At a time when government seems unable to address our most pressing problems, we are about to mark the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks with rare evidence that Washington can work.
In the decade since 9/11, the U.S. government has answered the threat of terrorism by transforming itself in important ways. Much more remains to be done, but there is real progress to acknowledge and lessons that can be applied to other national security threats, such as economic security and cybersecurity.
In hindsight, it is clear that our failure to discover the Sept. 11 plot was in many ways a failure of information sharing and a lack of skill at empowering our best and brightest. Ten years ago, our law enforcement and intelligence communities were driven by a Cold War "need to know" culture that stovepiped information and stymied cooperation. The lack of major attacks over the past decade, along with a string of notable intelligence successes, is a testament to the fact that things are changing.