McGraw-Hill Homeland Security Handbook: Strategic Guidance for a Coordinated Approach to Effective Security and Emergency Management, Second Edition

By David Kamien

Featuring a foreword by Michael Chertoff, former Secretary of Homeland Security, The McGraw-Hill Homeland Security Handbook, 2e is the one-stop guide for any professional or student involved in counterterrorism, homeland security, business continuity, or disaster risk management.

This indispensable book provides government officials, corporate risk managers, business and security executives, first responders, and all homeland security and emergency prepared-ness professionals with a wide-ranging and definitive overview of critical homeland security issues. The handbook addresses virtually every aspect of homeland security, including terrorism motivated by radical Islamist extremism; transportation and infrastructure protection; community and business resilience; intelligence and information; and the roles of business, academia, science, and the private sector in confronting terrorism and natural disasters.

Enriched with the insight and knowledge of renowned national and international experts—from senators and captains of industry to key figures in intelligence, military affairs, diplomacy, international organizations, and academia—this peerless guide offers prescriptive strategies and guidance to help security professionals more effectively manage the risk of terrorism and prepare for and respond to natural disasters.

Conveniently organized into thematic sections, The McGraw-Hill Homeland Security Handbook covers:

• Terrorist and Criminal Threats
• Policy, Governance, and Legal Responses
• Interoperability, Information Sharing, and Collaboration
• Risk Management, Decision Making, and Communication
• Protecting Critical Infrastructure
• Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management
• Private Sector Security and Resilience
• Thinking, Education, and Training
• Science and Technology
• Civil Liberties and Other Legal Issues
• International Challenges and Approaches

The McGraw-Hill Homeland Security Handbook synthesizes the latest information with unmatched scope and detail and discusses what governments, businesses, and citizens must do to manage the risk of disasters and counter evolving threats.

• Language: English
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education
• Release date: Sep 14, 2012
• ISBN: 9780071790857

Book preview

2011)

PART 1

INTRODUCTION TO PART I: TERRORIST AND CRIMINAL THREATS

This section examines strategic aspects of the evolution of terrorist and hybrid criminal-terrorist threats. This strategic understanding is vital to the success of the homeland security effort.

In the last decade, the terrorist threat has evolved, making it more difficult for law enforcement or the intelligence community to detect and disrupt plots. The jihadist threat is clearly now not limited to the al-Qaeda core group, or organizations with close operational links to al Qaeda. Al Qaeda actions and activities have inspired affiliates (such as al-Shabaab in Somalia, the Tehrik-e Taliban, and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) and other groups and individuals who share its violent ideology to launch attacks. Several countries have experienced attacks and foiled plots by homegrown, self-radicalized terrorists who were exposed to online propaganda. In some cases, these terrorists have had limited discernible links to terrorist organizations—they learned terrorist tactics online or in training camps in places such as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. These operatives are familiar with Western and American culture and security practices, which can increase the likelihood that an attempted attack could be successful.

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross explains the broad contours of al Qaeda’s strategy, and shifts and adaptations that the group made in response to challenges it confronted and opportunities that were presented to it. In the past, poor strategic understanding of al Qaeda’s strategic thinking has contributed to expensive errors, both large (Iraq) and small, in the fight against jihadi foes.

The discovery of notes in Osama bin Laden’s compound indicating that the terrorist leader was contemplating attacking trains in the United States on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 underscores the continuing terrorist threat to public surface transportation. In his chapter, Brian Michael Jenkins discusses the very real terrorist threat to surface transportation and the challenge of securing such public places from attacks using improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

Despite the fact that attacks with explosives are more prevalent than attacks with chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons, we must be prepared for those modes of attack. Senators Graham and Talent offer insights into biological threats. Although naturally occurring disease remains a serious threat, a thinking enemy armed with these same pathogens, or with multi-drug-resistant or synthetically engineered pathogens, could produce catastrophic consequences. Traditional deterrence may not be effective against non-state actors; therefore, the primary means of defending the American homeland against bioterrorism is the capability to effectively respond after an attack has occurred, with appropriate public health, medical countermeasures, and hospital preparedness.

According to Jean-François Gayraud, organized crime and terrorism are converging in such a way that should give rise to deep concern. The real danger of Osama bin Laden’s followers, underestimated before 9/11, was subsequently overestimated. Al Qaeda and the Salafi Jihad Movement have never had the level of organization and menace that the media and some public administrations have thought it necessary to depict. The obsession with Osama bin Laden blinded authorities to emerging and much more pernicious threats from highly intensive criminality from hybrid entities: partly political, predatory, sectarian, religious, and terrorist. Because of their many complex facets and activities, entities such as the Lebanese Hezbollah or the Tamil Tigers from the LTTE, and Sahelian armed groups such as Al Qaeda in the countries of the Islamic Magrheb (AQIM) are ever-more dangerous, resilient, and difficult to understand. This lack of understanding allows them to fall through the cracks of the administrative divisions (the police, the law, intelligence services, customs, etc.) and to blur their true nature in the eyes of the media. They wield the tool of terrorism to exert influence over states that are hindering their activities or being too inquisitive.

John Morrison, too, observes that terrorism can be utilized by politically violent organizations in combination with other tactics. In his chapter on the psychology of terrorism, Morrison suggests that in order to strengthen the foundation for counterterrorism policies and initiatives researchers must study the heterogeneity of roles and other elements of terrorist involvement, from initial engagement right up to disengagement, and everything in between. They must look at both the legal and illegal activities involved in terrorist membership, and at the changing internal and external influences, as well as the fluctuating roles of individual members.

