The smart response of my friend Chet Richards, the owner/operator of DNI (the Web repository of everything John Boyd), to my earlier post "The Next Attack" prompted me to write this. It's counter-intuitive, and I'd like to be proven wrong.
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Since 9/11, nearly every branch of government, corporation, and sizable organization has built a plan for a large scale terrorist attack. In the event of an incident, many organizations would temporarily shut down. Security would be ubiquitous with checkpoints at every entrance. Heavy weapons would be carried and patrols increased. All the money spent on security since 9/11 would be put on display.
However, at the current moment, the real danger of a new terrorist attack on US soil isn't direct damage (hundreds or thousands of lives lost). Instead, the real danger is from the network effects of that attack on a US economy teetering on the edge of depression.
Given this, the simultaneous activation of the plethora of disaster preparedness plans currently in place would likely only serve to amplify the deleterious network effects on the economy -- essentially by imposing a heavy security "tax" on every economic activity undertaken nation-wide (even ignoring the impact of organizational panic on normal economic activity). It would also justify another round of massive over investment in an already expensive security apparatus, at the very time we are least able to afford it.
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UPDATE: It looks like this post is generating a healthy debate. Has the bulk of the homeland security build up been a mistake? Is it as wrong headed as using a terrorist attack to justify a massive expansion in conventional weapon systems over the last eight years?