The Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, and Wall Street bond firm Cantor Fitzgerald hold three “economic security exercises,” in which the participants consider, among other scenarios, terrorists attacking the US financial community with bombings using aircraft. The exercises are intended to explore the link between national security and economic issues. [Cantor Fitzgerald, 4/29/1999; Barnett and Hayes, 5/18/2001; Foreign Policy, 9/12/2011] They bring together “key figures from the national security, governmental, and financial communities to explore and test the relationships between international events, national security, and financial markets,” according to a report prepared by the Naval War College. [Hayes, 6/1998, pp. 1 
] The exercises are all held in New York. [Barnett and Hayes, 5/18/2001] The first one takes place on the top floor of one of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, where Cantor Fitzgerald has its main offices. [Washington Post, 3/6/2002; Associated Press, 1/19/2011] Whether the second and third exercises also take place at the WTC is unstated.
1997 Exercise Considers Attacks on the US Financial Community – The first exercise, held in October 1997, is based around two related scenarios that would take place in February and March 2000, in the middle of the US presidential primary season. [Journal of Commerce, 12/22/1997; Hayes, 6/1998, pp. 1 ] The first scenario involves a crisis “spilling out of conflict in the oil fields of the Middle East,” which is “followed by terrorist assaults against oil fields in the Persian Gulf and US military installations,” according to Fortune magazine. America’s access to Persian Gulf oil supplies is threatened and there is a disruption of the “sea lines of communication.” The second scenario involves a cyber-terrorist attack on Wall Street, in which information warfare attacks are launched against the critical infrastructures underpinning America’s business and financial communities. The computer networks of US financial institutions and power grids in the New York area are targeted, with the intention of inflicting psychological and economic damage on the US. [Journal of Commerce, 12/22/1997; Barnett and Hayes, 5/18/2001; Fortune, 10/8/2001] Furthermore, according to David Rothkopf, managing director of Kissinger Associates, who attends the exercise, participants consider “a variety of potential ways terrorists might target the US financial community, including bombings using trucks or aircraft.” [Foreign Policy, 9/12/2011]
Senior Government Officials Attend the 1997 Exercise – The exercise addresses the potential vulnerability of the US to “asymmetric warfare,” which one participant will later describe as warfare in which “a little guy with the right technology can confront the big giant in a devastating way.” [Journal of Commerce, 12/22/1997] In the simulated scenarios, according to Fortune, “the terrorists succeeded spectacularly.” [Fortune, 10/8/2001] Those attending the exercise include Richard Clarke, President Clinton’s special assistant for global affairs, Rand Beers, special assistant to the president and senior director for intelligence programs, and Anthony Lake, the former national security adviser. [Journal of Commerce, 12/22/1997; Rothkopf, 2014, pp. 266]
1998 Exercise Involves a Rebellion in Indonesia – The second exercise, held on June 1, 1998, focuses on a hypothetical financial crisis combined with a sea lines of communication disruption in Asia, involving Indonesia. The scenario, which would take place around late 1998 to early 1999, involves opposition forces mounting successful rebellions in parts of Indonesia and leaders of the opposition movement declaring themselves Indonesia’s legitimate government. The US military intervenes in response to the crisis. Subsequently, “malevolent insiders” launch coordinated attacks against selected financial institutions in Singapore. These are followed by cyberattacks against some financial institutions in Japan. [Hayes, 6/1998 ; Barnett and Hayes, 5/18/2001]
1999 Exercise Is Based around the Y2K Computer Problem – The third exercise, held on May 3, 1999, focuses on the possible global financial consequences of a serious Year 2000 computer problem, caused by computers being unable to properly read dates at the start of the new millennium, as well as “related events surrounding the millennial date change event.” [New York Times, 2/9/1999; Cantor Fitzgerald, 4/29/1999; Barnett and Hayes, 5/18/2001]
