Difference between revisions of "Talk:Lecture 5"

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Decentralization of Terrorism and Implications on CBRN Weapons

Chris Fleizach - Jeffrey Bale noted at the end of his talk that he was certain a terrorist group would obtain and deploy a CBRN weapon within a reasonable time frame. The evidence that is generally accepted assumes that Al-Qaeda will be the group to perpetrate such an act due to their relative experience and ability in the pre-requisite areas mentioned (organization, logistics, finances, etc..). An issue that I didn't think was addressed is how has the "splintering" of Al-Qaeda (or any terrorist group) affected their chances of success. In Dr. Maurer's talks on the history of terrorism there was mention that after time ideological differences, changes in tactics and setbacks usually drew groups in opposite directions. Added to this governmental crack-downs, loss of popular support and the addition of "thugs" to its ranks would all diminish the potency of most terrorist organizations.

Certainly Al-Qaeda has begun to experience many of these symptoms. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been described as becoming the "new face of terrorism," although as a previous drug-dealer and possible rapist, his credentials seem to point towards thuggery instead of ideology. NY Times (9/18/05) His violent tactics, including beheadings and constant attacks on Shi'ites, have certainly turned away some of the popular support he may have enjoyed before.

The July 7th bombings in London, which Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for (as well as two separate groups) showed that acts did not need to originate from overseas. Only two of the bombers had been to Pakistan and initially Al-Qaeda leaders only said they supported the actions, indicating that direction may not have come from bin Laden BBC News (9/19/05). Indeed, Dr. Maurer's and Michael Nacht's lectures point to the possibility that Al-Qaeda is becoming more of a transnational movement based on an idea than a highly centralized organization. Bin Laden's isolation in remote Afghanistan or Pakistan certainly means the previous freedoms of communication and centralization he enjoyed with the Taliban have been restricted. (Pakistan claimed recently that Bin Laden's communications have been destroyed ChicagoSunTimes (9/26/05)).

This evidence seems to indicate a decline in the ability of, at least Al-Qaeda, to orchestrate and instigate an attack with CBRN weapons, an action which requires centralizing of finances, skills, logistics and organization, especially if communication has been limited. Although the frequency of small, individualized attacks may increase (as Iraq and Afghanistan has demonstrated), the ability to enact larger, more destructive, plans may remain out of the reach of an Al-Qaeda that is no longer orchestrated from one point.

I would be interested to see how the Center for Non-proliferation Studies monitors this "splintering" or decentralization, whether it can be modeled on historical trends and finally, how it has affected the ability of groups to use CBRN to cause mass destruction/disruption.

SMM: This is a provocative and interesting application that combines several lectures. If you buy the logic, then you should also ask the further policy question: What should the US be doing to help the unraveling process along?

Suppose the Zarqawi background material is true (I have no reason to think it isn't). Given that it seems like an important fact, why don't you hear it repeated every day? Is the US press falling down on the job when it comes to telling the full story? Is the Arab press telling this story at all? What is the disconnect -- Is the US press so focused on America and Americans that it simply isn't interested about who we're fighting? [This was clearly true in World War II -- Polls showed that nobody knew anything about the Japanese government beyond, say, Tojo.] Do they think that criticizing terrorists is bad form? Or are reporters physically intimidated by fear of reprisals -- notice that press organizations hardly ever call people "terrorists," it's always "militants"?

If the US media aren't doing their job, should the US government's media outlets (Voice of America, etc.) push the story harder? People usually argue that no one believes government outlets, but that's clearly untrue in countries where the population's domestic media are controlled -- Think how many people listened to BBC broadcasts in Nazi Germany, Radio Free Europe broadcasts the the USSR, or Western web pages in China today. No matter the source, true statements have a way of demanding answers. And there really isn't an answer to Zarqawi's background.

More generally, why don't US media (and US government media) say more about the Muslim majority who despise terrorism? My sense of the coverage is that we only notice the majority when they get killed and in that case we treat them as victims rather than heroes. That's terribly condescending. When the Germans bombed London, the story line was civic bravery -- In Edward R. Murrow's phrase, "London can take it." That was another time, of course, but these were people like us and my guess is that we'd say something similar today. Shouldn't we say the same thing when Iraqis and Afghans are murdered because they want to vote?

