Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Public and Private …...Michael Intriligator slides • Following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and ﬁre the citizens of Los Angeles sent a train

Monday, April 28, 2008

11:00 AM - 12:15 PM

Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Public and Private Responses

Speakers:

Michael Intriligator, Professor Emeritus of Economics, Political Science and Public

Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles; Senior Fellow, Milken Institute

Brian Jenkins, Senior Adviser, RAND Corporation; Terrorism Expert

Peter Katona, Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine, David Geffen School of

Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles

John Sullivan, Tactical Planning Lieutenant, Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department

Moderator:

Larry Carroll, News Anchor, KFWB News 980

Michael Intriligator slides

• Following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake

and fire the citizens of Los Angeles sent a train

filled with relief supplies of food, medicine,

tents, blankets, etc.

• The train arrived the day after the disaster

• Could this be done today?

Historical example of mutual support

Source: Mike Intriligator.

• The Los Angeles county Terrorism early warning (TEW)

unit provides an example of mutual support at the local

level to combat terrorism

• Since 1996 brings together police, fire, hospital, public

health and federal, state, and local agencies for the

joint production of intelligence

A current example of mutual support:

Terrorism early warning (TEW) unit


• Yossi Sheffi’s book The Resilient Enterprise gives

examples of companies helping each other in

emergency situations, including:

– natural disasters

– terrorist strikes

• Mutual support extremely valuable in coping with

such low probablity/high impact events

Examples of mutual support in business


Tools for early warning and

the co-production of intelligence

John P. Sullivan

Source: Terrorism Early Warning Group.

Intelligence preparation for operations (IPO)



The transaction analysis cycle


Questions


SURVIVING A TERRORIST SIEGE

Brian Michael Jenkins

April 28, 2008

• “This conflict began centuries ago and will

continue until judgment day”

• “War is life”

• “Lie in wait, beleaguer the enemy, attack when

inattentive, make his life untenable”

A long-term, low-level siege

Source: Brian Jenkins.

• Not a finite war, but a persistent threat--no

foreseeable end to security measures

• No frontlines, no distinction between military

and civilian targets--terrorists can attack

anything, anywhere, any time

• High likelihood of surprise

• Limited government assistance

The unique challenge of today’s

terrorism


• How much security is enough?

• How can we measure the effectiveness of

security?

• What is the optimum allocation of limited

security dollars?

• What is the best strategy to avoid, reduce,

mitigate or transfer risk?

Analytically difficult questions


• Inherent problem in low probability, high consequence events

• Risk comprises probability of attack, vulnerability of target,consequences of event

• Analytical models better at forecasting consequences thanpredicting attack

• Probabilities of attacks reflect soft expert consensus--extremeranges

• Barring a fundamental breakthrough in the field of prophecy,predictions not likely to get better

• Estimates of consequences therefore drive perceptions, whileworst-case scenarios overwhelm low attack probabilities

Not easy to assess risk


• Public expects 100 percent security--what is “tolerable” risk?

• Vast differences in threat perception

• No agreement on who pays

• Governments financially strapped

• Privately held critical infrastructure viewed as public good--

must be secured for good of society

• Corporations want to reduce security costs, resist security

mandates, government regulation

• Insurers reluctant to assume catastrophic exposure

• Guarantee of litigation if things go wrong

Security is a battleground


• Terrorists capability to wage economic warfare, disrupt oil

supplies, bring down global economy is limited

• Majority of corporations view terrorism as a “significant

threat”…

• Believe that the threat will increase, and that terrorists will

employ unconventional weapons, yet…

• Fewer than 20 percent believe post 9/11 security measures

decrease corporations ability to achieve business goals

• Corporations face other crimes--cybercrime

• Financial catastrophes, corporate scandals pose greater

threats to bottom line

Capitalism is tough


• Added direct costs of security

• Unmeasured drag on economy resulting from inefficientsecurity measures

• Greater sensitivity to political risk impacts some ofworld’s poorest countries

• Added barriers to student, business, scientific, andtourist travel

• Increased monitoring and reporting requirements

• Uncertainty premium on price of oil and other vitalcommodities

Economic effects of terrorism

are indirect and insidious


• Accept that we are experiencing a fundamentalchange in the threat and how we look atsecurity--this is the world we will live in fordecades

• Accept that uncertainties will not be reduced--instead, decisions will be made in environmentof uncertainty

• Life is not risk free, prevention is not realistic,risk can be managed, but will require asustained effort to develop rough consensus

Surviving a terrorist siege


• Demand that security measures provide a “net

security benefit”

• How much will it cost is too narrow a question-

-need to assess long-term effects on society

and commerce of any new security measure

• Avoid costly but inefficient gates and guards,

walls and moats approaches

Surviving a terrorist siege (cont’d)


• In addition to being effective, must seek securitymeasures that are efficient and sustainable

• Seek multiple benefits--better security not incompatiblewith efforts to reduce ordinary crime, improve safety andpublic health, combat global warming

• Look for non-security solutions to threats, such asrebuilding decaying infrastructure to achieve greaterrobustness, redundancy, resiliency

• Prevention is desirable but difficult--much more can bedone in areas of preparedness planning, mitigation,resiliency, recovery, crisis management


• Explore creative ways to finance security and enlist

private sector

• Analysis of security remains inadequate--private sector

has performed poorly here

• Anticipate, not react to events--game, plan, exercise,

have ready-to-roll responses

• Remember that terrorists cannot destroy our economy,

but we can

• Don’t succumb to terror--we will survive


Terrorism & Counterterrorism:

Public & Private Responses

Peter Katona

Today’s greatest threats?

