What’s more, all of the service academies have added counterterrorism training to their core curricula. West Point has added courses in cyberterrorism, in which students learn how to prevent hackers from entering government Web sites. The Naval War College, Miskel says, has developed new terrorist simulations based on studies of the Irish Republican Army to help students prepare for handling a live terrorist attack. The Coast Guard Academy has begun teaching cadets how to interdict boats to search for terrorist materiel. Several academies even hold mock terrorism exercises on campus to further prepare students. West Point held one exercise in October 2003, in conjunction with a local hospital, to train cadets how to deal with a mass casualty incident caused by terrorism. The academies and war colleges also have pushed their students to study the Middle East and Central Asia, two regions where terrorism has become a major problem.

“Since [the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack], we’ve seen a lot more interest [among the student body] in electives dealing with world religions and the Middle East,” says Thomas. Consequently, he says, “we try to get as many students as possible into Middle East studies classes.”

As part of this counterterror training, students at all the academies learn how to work more closely with other branches of the military and how to use the information technology that became so central to fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Together, this integration of services and increasing reliance on technology has become known as “transformation,” and since Sept. 11 it has become the academies’ mantra. At the Naval War College, Miskel says, the school has developed an elective course that forces students to make judgments about the future balance of manpower and technology in fighting wars. Some Pentagon officials have even prodded the academies to train together, perhaps in preparation for creating an institution that mixes servicemembers from all branches of the armed forces. “We are developing a joint national training capability,” Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told students at the Naval War College earlier this year. “If we’re going to depend on one another in wartime, then we must forge the bonds of trust in peacetime.”

Slow Progress

Despite the academies’ and war colleges’ desire to change, adapting to the post-Sept. 11 world hasn’t been easy. “It takes a long time to effect a significant change in the military mindset,” says Thompson. “You can get superficial results in one semester in the academies, but to really change things takes a generation.”

At the Coast Guard Academy, for example, even though the institution has tried to adapt to the need to focus more teaching and resources on post-Sept. 11 needs, students still have to learn all the traditional tasks of the Coast Guard, such as rescuing lost boats on the high seas and combating drug trafficking. With all these older skills to study, students still don’t have that much time to learn how to combat terrorism.

Still, there is reason for optimism. In the initial days of the Cold War, the military academies had many of the same problems shifting their focus on Russia as they do today shifting their focus on terrorism and homeland security: slow learning curves and unwieldy institutional bureaucracies. Yet by the early 1960s, the military had locked in on the Soviets, and by the late 1960s Moscow and Washington had become so prepared for each others’ strategies that the danger of war and, potentially, nuclear annihilation had nearly disappeared. Today, if the military can become as prepared for the post-Sept. 11 world as it did during the Cold War, then al-Qaida has much to fear.

Joshua Kurlantzick is the foreign editor of The New Republic.