People talk a lot about the US should do more "hearts and minds," but that advice is pretty empty unless you can make specific offers about how to actually do it.

How probable is a CBRN attack?

Jeff Bilger - I would argue that it is not in Al-Qaeda's best interests to use CBRN weapons because such an attack would surely result in a swift and decisive response. Global political pressure or fallout would cease to deter the U.S. from pursuing all options.

Moreover, Al-Qaeda does not need any more significant, high profile successes in order to keep the recruits coming in. This may have been their goal prior to 9/11 but the Iraq War has given rise to a steady supply of people ready and willing to fight. If their goal is to form a global caliphate, then their best option is to attempt to cripple our economy by directed, small scale attacks, and not to wage war directly with the U.S.

If CBRN weapons were to be used, then a splinter group or some other terrorist organization would be the likely perpetrator. But do they really have the capabilities to pull it off? Even if they could pull it off, Al-Qaeda would get the blame, and this must make Al-Qaeda very nervous.

Responses

Altin Dastmalchi, UCB I agree that it is unlikely that Al Qaeda might attack us with a CBRN, however i do beleive that another future attack is inevitable, because of our foreign policy agenda and outcast. We have played a "lets scare them" card and this has pissed many outsiders off.

If however, Al Qaeda, a splinter group, or any terrorist group for that matter does get there hands on CBRN's then i dont agree that they would be scared to use them because of retaliation issues. I think what the guest lecture stated about media attention and kudos for their organization would encourage this type of action...

Thats my theory, anyone wish to reply?

Chris Fleizach - If we are to believe Al Qaeda's stated intentions, then we must assume the group will use CBRN if possible. Bin Laden has procliamed his goal is to kill millions of Americans, not just to tangentally establish a caliphate but also as retribution (CBS News (11/15/04). Fatwas from various mullahs and radical Islamicists all seem to concur. But in terms of being fearful of retribution, I believe their previous attacks have only emboldened them. After destroying three symbols of American power in 9/11 the end result was an Iraq that only Al Qaeda could love, while their leaders remain nominally free, although severally restricted in their movemement and communication. The anthrax attacks further proved that biological weapons could be used with impunity.

Jeff Bilger - My premise is based on the fact that we are currently waging asymmetric warfare against Al-Qaeda. This puts us at a distinct disadvantage in regards to locating and eliminating the Al-Qaeda leadership and Al-Qaeda has to recognize this. If a CBRN attack did occur on U.S. soil, I believe that our government would radically change its tactics/policy with regards to terrorist threats. If people think that the U.S. has been acting unilaterally, just wait and watch. For example, would the U.S. recognize the sovereignty of states that harbor terrorists (with our without the blessing of that government) such as Yemen and Pakistan? or would we shrug off any possible political fallout or global condemnation and go in and eliminate the threat?

--Chris DuPuis 15:31, 30 Sep 2005 (PDT) - Jeff, you bring up an interesting point. Undoubtedly, given a nuclear attack, the U.S. would pursue the perpetrators without regard to any national borders. Could this be seen as an attempt to get the U.S. to give a disproportionate response, as discussed in class, and thereby further alienate our allies? "Divide and conquer" is a time-tested strategy.

Chris Fleizach - Clearly, the US would attack any country that harbored terrorists perperating a CBRN attack, (much like what occurred in Afghanistan), but what if the terrorists came from within the US, or from a US ally such as Britain or India. It is within these countries that terrorists would have greater opportunity of gaining necessary skills and even equipment that could be used. So much of the US's terrorism initiatives have been directed towards places on the fringe of the its collective imagination, while terrorists are now firmly implanted as foreign agents. What kind of reaction would America have if our own borders harbored people with CBRN ambitions.

