The Pentagon report detailing systemic failures by the U.S. military to avert a terrorist attack at a Texas army base holds essential lessons for military installations in Hawaii, and by extension, for the security of all the state's residents.

“;Protecting the Force: Lessons from Fort Hood”; found that the U.S. military was poorly prepared to defend itself from internal attacks, with the Army allowing Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan to advance through the ranks despite concerns about his increasingly anti-American views and the fact that he was known to be corresponding via e-mail with a radical Islamic cleric who condoned such carnage.

The Army psychiatrist is accused of opening fire Nov. 5 at a Fort Hood medical clinic, killing 13 people and wounding 30.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, responding to the review, told The New York Times that the Defense Department was so focused on fighting external threats that it had not paid enough attention to “;self-radicalization”; within the ranks.

Gates made clear that the potential for such violence was not limited to Fort Hood, and said that the military must better detect and deter such violent impulses from within, especially as the Internet extends anti-American extremists' reach and influence worldwide.

Human judgment plays the most critical role.

As in the case of the thwarted Christmas Day bomber, there was no shortage of clues that Hasan was on a dangerous path. But his supervisors—whether because of political correctness, workplace inertia, the fact that the Army desperately needs psychiatrists, or other factors—continued to give him satisfactory job ratings that moved him up the chain of command.

The report, stressing that the military must adapt to constantly changing security threats, recommended that the Pentagon work more closely with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which reviews intelligence reports about possible links between troops and terrorist or extremist groups. It urged the creation of programs to help commanders identify risky behavior within the ranks, and said information about potential internal threats must be shared across the military bureaucracy.

The Obama administration considers the Fort Hood rampage a terrorist attack, a senior official told the Times. That inescapable conclusion—likely reached by the survivors the day of the attack—has major implications for Hawaii, home as it is to the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Command, with its Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine installations.

The tens of thousands of servicemen and women who call Hawaii home expect to face lethal threats in the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones to which they are so frequently deployed. But they and their families should be able to feel safe at home.

The U.S. Department of Defense must urgently implement the report's recommendations to ensure that Hasan is the last to take such deadly aim at his fellow soldiers on their home base.