BRAC '05 choices embody lingering terrorism fears.

One of the professed advantages of living in the "information age" is the ability of organizations to decentralize their operations and run their businesses from anywhere in the world.

That trend, fueled by advances in communications technology, has shaped the globalization of many industries. It also has enabled the Defense Department to deploy military forces in "distributed operations," which allow commanders to scatter small units over large areas, and avoid the massing of troops that would turn them into obvious targets.

Against this backdrop, it would seem counterintuitive that the Pentagon's proposed base-closure and realignment plan reverts in many ways to the bunker mentality that prevailed during the Cold War.

One of the dominant themes in the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure plan, which the Pentagon unveiled May 13, is the intent to move thousands of military personnel and Defense Department civilians into more secure facilities. Inadequate security at many military bases and commercial office buildings is the rationale offered for these decisions.

In the Washington, D.C., area alone, the Pentagon will shift tens of thousands of people from urban locations and concentrate them in fortified installations. A single Army base, Fort Belvoir, Va., for example, could gain nearly 20,000 employees, almost double its current work force. Similarly, the Quantico Marine Base, also in Virginia, and Fort Meade, in Maryland, would see their populations of employees rise by several thousand.

Comparable reallocation of workers into mega bases would take place elsewhere around the United States. In Georgia, Fort Benning would grow by nearly 10,000 soldiers, and the Kings Bay submarine base would receive more than 3,000 new workers. In Texas, 11,500 troops would flow into Fort Bliss, and Fort Hood would get an influx of nearly 10,000. The Army Human Resources Command will move its more than 2,000 employees from a commercial building in a St. Louis suburb to Fort Knox, Ky.

Shifting Defense Department workers from smaller installations and commercial buildings into large, sheltered bases makes sense for security reasons, officials insist.

"One of the new factors in this base closing and realignment ... is the subject of force protection," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told the BRAC commission, an independent panel that is evaluating the Pentagon's projected closures.

"It's a different world today than it was previously, and there are very few instances where leased space will provide the kind of force protection that is considered preferable and desirable," he said. "It is something that is going to be reviewed across the country."

Another consideration was the cost of protecting facilities, said Army Col. Kurt A. Weaver, who worked on one of the BRAC study groups.

The guidance from the Pentagon was to maximize the use of existing installations, and avoid spending more money to secure new facilities, Weaver said. "This is being done nationwide."

This emphasis on shielding workers by locating them in protected fortresses is significant in many ways, experts said. For one, it is a clear indication that the Defense Department has freed itself from the specter of Pearl Harbor, said Jeremiah J. Gertler, a BRAC analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The Pentagon's move to concentrate employees, aircraft and submarines in large facilities "is being done in ways that we have avoided for many years," Gertler said. Although the government evidently worries about terrorism, it does not fear large-scale attacks on the scale of Pearl Harbor, or it would not be consolidating military assets as it is doing in the 2005 BRAC, he added. "The Defense Department believes there is a greater threat from having many facilities to protect, than having to protect fewer, but larger ones."

Urban targets are inherently more vulnerable and more expensive to safeguard, compared to campuses with existing security such as Fort Belvoir, Gertler noted. "Bigger concentrations are more tempting targets, but in the Defense Department's mind, they are easier to defend."

Modern military bases, especially after they were upgraded in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, are much harder to penetrate, even though they are high-profile targets for terrorists, said Mark Sheehan, vice president of Civitas Group, a homeland security consulting firm. Commercial office buildings are not well guarded against truck bombs, which are the government's biggest fear. "Moving employees to military bases solves the problem, although some may argue it's not the most elegant solution."

The BRAC commission will analyze each of the Pentagon's recommendations, although its job is not to assess a base's vulnerability to terrorism, Gertler stressed. The panels that oversaw the Defense Department's four previous BRAC rounds have overruled, on average, 15 percent of Defense Department recommendations. The panel's final proposal will be sent to the White House September 8. The president must either endorse or reject the full list and forward it to Congress by Sept. 23.

Criticism of the Pentagon's BRAC decisions, to be sure, usually comes with suspect motives and underlying self-serving agendas. But politics aside, it would not be unreasonable to conclude that, even though the Defense Department is earnestly seeking to protect its employees, these massive shifts of workers into heavily defended areas may send the wrong signal to potential terrorists. After all, it has been none other than Secretary Rumsfeld who has repeatedly reminded us that a good offense, rather than packing people into bunkers, is the best way to defeat terrorism.

The Pentagon is not the first government agency that is transferring thousands of employees to hardened bases. The State Department for years has been moving embassies away from populated urban areas. But seeing the Defense Department follow that path raises broader questions about the American way of life whether in fact the United States can be an open society and whether the government, despite its promises, can in fact protect all U.S. citizens, civil servants or not, from terrorist attacks.