Altin Dastmalchi, UCB To answer the question above, i imagine that the U.S. does harbor sleepers that are working for foreign terrorist. However,through the Patriot Act, we are trying to find more of these CBRN ambitionist. For example, the Lodi situation, that has two suspected terrorist facing charges. Although this seems to be effective, i believe that our DHS needs to become more strict, meaning color coded alerate levels might keep us on alert, but more effective measures is a most...

Mike Lyons, MSFT - I agree that a CBRN attack would result in a swift and decisive response. However, I think that this would ultimately help Al-Qaeda, precisely because “global political pressure or fallout would cease to deter the U.S. from pursuing all options,” involve the US in another unflattering engagement, and increase support for Al Qaeda.

By ignoring global pressure, the U.S. can unleash far greater problems. The majority in the U.N. were clearly against invading Iraq yet global pressure did not cease to deter the U.S. Since then, Donald Rumsfeld (Secretary of Defense) asked, “Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?” (New York Times, “Taking Stock of the Forever War”, http://www.markdanner.com/nyt/091105_taking.htm). With constant images of the U.S. occupying a country full of Muslims, especially with damaging photos like those from Abu Gharib, can this be a surprise? The U.S.’s presence in Iraq is the best recruiting tool Al Qaeda has.

There is no doubt that a CBRN attack would be a gamble. The world could unite behind the U.S. as it did in Afghanistan and destroy much of Al Qaeda’s infrastructure. However, countries are now less willing to help the U.S. and it’s global war on terror. Countries such as Spain have backed out and even support inside the U.S. is falling. Al Qaeda has since gained support and learned lessons from Afghanistan and Iraq, becoming decentralized and making a sudden defeat unlikely. Meanwhile, the U.S. seems to have learned little, lost allies and become isolated from the world community.

The US will not stay in Iraq forever, especially as support for the war continues to fall. When the US leaves Iraq, outrage at the US’s occupation of a Muslim country will slowly depart with it. As you’ve pointed out in the case of Iraq, Al Qaeda’s recruitment does best when it has a clear enemy. As you’ve also mentioned before, a CBRN is the perfect way to get a response from the U.S. and thus continue to pull the U.S. into the role of foreign oppressor. While it is possible that a CBRN attack could be Al-Qaeda’s undoing, I believe it is far more probable to help rally support while draining the U.S. military and showing the world their ever growing ability for destruction.

Ted Zuvich Just to be clear about the "swift and decisive" response, I believe that if a terrorist group did manage to pull off a nuclear attack in the US, the response might very well be to 1) find out who did it (quickly, not necessarily precisely), and then 2) nuke them out of existence, then 3) wail about it later. I also don't think that the possibility of this sort of response would in any way deter a sufficiently determined terrorist group. They'll just make sure they're not in the target response area, and then go on to cause further trouble in phase 3.

"Richter Scale" of terrorist attacks

--Parvez Anandam 00:17, 30 Sep 2005 (PDT): Gary Ackerman makes a most interesting point: one often neglects the psychological effects of a terrorist attack. While the number of people who were, in fact, physically affected in the Oklahoma City bombing is far greater than that in the Aum Shinrikyo sarin gas attack, the number of people who _thought_ they were affected is greater in the latter.

To make comparisons of vastly different terrorist attacks possible, it may be worthwhile to quantify their magnitudes. From a cold economic perspective, a human life has a price. The payout of a typical life insurance policy provides an order-of-magnitude estimate of that price.

Answers to questions of the type "which is worse for a society, 10 people dead or 10,000 people not going to work for a month?" must naturally be factored into policy decisions. Is there a well-established method of measuring and normalizing the impact of a terrorist attack?

SMM: This is an excellent point which we will return to in lecture. Intellectually, the basis for valuing lives is poorly worked out -- the basic problem is that asking people "how much do I have to pay you to accept an extra 1-in-5 million risk" doesn't extrapolate well to "how much would I have to pay you to accept a 1-in-1 risk."

