Vulnerability to Terrorism: Addressing the Human Variables

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 revealed the vast scope of our vulnerability to terrorism. The reaction, and even overreaction, to these threats has led to costly disruption of both infrastructure and commerce, as the chaos in the airline industry so vividly displayed. A systematic framework is needed for analyzing the terrorist threat realistically and for coordinating the interaction among the responding organizations as well as the public. What has yet to be assimilated about this risk from terrorism is the human variable. Whether the source of terrorism is international like al Qaeda or domestic like Timothy McVeigh, terrorists learn from experience and alter their tactics constantly. Accordingly, the measures necessary to protect people and property must be constantly reevaluated and revised, as in a never-ending "game." To be predictive in this environment, new tools are needed to properly assess the vulnerability to terrorism of systems and assets. New methods are required for determining who and what is at risk, how great the risk is, what measures can be taken to minimize that risk, and at what costs. In this paper, a simple game structure is described.