Cantor Fitzgerald Requested the ‘War Games’ in the Mid-1990s – The three economic security exercises are the “brainchild” of retired Admiral William Flanagan, former commander in chief of the Navy’s Atlantic Fleet, who is now the senior managing director of Cantor Fitzgerald. [Wall Street Journal, 5/5/1997; Proceedings, 10/2001; Virginian-Pilot, 9/11/2006] According to Thomas Barnett, a senior strategic researcher at the Naval War College, they have come about because Cantor Fitzgerald went to the Naval War College in the mid-1990s and said it would like to run “economic-oriented war games” with the college. [Institute of International Studies, 3/8/2005] Several senior members of Cantor Fitzgerald have close professional ties with the US Navy, so the collaboration between the company and the Naval War College is a “natural partnership,” according to a report prepared by the college. [Hayes, 6/1998, pp. 1 ]
Exercise Scenarios Are ‘Amazingly Prescient’ – The fact that the exercises explore “such real-world scenarios as a terrorist strike on Wall Street, war in the Persian Gulf, and a financial crisis in Asia,” Barnett will comment after 9/11, “proved amazingly prescient.” [Barnett, 2004, pp. 197] “September 11 was crystallizing,” he will say. “We all just went, ‘This is what we were talking about: a peacetime, war-like event that’s so profound it forces us to rethink everything.’” [Esquire, 12/2002] The exercises will evolve into something called the “New Rule Sets Project,” which is a research partnership between the Naval War College and Cantor Fitzgerald that aims to explore how globalization is altering America’s definitions of national security (see May 1, 2000-June 4, 2001). [Barnett, 2004, pp. 46; Institute of International Studies, 3/8/2005] Cantor Fitzgerald will suffer the greatest single loss by any company on 9/11, with 658 of its employees dying in the North Tower of the WTC. [Business Week, 9/10/2006]
May 1, 2000-June 4, 2001: Workshops at the WTC Consider How Globalization Is Affecting National Security
A number of “sophisticated war game workshops” are held at the World Trade Center, which apparently help prepare the American financial and national security communities for the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. [C-SPAN, 5/30/2004; Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, 11/4/2004] The workshops are part of a unique research partnership between the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, and Wall Street bond firm Cantor Fitzgerald, called the “New Rule Sets Project.” The New Rule Sets Project aims to explore how globalization is altering America’s definitions of national security. Thomas Barnett, a senior strategic researcher at the Naval War College, is its director. [Barnett, 2004, pp. 5, 46; C-SPAN, 5/30/2004]
Three Workshops Are Held at the WTC – The project involves three day-long workshops being held at Windows on the World, the restaurant on the 107th floor of the North Tower of the WTC, where Cantor Fitzgerald has its main offices. [Barnett and Hayes, 5/18/2001; Naval War College, 11/5/2001] Each workshop is attended by about 30 participants, including “Wall Street CEOs, subject matter experts from academia and think tanks, and national security heavyweights from the White House and from the Pentagon,” according to Barnett. [Barnett and Hayes, 5/18/2001; Institute of International Studies, 3/8/2005]
Workshops Examine ‘the Threats That Could Derail’ Globalization – The first workshop focuses on “Asian energy futures” and is held on May 1, 2000; the second workshop is focused on “foreign direct investment” and held on October 16, 2000; and the third workshop, focused on “Asian environmental solutions,” is held on June 4, 2001. [Barnett and Hayes, 5/18/2001; Naval War College, 11/5/2001] In the workshops, according to Barnett, participants look at “what it meant to integrate developing Asia in this ever-expanding global economy and how that would impact our definitions of the future of the world.” [Institute of International Studies, 3/8/2005] They discuss “globalization’s future and the threats that could derail it.” The briefings that result from the workshops are issued throughout the Pentagon. [Barnett, 2004, pp. 5, 46]
Unidentified Spies Attend the Second Workshop – Three mysterious spies turn up at the second workshop. They do not participate in the event or interact with anyone, but just observe. Despite having a top secret clearance, Barnett is not allowed to know their identities. He will later suggest that the reason the spies attend is because this particular workshop is about the future of foreign direct investment in Asia, and since the Pentagon and the intelligence community have developed “a laserlike focus on China as the ‘rising near-peer competitor,’” the spies are there to give their employer “another chance to line up China’s future in their sights.” [Barnett, 2004, pp. 224-225]
