The virtuous circle on security: the slippery slope to resiliency

■"How Tools of War on Terror Ensnare Wanted Citizens: Border, Immigration Agencies Tap Into FBI Database; Questions About Privacy," by Barry Newman, Wall Street Journal, 31 October 2005, p. A1.

■"Globalizing the Boardroom: Companies World-Wide Add Foreign Directors, but Boards In U.S. Are Slow to Follow," by Joann S. Lublin,

Wall Street Journal, 31 October 2005, p. B1.

Wow! Connecting the dots really works. Being able to actually link databases means that criminals can't hide simply by switching states.

Invasion of privacy? Give me a break!

But privacy advocates fear "mission creep" whereby those searching for terrorists and illegal aliens are pulled into catching ordinary Americans with outstanding warrants.

My, my, that would be a shame, one that gives lie to the stupidity of the home game-away game distinction.

All these fears say is that the SysAdmin function needs its Department of Global/Network Security or its Department of Everything Else. It needs a responsible party for all these connecting-the-dots exercises in security enhancement. Americans will want a face connected to this emerging networking power.

Why? Building the SysAdmin function will naturally trigger domestic fears of rising federal power over their lives, just as it will trigger fears overseas of American ambition to rule the world. So we need to make clear in our intentions that this SysAdmin function will be one of networking with others and in that process building real security for ourselves.

Yes, many wondrously positive externalities will emerge from this: all sorts of beneficial side-effects in which we catch bad guys unexpectedly and thus improve not just our security but that of the global system as a whole. And you know what? Most of our best allies in this process won't be whining too much about the "loss of privacy" for their citizens, because countries like China, India, Brazil and Russia are all looking for more internal security due to rising concerns of criminal behavior, terrorism, capitalism run amok and porous borders.

Remember the basic mantra of global resiliency: no nation's network security is achieved in isolation. Any network is only as secure as every other network to which it connects. So the more we work those inter-nodal connections and the rule sets that must arise to manage them, the more we'll increase our security across the dial in a world in which the dominant security threats stem from individuals and their small networks than from nation-states.

But to embrace that future we need to let go of the past. We need to admit that the most likely pathways of America's economic and political and security destruction lie within, not over there. Our inability to master the challenges of resiliency in an increasingly connected world is what will haunt us most, strategically, in coming years. And the biggest bias we must overcome in that quest is our tendency to define our biggest strategic challenges as arising from fellow nation-states instead of from bad actors and their networks.

In short, we gotta get out of the business of isolation, whether it's our idiotic attempts to firewall ourselves from the outside world or trying to "contain" rising China or isolate bad rogues like Iran and North Korea. Connectivity and the benefits of resiliency that such connectivity offers will always be the answer. With an authoritarian regime like China or Iran, we "kill" that authoritarianism slowly over time with connectivity. With a totalitarian regime like Kim Jong Il's, we go for the takedown, pushing for strategic connectivity with China and others in Asia on the far side.

Business shows the way. Look at how corporations the world over-except in America-are globalizing their boards like crazy. That's creating interpersonal resiliency at the highest reaches of the multinational corporate world. That's building the SysAdmin function, board seat by board seat.

What boards are we building right now in the global security arena? None, quite frankly. Far too often, we're putting up new walls and, by doing so, decreasing the system's resiliency on security when we need it most.