Today, as I join fellow service members, civilians, and senior leaders in the Pentagon Center Courtyard for the 25th Anniversary 9/11 Pentagon Observance Ceremony hosted by the Secretary of War, we will gather to pray, remember, reflect, and honor the victims and heroic first responders of that tragic day. Yet, as we stand on this hallowed ground a quarter-century later, remembrance must be coupled with renewed vigilance.
\n\nThe most important finding of the 9/11 Commission remains our most urgent warning: our greatest vulnerability was not a shortage of raw intelligence, but a profound “failure of imagination.” What America witnessed that fateful morning demonstrated once again how our enemies will exploit the boundaries of our conventional thinking—operating freely within the sanctuary of the unthinkable.
\n\nTo secure our nation for the next 250 years, counterintelligence (CI) must adopt a new commandment: Never underestimate the audacity of our enemies. We must overcome our cognitive blind spots, reject the illusion of shared logic, and actively anticipate how our open society’s legal and civic frameworks can be weaponized against us.
\n\nFormer CIA Chief of Counterintelligence James Olson codified the “Ten Commandments of Counterintelligence” in his seminal book, To Catch a Spy. His directives—such as “Be…
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