More importantly, we and our politicians try to pretend that each life is infinitely valuable. This, however, is only tenable as rhetoric -- clearly, we never actually spend infinite amounts of money, you have to stop somewhere. The upshot is that our actions reveal a price even if we won't name it. For instance, it turns out that the EPA acts as if your life is worth $2m but FAA thinks it's worth $600K or so. This statistic should really bother you as a policy guy. First, it shows that at least one numbers is wrong and needs to be adjusted. Second, it shows that we are being wasteful. In other words, a rational society could rearrange our regulation (less EPA, more FDA) to save more lives within existing budgets.

Furthermore, there are actually has two distinct costs of fear. One is lost work & is measurably economic. It gets into questions like the snow day problem -- The fact that a city shuts down today actually doesn't do much to annual GDP, people just do the transactions a day or two later. The other, harder question is psychic fear. Lawsuits routinely try to recover for "fear of cancer." I won't comment on that particular argument, except to say that our inability to measure something doesn't mean that no one has been injured. One oddity is that such fears aren't primarily science driven. They depend on our own prejudices at least as much as what happens in the world. If our society has better public discourse, maybe the damages themselves fall off.

Finally, it's interesting to note that during the Cold War people argued that long-term deaths from contamination were less harmful than immediate fatalities because spreading out deaths puts much less burden on civilization's ability to maintain itself. I mention this only for completeness. The argument only works for USSR-scale attacks; even the most violent WMD terrorism would be orders of magnitude smaller.

Responses

--George 17:43, 5 Oct 2005 (PDT) - Actually a group of researchers have already found that the probability and size of an attack are logarithmically related. In essence, they found that, much like the Richter scale you bring up, as the number of deaths due to an attack increases, the probability of an attack on that scale happening decreases tenfold. [I'm probably mucking this up, but I'm not a statistician.] [Here is the article published in September.

By analyzing the database at the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism, the authors found that global terrorism follows a power relationship. This database has its problems. 1) It underreports small terrorist attacks (I can't find any attacks in Kosovo over the past six years, for instance), 2) There are obviously no nuclear attacks with which to model, 3) biological, chemical and radiological attacks are so infrequent as to make modelling problematic, 4) there have been no "catastrophic" terrorist attacks.

However, should this probabalistic model hold up to scrutiny, there are interesting applications, I beleive, for homeland security funding. Presumably, with this relationship in mind, you could create internal consistency in funding programs that address each type of attack (either prevention, mitigation, or recovery). In other words, given that these events follow this power relationship, we can weight certain attacks happening more often than others, and guide funding that way. While this does not necessarily give us an optimal *total* level of funding, it may guide us in that funding's allocation across fields-- particularly in R&D.

Weaponization of chemical agents, among other things

--Chris DuPuis 15:17, 30 Sep 2005 (PDT) It seems incongruous to lump all chemical agents into the same category as nuclear devices and infectious diseases. While the "weaponization" of something like anthrax spores may take a fair amount of technical knowledge, and the construction of a nuclear device may be beyond the grasp of any current terrorist group, creating deadly chemical agents is quite simple.

For example, everyone has (hopefully) heard of the danger of mixing household bleach and ammonia cleaners. When mixed, they produce chlorine gas (among other nasty poisons), which has caused a number of serious injuries and deaths to people exposed to the products of accidentally mixing these chemicals. (Incidentally, chlorine was the first chemical warfare agent (if memory serves), and it was used by the Germans in World War I.)

If mixing a couple of easily obtained chemicals can produce such a potent poison gas, then the task of weaponization is just a matter of getting the chemicals to the target.

The fact that such simple methods are not widely used seems to indicate that, rather than being deterred by technical difficulty, terrorists have other reasons for not using chemical weapons. --

SMM: One thing to think about is whether these fears are fragile. We are used to high explosive, we are not used to chlorine, but ultimately a novel attack that kills 12 people has still only killed 12 people. How long does novelty last in the face of experience?

There are many historic examples of how people get used to things: Everybody thought in the 1930s that societies would come completely unglued as soon as strategic bombing started, but that turned out to be a wild overestimate. In the early 1950s, one reason that Truman didn't use the A-Bomb in Korea was that fear that it would turn out to be much less scary than the examples of Hiroshima and the 1946 Bikini Atoll tests had led the world to believe. He worried, in other words, that it was more useful as threat than as reality. (For purists, H-Bombs are different...but that came later.)