Project Director Regularly Visits the Pentagon – Barnett visits the WTC two or three dozen times between 1998 and 2001 due to his work with the Naval War College in collaboration with Cantor Fitzgerald. The last of these visits will take place around four days before 9/11. He also visits the Pentagon regularly due to his work with the New Rule Sets Project. He will originally be scheduled to hold a briefing a week after 9/11 at the Navy Command Center—an area of the Pentagon that is mostly destroyed when the building is attacked on September 11. And he will originally be scheduled to attend a meeting at the WTC two weeks after 9/11. [Washington Post, 1/20/2002; Barnett, 2004, pp. 46-47; C-SPAN, 5/30/2004]
Director’s Research Becomes ‘Grand Strategy’ after 9/11 – The New Rule Sets Project apparently serves as good preparation for the challenges of the post-9/11 world. Barnett will describe 9/11 as a “shock to the system for the US political system and the national security community” that effectively tells them, “Here’s a new way of thinking about crisis and instability and threats in the world, and we have got to have new rules for dealing with this.” [C-SPAN, 5/30/2004] He will write that after 9/11, his research with the New Rule Sets Project “immediately shifted from grand theory to grand strategy.” Within weeks of 9/11, he will be installed as the assistant for strategic futures in Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s newly created Office of Force Transformation (see October 29, 2001). [Esquire, 12/2002; Barnett, 2004, pp. 5-6]
Many Cantor Fitzgerald Employees Die on 9/11 – The New Rule Sets Project has evolved out of a series of “economic security exercises” run by the Naval War College and Cantor Fitzgerald, which explored the relationship between national security and economic issues (see October 1997-May 1999). [Barnett and Hayes, 5/18/2001] Cantor Fitzgerald will suffer the greatest single loss by any company on 9/11, with 658 of its employees dying in the North Tower of the WTC. [Business Week, 9/10/2006] But Barnett’s two mentors at the firm—William Flanagan, a senior managing director, and Philip Ginsberg, an executive vice president—will be out of the building at the time of the attacks for “accidental reasons” and therefore survive. [Barnett, 2004, pp. 199; Institute of International Studies, 3/8/2005; Virginian-Pilot, 9/11/2006]
October 29, 2001: Rumsfeld Establishes Office of Force Transformation
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announces the establishment of a new unit within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, called the Office of Force Transformation (OFT). Rumsfeld had called for the establishment of this office “as part of President Bush’s broad mandate to transform the Department of Defense. This transformation process challenges the organizational status quo with a new architecture for American defense in order to ensure an overwhelming and continuing competitive advantage for America’s military for decades to come.” He appoints retired Navy Vice Admiral Arthur Cebrowski—the former president of the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island—as its director. [US Department of Defense, 11/26/2001; New York Times Magazine, 3/10/2002] Also recruited for this new department, as assistant for strategic futures, is Thomas Barnett, a senior strategic researcher at the Naval War College. As the “vision guy,” Barnett’s job is “to generate and deliver a compelling brief that would mobilize the Defense Department toward generating the future fighting force demanded by the post-9/11 strategic environment.” Barnett claims that, over time, senior military officials will come to cite his brief as “a Rosetta stone for the Bush administration’s new national security strategy.” [Barnett, 2004, pp. 5-6] Prior to 9/11, Barnett was the director of a research partnership between the Naval War College and the Wall Street bond firm Cantor Fitzgerald, called the New Rule Sets Project (see May 1, 2000-June 4, 2001). Considering that the OFT is a personal initiative of the defense secretary, it is interesting that Rumsfeld was in the late 1990s one of the founders of the neoconservative think tank, Project for the New American Century (PNAC) (see June 3, 1997). [BBC, 8/25/2005; Washington Post, 6/12/2006; Federal Computer Week, 9/4/2006] In September 2000, PNAC published a strategy document called “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” (see September 2000). Among other things, this laid out the need to establish “four core missions” for US military forces, one of these being to “transform US forces to exploit the ‘revolution in military affairs.’” The OFT appears to be fulfilling this mission. However, the PNAC document had continued, “the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.” [Project for the New American Century, 9/2000, pp. iv and 51 ]