• Climate change & environmental degradation*

• Armed conflict

• Organized crime

• Terrorism

• WMD proliferation

• Poverty*

• Corruption

• Energy

• Emerging & re-emerging Infectious diseases

• Natural disasters

• Fanaticism & fundamentalism*…

20 Year Problems

5 Year Strategic Plans

2 Year Elected Officials

1 Year Budgets

30 sec. Disasters

Source: Ellis Stanley

Homeland security challenge

0

50000

100000

150000

200000

250000

300000

350000

2003 2004 2005 2006

160

28,360

77,769

300,000

Potentially important national

targets for would-be terrorists

Source: Congress.

• How do we deal with high impact low

probability events?

• How do we prepare for too many eventualities

with “all-hazards” ?

• How do we even define preparedness?

More Questions then Answers

…the “right place” on the continuum between mindless

complacency and all consuming paranoia

Mindless

Complacency

All Consuming

Paranoia

What do we mean by “prepared”?

• Non-WMD– Bombings

– Suicide bomber(s)

– Danzig’s “reload” attacks

– Substitution

• WMD– Nuclear

– Bio

– Combination

• Pseudo-WMD– Dirty bomb

– Chlorine or LNG

– Cyber

– Tech

Matching risk and response

• Threat awareness

• Detection, surveillance, warning

• Infrastructure protection initiatives

• Coordinated response and recovery

Optimizing preparedness and

recovery: The parts

• The nature of our enemies

• The seriousness of their intent

• The scale of their capabilities

• The requirements of victory

Newt Gungrich’s

“Needed national dialogue”

• Turf battles

– Fed, state & local

– President and Congress

– CIA, FBI & 14 other intel agencies

– FBI & Public Health & Sheriff

• Limited or scarce resources

– Economy is poor - will private resources be allocatedwhen profits down?

– Government allocation often politicized

– Formulas determined by population density, size,vulnerability or raw politics

Turf battles and scarce resources

Our Jihadi enemies are serious

• bin Laden said he wants to kill 4 millionAmericans & that it was a religious duty toacquire a bomb or some other WMD

• Is there a current gap between their intentionsand their capabilities?

• Does their knowledge & comfort withincendiary devices temporarily preclude WMD

• Is technology closing that gap?

What are the underlying

causes of today’s terrorism?

• Poverty

• Lack of civil liberties

• Cold hatred of modernity

• Feelings of inferiority, marginalization

• Quest for religious dominance

• Media or fanatic manipulation

• American or Western foreign policy

• Dead people

• Economic loss

• Media attention

What are terrorist’s intentions?

Who is their audience?

Does what we want to protect

coincide with their intentions?

• People

• Our way of life

• The economy

• Infrastructure

• Funded by DHS

• Computer software to id, prioritize, protect ~500vulnerable targets (i.e. Disneyland, nuclearplants)

• Provides structural information

• Assesses vulnerabilities

• Devises deterrence and prevention strategies foremergency response plans

Operation Archangel

A temporary disruption

• Suicide bombings in shopping malls

• Dirty bomb release

• Chlorine container or LNG blown up

• Cyber or tech attack

High impact, low probability

• Nuclear reactor - Large Hadron Collider - inSwitzerland causes a Black Hole

• LNS attack in Boston Harbor

• Nuclear device detonated (80 missingbackpack nukes from SU, 1 sold to AQ for $1million?)

• Effective release of a contagious biologicalagent

• It is a mess with rampant inefficiencies

• Slow decline and inertia ==> do nothing now

• Too many groups lobbying for their own selfinterests

• We spend way too much and get too little in return

• Too many people are excluded from the system

• Surge capacity is extremely limited

Healthcare in today’s context

• Rules, guidelines and regulations

• Exercises

• Stockpiles

• Funding for hospitals, R&D, public health

How does the healthcare

infrastructure prepare for WMD?

But why a bioweapon?

• Vaccinations and antibiotic stockpiles

• Allocated lots of money for biodefense

• We’re installing detectors in major cities and postalinstallations

• Hard to weaponize and disseminate

• We understand the psychological effects better(PTSD)

• Relatively cheap & easy to make or procure

• Detection is difficult

• Air dissemination possible at great distance

• Enclosed spaces are ideal

• Delayed onset

• May be insidious & undetectable until there arenumerous casualties

Properties of biological weapons

Economic losses from disease

• Historical perspective– Smallpox, plague, Spanish & H5N1 flu

– It’s been done before - military experiments

– Effect of weaponization and proper dissemination

• Anthrax letters effect– Only 22 cases fear impact

– Screening mail, postal sensors, $$$

• More likely than nuc’s and more effective thanall others– Kofi Annan said bioterrorism was the most under-

addressed threat

The case for biological weapons

Biological warfare and terror are not new. The

fundamentalists, fanatics & extremists were

always around.