The problem with this analysis is that it asks "what's good for terrorism as a whole." But that's a monopolist's viewpoint. [Remember that Truman was more or less an A-Bomb monopolist in the early 1950s.] The question is different when you have multiple competing organizations. Then the tendency is to say, "Well it may devalue the threat of chemical weapons for everyone else, but my little organization will get big short term benefits -- and besides, if I refrain, somebody else will do it anyhow." So you end up with the likelihood of attack being driven not by the average group but by the most extreme member.

Query, though. Are chemical attacks really all that simple? Suicide bombing is surely the simplest imaginable tactic, so one's naive prediction is that it ought to happen continually. The fact that it doesn't means that we should expect even slightly harder things to be even less frequent.

--

NJones, UCSD: It is especially important that Aum Shinrikyo synthesized their own Sarin, which is substantially more complex than HD (mustard). However, AS had also amassed large stockpiles of precursor chemicals that, had they been converted to Sarin, would have enabled a catastrophic attack. I do not see any reason for Aum Shinrikyo to procure excess precursors unless it really intended to use them, but the fact that they did not use them (yet procured them) may reveal some information about the logistics of terrorist chemical attacks. Perhaps the subway was a scale-up test of the 1994 incident? That seems unlikely, since the 1994 test was relatively successful, and they escaped undetected. More likely, the mass production of sarin is logistically and technically difficult in the absence of industrial or governmental help. In other words, it seems like a crude chemical attack isn't so hard, but maybe a mass casualty version is.

Does our (presumably classified) intelligence of the day-to-day operations of terrorist groups include whether or not their front companies have purchased three tons of, say, thiodiglycol, or if they have suddenly seen a surge in members that happen to be chemical engineers? If so, one might think it possible to create an algorithm that could assign a probability that any particular terrorist group would use chemical agents in the near future. Iraq faced this problem: they initially had to outsource their chemical sources while building a chemical arsenal, but eventually brought the expertise "in-house" in the mid-'80s (I think?) much to the consternation of the international community. Terrorist organizations don't really have this option.

Toward the goals of Aum Shinrikyo, though, one might wonder if a mustard (HS) attack---which would have been easier to synthesize and could have allowed a larger amount of product to be used---might have been more effective? Mustard has the property that it has a relatively long latency exposure (hours, rather than seconds), and that when the compound is present on clothing and jewelry an infected person can unknowingly infect another person during that latency. In this sense, it operates more like a biological weapon. Though it is not as lethal an agent as sarin, the effects are still debilitating, frightening, and often lead to physically observable scarring (one of the reasons it was useful as a weapon in WWI, even though it was relatively useless in a tactical situation). Even if you had 11 fewer deaths, you might have increased the number of afflicted, making it a more "successful" attack.

Ted Zuvich In response to SMM's comment, I would argue that a suicide bombing is NOT the simplest possible tactic -- the resources required to carry one out are difficult to obtain. Not everyone (or every terrorist) is willing to commit suicide.

Terrorism and Technological Choice

--Andrew Cencini 13:34, 03 Oct 2005 (PDT) As a general observation of the literature (the small amount I have been exposed to) surrounding terrorism and weapons of mass destruction (or more aptly, non-conventional approaches to spreading fear and influencing a broader audience through violence), it seems to me that there is a fascination by scholars, analysts and policy-makers in devising extremely far-fetched scenarios in which terrorists employ some new and shiny technology to carry out an attack. Is this realistic? For example, when we speak of biological attacks by terrorists, while the impact of a biological attack on the target audience is quite high due to the fear of the unknown, etc., any such biological attack is also immensely difficult to carry out. Why would terrorists invest so much time and energy (as was said in the lecture, potentially years and millions of dollars) when there are so many other avenues available that are cheaper, faster and potentially just as effective (if not more effective)?

