired in its complete disregard for the use of arms and relying on the most handy, simple and logical medium available to them.
I’d like to design a jet the size of Texas and coincidentaly plummet it into whomever’s excellent idea this was.

18

I started a thread over in GQ asking the same question. Basically, it wasn’t the collision that caused the buildings to collapse; rather, it was the fire melting the supports.

19

An article in today’s Salon magazine has a civil engineer speculating on why the towers went down.

20

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by ultrafilter *
**

Sorry about the repeat question. There are SO many threads on this topic on the boards that I couldn’t find the specific answer I was looking for. Thanks to all who answered it again.

-L