The (terrorist) wolf is at the door.

• Author: Kennedy, Brian T.
• Position: National Affairs

"Our elected representatives have eyes but do not see, and they have ears but do not hear. We must awaken ourselves, and then awaken them, before it is too late."

HAROLD ROOD, a professor of international relations at Claremont McKenna College who died in 2011, was not as well known as he was influential. A soldier in Gen. George Patton's Army in World War n, he taught his students that war is permanent to the human condition and, that, in war, it is better to win, for no one ever had to accommodate a loser. The U.S. always will have enemies, he told them, and those enemies forever will be planning and expending resources to place themselves in a position to defeat us. It would be nice if it was otherwise, he was fond of saying, but it is not otherwise. It is the way the world works.

During the Cold War, Rood would demonstrate in his classes--often by reading stacks of clippings from newspapers from around the world--that the leaders of the Soviet Union understood the world in these stark terms, and that they acted consistently on that basis. He also would lecture on technology, from German steel production before 1914 to the state of Japanese fighter aircraft before 1941, and even, curiously, to maps of America's electrical transmission lines and power plants. It was important, he thought, to understand the strengths and vulnerabilities of a nation. His classes served as an antidote for students who had grown up in post-war America--a much needed antidote because citizens of free nations in peacetime historically do not think in such terms. We, today, and our elected leaders--in whose hands we place the responsibility for national defense--are in urgent need of such an antidote because the U.S. increasingly and dangerously is vulnerable, and our elected leaders appear oblivious.

One would think the attack on Sept. 11, 2001, would have awakened Americans for the foreseeable future to the need to prepare for unexpected dangers. Surprisingly, its effect was short-lived. Two relatively recent attacks illustrate the problem. The first one took place April 16, 2013, on an electric-transmission substation owned by Pacific Gas & Electric just outside of San Jose, Calif. One reason it did not get much notice was that the other--the Boston Marathon bombing that killed or injured 260 people--had occurred the day before.

A group of terrorists or soldiers, operating on American soil, attacked the Metcalf transmission substation in a military action aimed at disabling a part of the U.S.'s electrical infrastructure. The operation began at 1 a.m. when the attackers cut underground fiber optic cables, disabling communications and security systems. Thirty minutes later, using high-powered rifles, they began a 20-minute assault on the substation's extra-large transformer and the cooling system that supports it. Police arrived at 1:50, but the shooters had disappeared into the night. To this day there is no trace of them.

John Wellinghoff, then-chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, would call this attack "the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving [the U.S. electrical] grid that has ever occurred." Obviously, it was a professional operation by skilled marksmen--estimates of the number of gunmen range from two to six--with training in reconnaissance, stealth, and...