U.S. Global War on Terrorism

U.S. Global War on Terrorism

Counterterrorism

Al Qaeda’s actions on September 11, 2001, demonstrated the use of a new form of warfare, requiring relatively modest resources and aimed at achieving maximum disruption of the morale and the economic core of Western society. Security in this new age will not be achieved by a policy that seeks to safeguard an almost infinite number of individual targets at all times. Instead, we must protect these foundations by developing public and, equally important, private-sector measures that deny the terrorists the leverage they seek in disrupting our societies.

Lets began by talking about risk management and security. Virtually every current method of risk management begins with the assumption that individual assets (e.g., buildings, aircraft, people) are the proper focus for investments in security. Even where the characteristics of an asset (or of its environment) are dynamic-for example, a presidential motorcade-risk management focuses on the methods for protecting against threats such as theft or destruction. Indeed, both our legal system and insurance (and reinsurance) industries-the institutional foundations of risk management in Western society-base their policies and procedures on calculations of the risk-adjusted value of specific identified assets. In the face of the potential for ongoing terrorist attacks from al Qaeda (and potentially others), the objective of risk management must now be shifted to a focus on protection from the leverage that attacks on assets can achieve with respect to the continued functioning of our society. Assets of any type may be the specific targets-they are the concrete focus of terrorist actions that provide the leverage needed to cause “unconstrained disruption"-but it is the ability of Western society to continue to rely on the vitality and utility of these functions and systems that is really in al Qaeda’s sights.

Al Qaeda’s actions on September 11 were certainly horrific, but they were not