While this was covered somewhat in the report and lecture, an interesting area to probe would be what motivates terrorists to choose one technology over another (particularly when a terrorist chooses a particularly technophiliac approach) - and - are we prioritizing our research appopriately (i.e., are we spending more time than we need focusing on dirty bombs and miniature biological weapons labs when we really should be worried about lower-tech avenues such as widespread use of conventional weapons/suicide bombers (which are arguably weapons in most cases, of much greater mass destruction) in the mass transportation sector)?

If we review the points in the Bale-Ackerman report, and consider some of the points within, don't all signs point to increased proliferation of conventional, suicide-bomber-based attacks given:

0.) The marked rise of religious terrorism 1.) The ideology of religious terrorist groups, particularly those waging Jihad on the western world 2.) Recruitment logistics (e.g. how easy it is to get someone to blow themselves up vs. go out with a long, lonely, painful wheeze) 3.) Impact (look at what happened in the London subway/bus bombings - if you increase the scale/number of attacks, that may be as fear-inspiring as releasing a biological agent in Times Square) 4.) Risk of Detection (the government is spending millions on radiation detection equipment, miniature air-quality monitoring stations, etc. - but not really doing anything about screening bus/subway passengers, or other vehicles in the transportation system for that matter) 5.) Tried and Proven / Cost - conventional explosives are cheap, and have worked for decades in other terrorist attacks - why try something new that may not work no matter how "innovative" it may be? ...etc.

Why is there not more focus (in other literature) put on terrorism of a conventional nature? Is this simply a product of the hype that has been generated by the media and politicians? CBRN terrorism is very, very interesting, but isn't it also so much less realistic than conventional terrorism?

Again, just an observation with a few questions, and I am certain (and hopeful) there will be a number of interesting points coming from both sides.

Responses

Chris Fleizach - The media can always be counted on to latch on to the newest fad, but perhaps a lot of effort is expended on CBRN because 1) it may be possible to stop the attack, (there are only a limited number of places a nuclear weapon can be obtained, built, etc) and 2) because the effects of a CBRN attack (mostly nuclear) would be so devastating that spending a lot to presumably prevent the act would pay off in a cost benefit-analysis. On the other hand, suicide bombers are nearly impossible to stop (even Israel can't stop them completely) due to the infinite number of places that can be attacked. In accordance, the damage one suicide bomber is not that great, speaking strictly in terms of economic models, compared to an attack which could kill 1,000-10,000 people (or more).

Andrew Cencini - So, really, if we're spending so much to prevent and detect CBRN attacks, why don't we put some of our best minds to figure out innovative and novel ways to prevent suicide bombings? Otherwise, assuming trends don't change much, we'll have hardened ourselves very well against CBRN attacks, making the cost-benefit/return-on-investment of such an attack unappealing to terrorists, yet we won't have solved the low-tech problem...

The Purpose of Terrorism is to Terrorize

Joe Xavier - Conventional wars were fought for hundreds of years over countries and boundaries. That phase of human history is mostly over. Border-lines were drawn and humanity got on with things. And now most people (except in countries in constant strife) just want to get on with their lives. And the United States is a great example of this. What better way to state your point than to tell millions of people that their way of life is at risk, that there is a threat lurking around the corner? A suicide bomber is a conventional bomb strapped to a person. And this is why CBRN weapons will be always be more effective than conventional weapons or suicide bombings. The delivery mechanisms for CBRN weapons are everyday things - the water supply, ventilation systems, food, casual contact ... it doesn't get more personal than that.
Conventional weapons cause damage that is easy to understand - things get blown up, big craters in the ground, holes in building and most importantly, casualities are restricted to the people who're in the vicinity. Something blows up, things happen and then it's over. CBRN weapons are more insidious - the fear of the thing is more terrifying than the thing itself. The actual damage potential is (for example, the Tokyo subway attacks using Sarin) fairly small. The amount of FUD (fear/uncertainity/doubt) they create before and after the fact is their real power.

Responses

Alex Randolph [UCB] 17:34, 5 Oct 2005 (PDT)I agree with your assesment of what terrorists what types of weapons terrorists would use in order to achieve the highest amount of disruption in our way of life. As we heard in lecture, a biological/radiological attack on the water or food supply might not kill a lot of people, but I would think twice after an attack whether or not to drink water that is not bottled.