What is new is the potential to use it on an

UNPRECEDENTED SCALE with today’s

technology

• Plague in three waves

• Smallpox

• Spanish flu

• SARS and H5N1 flu

• Mexico in the 16 C

Epidemics can disrupt societies

Population collapse in Mexico

Population, millions

Year

Bioweapon destructiveness

• DoD Bio-Experiments

– Anthrax in NYC subway

– Plague & tularemia over SF Bay

• Sverdlovsk accidental anthrax release

• Used chemical weapons onthe Iranians and their own Kurds

• They had both weaponization anddissemination technologies

• Had 19,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 2,200liters of aflatoxin and 8,500 liters of anthrax

• Acknowledged filling 25 missiles and 157bombs with anthrax and botulism toxin

• BUT THE SECOND TIME AROUND nothingwas found

Iraq had WMD

• Continued even after signing 1972 BWC

• Biopreparat of the Soviet Union

– Agency under Ministry of Defense

– 32,000 - 60,000 scientists and technicians

– 6 research labs, 5 production facilities

• Program inherited by Russia

– In 1992 President Yeltsin promised to terminate theprogram but:

– Still employs ~25,000 people

– Defections to rogue states

• Is there still an existing program?

The Soviet bio-weapons program

• Don’t like pre-emption

• Less legislative and security crackdowns than the US

• Emphasize domestic spying & traditional prosecutionsover fortifying borders - different civil liberties attitudes

• They love surveillance cameras

• Frown on detention facilities like Guantanamo Bay

• More compromising, less confrontational, they don’t liketo fight

• React differently: Spain and the election results

• France 20% Muslim and they are impoverished

• Minorities don’t assimilate as much

Europe is different

Israel

• Their survival, motivation is different - nopampered complacency like us

• Unlike our TSA profile terrorists very well atall levels

• Great intelligence collection

• Practical political correctness

• Maintain a ruthless but also multi-culturedtolerant society with Arabs in Parliament andobservance of constitutional laws

Hierarchies

• Improve accountability

• Facilitate coordination

• Decrease redundancy

• Facilitate change thru the system

• Promote cultural consistencywithin the system

• Improve conformity of goals

• Provide links betweenpolicymakers & implementers

Networks

• Improve flexibility

• Allow greaterspecialization

• Less adminrequirements

• Greater speed ofadaptation at unit level

• Improve moral and unitcohesion

• Bring decisions closerto the environment

Which would do better?

Governments

• Hierarchical

• Centralized leadership

• Tightly coupled (greaterinterdependence amongparts)

• Concentrated workforce

• Specialists

• Policy and procedure driven

Terrorists

• Networked

• Distributed leadership

• Loosely coupled (lessinterdependence)

• Dispersed workforce

• Cross-trainedgeneralists

• Guided by simple yetflexible rules

Which would do better?

Where does business fit in?

• Admitted our mistakes and politicized less

• Worked better with our global allies

• Shifted more resources from DoD & DHS to DoS& DHHS

• Shared intelligence better between agencies andwith local law enforcement

• Tried harder to understand the underlyingproblems

• Been less hierarchical and more networked

• Learned to use the media much much better

What could we have done differently?

• A coherent integrated plans at all levels

• Thinking globally, act locally

• Being networked not hierarchical

• Thinking more out of the box

• Learning from history, our allies & adversaries

• Studying underlying causes

• Not being politically correct

• Protecting our sacred civil liberties

• Being less secretive, less authoritarian

Effective terrorism public policy

What will it take to avert disaster?

Good proactive non-partisan planning?

or

Declining interest of our enemies

or

Disaster after disaster to stir up the system reactively

or

A technological breakthrough

or

A lot of luck

• Terrorist ranks will grow

• Gain access to WMD

• Terrorist groups may even gain legitimacy in theMiddle East

– Sons of Liberty, Bolsheviks, Palestinians, Israeli(Irgun, Svi, Haganah, Stern Gang)

– Hamas and Hezbollah social programs andelections

– Pakistan - AQ Khan, Taliban and nuc’s

Major concern 5-10 years down the line

• Business drives our economy - Ideology and fanaticismdrives theirs

• Democracy can be exploited - we have to be careful withcivil liberties, public-private disconnect

• What happens when the Iraqi al Qaeda war veterans gohome?

• Growing restless jobless Muslim populations esp inFrance and UK

• We have too many soft targets, substitution is easy

• Technology can work both ways

• The economy, the media and healthcare can all betargeted

In summary

Documents

Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Public and Private …...Michael Intriligator slides • Following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and ﬁre the citizens of Los Angeles sent a train