2005
DOI: 10.1111/j.1743-8594.2005.00014.x
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Bolt from the Blue or Avoidable Failure? Revisiting September 11 and the Origins of Strategic Surprise

Abstract: Drawing on the strategic surprise, warning‐response, and foreign policy literature, this article argues that the September 11 terror attacks should be regarded as a strategic surprise and examines a number of key factors that contributed to vulnerability and inhibited vigilance. Three broad explanatory “cuts” derived from the literature—psychological, bureau‐organizational, and agenda‐political—are deployed to sift through the rapidly expanding empirical record in an effort to shed light on the processes and c… Show more

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Cited by 31 publications
(19 citation statements)
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References 66 publications
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“…However, just as these previous pieces (Parker & Stern, 2002, 2005) problematized the interpretation of the 9/11 attacks as a completely unforeseen ‘bolt from the blue’, this article demonstrates that, while the scale of Katrina's consequences was not preordained, accounts that suggest the worst effects of this disaster could have been prevented if responsible officials, particularly at the federal level, had responded more rapidly and robustly must also be rigorously scrutinized.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 84%
See 1 more Smart Citation
“…However, just as these previous pieces (Parker & Stern, 2002, 2005) problematized the interpretation of the 9/11 attacks as a completely unforeseen ‘bolt from the blue’, this article demonstrates that, while the scale of Katrina's consequences was not preordained, accounts that suggest the worst effects of this disaster could have been prevented if responsible officials, particularly at the federal level, had responded more rapidly and robustly must also be rigorously scrutinized.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 84%
“…1. Parker and Stern (2002, 2005) developed and applied this approach to analyse the origins of the vulnerabilities exposed in the United States by the strategic surprise attacks of 11 September 2001.…”
Section: Notesmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…145–163). Parker and Stern (2005) concentrate on the vulnerability that the United States faced while tracing September 11 terror 4 . They attribute the high degree of vulnerability to a lack of warning and unpreparedness from the three theoretical contexts: psychological, bureaucratic, and political.…”
Section: The Dynamics Of Asymmetric Threat: Traditional Mission For Tmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…In order to increase the structure of the analysis I perform a structured comparison of two cases and examine three aspects, or “analytical cuts” (see Parker and Stern 2005), of the discourse: securitization , norms, and identities . These three concepts have previously been employed to explain for instance security behavior.…”
Section: Conceptualizing Discoursementioning
confidence: 99%