However, I had two question that I was hoping someone could answer or help me understand.

The first one has to deal with the goal of terrorists. It was argued in the lecture that "It is an act of terrorism any time a group carries out an act of violence that tries to manipulate the behavior of the wider audience. Basically there needs to be a purpose of the perpetrator to manipulate a wider audience". The question i was thinking about was what if the goal of the group is to send a message to leaders or elites rather than a wider audience? Or are elites considered the wider audience? Who makes up the wider audience?

The second question I wanted to discuss had to with the motivation of terrorists to cause a massive negative psychological efect. It was argued in the lecture that "The reality of terrorism is that the single most important motivator is to cause a disproportional psychological effect and disruption". If this is the case would a government color coding system of a threat level not increase and actually support this psychological effect? So rather than improving the situation isn’t it aiding it?

Joe Xavier [MSFT] 18:42, 5 Oct 2005 (PDT) To your second question - The color coded threat levels were scary at first; 'Orange alert' had people running out to create their own survival kits. Not anymore - people get used to it and take it in their stride. So, IMO the color coding system simply provides a way for the media (and as a result the general public) to create neat, easy to understand buckets for the 'state of affairs'. I now know what to expect on 'Orange Alert' - longer lines at the airport, more invasive security checks etc.

The Pen is Mightier?

Rob Nash - In previous posts (and indeed, in the lectures), it is interesting to note how much utility (and manipulative power) can be found in crafting, choosing, and creating terminology. When we discussed and dismantled the term WMD, exposing the connotative ideas behind the definition, we see that this term is imbued with a type of energy that makes it useful as a scary idea and less useful for actual discussions about CBRN strategies. These words can be more effective than the vehicle behind them; so-called "dirty bombs" are a second example in which the mileage found in the terminology can easily surpass the mileage that would likely be found in actually employing such an attack. Other fun words/concepts sure to elicit a response: Shock and Awe, Jihad/Crusade, anything in the Book of Revelations...

International Regimes

Sean West (GSPP Second Year):

During the break I asked Professor Ackerman how effective he thought international non-proliferation regimes were in limiting the threat of a terrorist attack using WMD. His response indicated that he did not have much confidence that a full enforcement of all international weapons regime would actually yield much security in the manner in which these regimes are currently constituted. He appeared concerned that there was enough WMD material already available, and current regimes are so weak, that the role they play is quite small.

I did a lot of research this summer on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (available here: http://www.vertic.org/assets/TV121.pdf) and what was most striking was India's position that limiting nuclear tests does nothing without it being in the context of actual disarmament. My opinion is that all of the major arms control/disarmament treaties contribute to security in a clear and direct way: They limit the amount of "weakest links" that can exist and the limit the information that each of these links will have about their own capabilities, thus limiting their ability to transfer this to terrorists.

I wanted to ask what everyone thought of the role of international arms control/disarmament regimes in Homeland Security. Is it overly liberal institutionalist to think that they can play a role--completely missing the reality that in an anarchic international order people and states can be bought and weapons can be stolen? Or is it a reasonable and necessary step for making the world safer from WMD attacks? --Sean

Sporadic and multiple attacks

Marty Lyons (UW)

The bulk of the literature focuses on the singular attack (one place, one weapon). Perhaps because it's too complex to perform analysis on or because of the low likelihood of success, but I've wondered why one shouldn't worry about multiple attack vectors. We've seen delivery through the mail (anthrax letters) and the Tokyo sarin attack. Aircraft were weaponized to attack multiple targets but no other techniques employed simultaneously.

What would be an effective response, and how would you coordinate rescue attempts with the following type of scenario: (I'll use the Washington capital region as a reference point) A gas is released in the D.C. Metrorail (subway). Simultaneously, a chemical attack is released at the Washington Hospital Center (the largest public hospital in the city). At that point, a threat is made via phone that the George Washington Hospital is about to be attacked.

