Mailing address
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
79 John F. Kennedy Street, Mailbox 134
Cambridge, MA, 02138
Erik J. Dahl
Research Fellow, International Security Program
Contact:
Telephone: 617-496-2569
Fax: 617-496-0606
Email: erik_dahl@ksg.harvard.edu
Experience
Erik J. Dahl is a research fellow in the International Security Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation at The Fletcher School of Tufts University in April 2008, and in September 2008 he will join the faculty of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, as an assistant professor of national security affairs. His dissertation, which is titled Preventing Terrorist Attacks: Intelligence Warning and Policy Response, examines the causes of intelligence failure and success against terrorism. He is currently working on several projects related to intelligence and terrorism, including a study of unsuccessful terrorist plots against Americans during the past twenty years.
He retired from the U.S. Navy in 2002 after serving twenty-one years as an intelligence officer. From 1999 to 2002, he served on the faculty of the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, where he taught courses on military operations, intelligence, and the future of warfare. He has frequently served as an analyst for Boston and New England newspapers and television stations concerning intelligence, terrorism, and national security. In addition to a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School, he holds master’s degrees from the London School of Economics and the Naval War College. He graduated from Harvard College in Government in 1979. His work has been published in The Journal of Strategic Studies, the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, Joint Force Quarterly, Defence Studies, and The Naval War College Review.
AP Photo
May 5, 2008
Preventing Terrorist Attacks: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom
Policy Memo
By Erik J. Dahl, Research Fellow, International Security Program
Why do terrorist attacks frequently succeed, even though later investigations almost always show that warnings had been available but were either misunderstood or ignored? Conventional wisdom, as seen in the 9/11 Commission Report, holds that disasters such as the 9/11 attacks have been caused by failures of analytical imagination, a lack of long-term strategic intelligence on the threat, and organizational limitations that prevent the U.S. intelligence community from being able to “connect the dots” of the existing intelligence.
