TIME

Terrorists have been all too effective by air and land. What if they hit by sea?

The U.S.S. Cole was attacked in Yemen on Oct. 12, 2000

IT HAS FAMOUSLY BEEN SAID THAT THE DEVASTATING 9/11 attacks were not a failure of intelligence but a failure of imagination. We simply were unable to conceive of al-Qaeda terrorists’ turning commercial aircraft into a sophisticated air-to-ground attack system, killing thousands and changing the course of world history. In trying to predict other looming disasters, we need to open the portals of our imagination, and—unfortunately—we should turn our gaze to the sea.

Terrorists have largely used aviation and

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