Those of you who have lived or spent time in the D.C. area can imagine the outcome of this -- the two hospitals are on opposite sides of the city, and the city is encircled by the Capital Beltway as the sole means of decent highway access. Patients being evacuated from the Metro would be moved outside the city to treatment facilities in the suburbs; done at peak traffic time (4-7PM), medical units would be unable to reach treatment centers. Panic would likely break out in the central business area of the city, adding to the chaos.

Moving beyond a pure CBRN attack, imagine if the weapon systems were aided by the disruption of the underlying control network: The Metrorail control system is compromised, and trains all given red signals in the tunnels and stations; a chemical/biological attack occurs. Signals are set green, and as trains resume movement, the agent is aided in dispersal through the system.

Sporadic attacks seem to receive little notice in some of the attack scenarios. Remote single use devices have long been employed by organizations such as the IRA, and more recently as improvised explosives in Iraq. These don't fit the definition of a terrorist act, but the difference is one of engineering, not sophistication. What if there were hundreds of these devices spread throughout a region, all connected by a mesh network; losing several devices would be considered an acceptable loss. Control of the net is a typical CS problem but done through clandestine means, possibly using low power transmitters and common band signaling (CB radio, amateur band, etc).

We've spent a lot of time and thought on preventing the terrorist or organization from penetrating national defenses; my concern is how we prevent against the equivalent of weapon dead-drops backed by a sophisticated control system.

Three Givens...

--George 18:09, 5 Oct 2005 (PDT)Last weeks talks revealed at least three particularly troubling facts:

1. The technology to synthetically bioengineer a supervirus is about to proliferate across the globe.

2. There is no conceivable government (or supra-government) surveillance techniques that can monitor all millenariancults across the globe.

3. We don't have any technology available to protect populations against hyperinfectious, hyperfatal disease.

When the Venn diagram of bio-savvy folks and millenarians finally starts to touch, is there any government policy that can save potentially millions of lives? Would quarantine work? Can we deploy a anti-viral agents in time? Can we vaccinate enough people? Can we deploy our own bioengineered organisms to protect us? We might be looking at a future where the Avian flu is like child's play...

Lecture 5

Dr. Bale, can you restate your definition of terrorism? Also, can you tell me what the name of the publication you were referencing during your presentation is and whether or not it is available to the general public?

Of the five types of non-state terrorist actors (i.e. ethno-nationalists, secular left-wing groups, secular right-wing groups, religious terrorist groups, and single-issue groups) has one been more violent, historically speaking, than the others?

Dr. Bale, would you mind going into a bit more of what you would have said, had you had time, concerning the motivations of different types of religious groups – it sounded as if you were forced to cut that aspect of your talk back a little? Also, could you say a bit more about the notion of “taboo transgressions.”

Who wrote the treatise on strategic terrorism?

Can you expand a little on the idea of legal sanctuary with respect to Japan, the UK, Germany, France, the Netherlands, etc. Which specific laws in those states provide such sanctuary and which, if any, laws cut back in the opposite direction -- what is required for them to be utilized etc.? Have those countries swung in the other direction since so many serious terrorist activities have been uncovered (Jap. = Aum Shinrikyo, UK = London Bombings, Germany = Hamburg Cell, Netherlands = murder of Van Gogh, etc.)?

Is there evidence that Aum Shinrikyo ever attempted to purchase a nuclear device? Are the elements of that organization that still persist or has it been rendered wholly ineffective?

Has the US had the opportunity to interrogate A.Q. Khan yet?

Can you provide some specific examples of government stings that attempted to catch people seeking WMD?

Dr. Bale, do you put any stock into the notion that Islamist attacks have been more brutal and dehumanizing as a result of sexual repression caused by adherence to strict religious observation?

How closely linked were or are the different Islamic Jihads and Muslim Brotherhoods that exist in various states (i.e. Egypt, Palestine, etc.)?

Is the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade sanctioned by Fatah (PLO/PA) or is it a radical offshoot?

Were Hamas, the PLO, and the PFLP all funded by the same states and groups or not? If not, where were their respective funding and support streams coming from?