CHAPTER 1

THE LEGACY OF OSAMA BIN LADEN'S STRATEGY

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

Senior Fellow, The Foundation for Defense of Democracies Lecturer in World Politics, The Catholic University of America

INTRODUCTION

Despite numerous reassuring proclamations from pundits and U.S. officials, Osama bin Laden’s death and other recent setbacks that the jihadi group al Qaeda has experienced do not herald the end of this threat. As a UPI special report noted in March 2012, numerous signs suggest that al Qaeda is beginning to rebound, including its geographic gains in Yemen that a U.N. envoy described as alarming, its resurgence in Iraq and North Africa, and reports of an al Qaeda presence in such diverse locales as Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and Ethiopia.¹ Other factors, such as the diffusion of weaponry from Muammar Qaddafi’s former caches in Libya, provide al Qaeda with additional opportunities. Indeed, although some Western analysts have declared the series of events popularly known as the Arab Spring to be a disaster for al Qaeda, the group’s leaders, strategists, and circle of supporters unambiguously believe that the chaos gripping the region provides the organization with new opportunities.²

Because jihadi groups expect to have newfound freedom to operate in the Arab world due to the wrenching changes transforming the region, including a greater ability to evangelize for their militant understanding of Islam, in the near term al Qaeda is likely to focus more of its energy on Muslim-majority countries than on attacks against the West. Another reason that its focus on the West is likely to diminish in the near term, frankly, is that the recent losses that al Qaeda suffered have in fact damaged its ability to execute attacks against the West. This doesn’t mean that the group’s strategic defeat is within reach, as one U.S. official put it.³ Indeed, al Qaeda has proven in the past to be more resilient than Western analysts expected, and its organizational structure continues to maximize its resiliency.⁴

In the end, neither al Qaeda’s current operational weakness nor its growing focus on the Arab world due to the unrest there mean the end of its fight against the West. In addition to the group’s already addressed resilience, recent history shows that a predominant focus on the Muslim world does not prevent al Qaeda from striking at Western targets. Prior to the 9/11 attacks its operating budget was also primarily focused on the Muslim world, and this did not stop it from carrying out the most vicious surprise attack in U.S. history.

In the past, the U.S. often blundered in its fight against al Qaeda due to its inability to understand this foe strategically. So long as this formidable adversary remains alive, it is important in this age of austerity to understand al Qaeda’s strategy for warfare against the West. A critical core of strategic thinkers associated with al Qaeda has developed concepts of guerrilla warfare and Fourth Generation Warfare, based in large part on the works of Western scholars.⁵ But though these thinkers have had varying degrees of influence, al Qaeda’s strategy for its war against America has been primarily codified at top levels, by such individuals as bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri. This strategy has had several distinct but overlapping phases, driven both by paradigms forged in the Afghan–Soviet war and the pressures and opportunities created by the West’s reactions to the jihadi group.

This chapter begins by illuminating bin Laden’s experiences in the Afghan–Soviet war, and how they influenced his understanding of strategic principles for defeating a superpower. The chapter then turns to the development of al Qaeda’s strategy for warfare against the West. This strategy went through four phases that, as previously noted, are distinct in conception but overlap in implementation: carrying out terrorist attacks aimed at undermining the enemy’s economy; embroiling America and its allies in bleeding wars abroad; attacking the global supply of oil; and finally, utilizing a strategy of a thousand cuts focused on smaller yet more frequent attacks.

BIN LADEN AND THE AFGHAN–SOVIET WAR

Osama bin Laden was born in the late 1950s to Mohammed bin Laden, who from humble beginnings in Yemen rose to become a multibillionaire construction magnate and confidant of Saudi Arabia’s royal family. Osama rose to international prominence after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. He traveled to Pakistan in the early 1980s, soon after the Afghan–Soviet war began. Bruce Riedel, a Brookings Institution senior fellow and former CIA officer, notes that once he arrived, bin Laden became a major financier of the mujahedin, providing cash to the relatives of wounded or martyred fighters, building hospitals, and helping the millions of Afghan refugees fleeing to the border region of Pakistan.⁶ But bin Laden’s first trip to the front lines in Afghanistan in 1984 left a lasting impression on him and gave him a thirst for more action. In 1986, he established a base for Arab fighters near Khost in eastern Afghanistan, where the Soviets had a garrison.

Bin Laden and his comrades-in-arms were attacked by the Soviets in the spring of 1987. They unexpectedly held their ground for about three weeks in the face of several attacks by Russian special forces (spetsnaz), until bin Laden and several companions were able to flee to safety. This intense combat launched bin Laden to prominence in the Arab media as a war hero.⁷ Although bin Laden subsequently emphasized his role in the conflict, every serious history concludes that the Afghan Arabs, fighters from the Arab world who traveled to South Asia, were not a real factor in Russia’s defeat. Nonetheless, bin Laden’s time on the Afghan battlefield was a formative experience that shaped the approach he would take when running al Qaeda.

Russia didn’t just withdraw from Afghanistan in defeat; the Soviet empire itself collapsed soon thereafter, in late 1991. Thus, bin Laden thought he had not only bested one of the world’s superpowers on the battlefield, but also played an important role in its demise. From the view that he had played a critical role in causing the Soviet empire to fall, we can discern two further aspects of bin Laden’s thought. The first is the centrality of economics to his fight against a superpower. It is indisputable, after all, that the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan did not directly collapse the Soviet Union. The most persuasive connection that can be drawn between that war and the Soviet empire’s dissolution is through the costs imposed by the conflict. Indeed, bin Laden spoke of how he used guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahedin, bled Russia for ten years, until it went bankrupt.⁸

This may seem like an implausible propaganda piece. But there are reasonable constructions of this argument, holding that that the costs imposed by the Afghan–Soviet war prevented the Soviet Union from adapting to other economic challenges, such as grain shortages and the declining world price of oil (the Soviet Union depended economically on its oil exports).⁹ Certainly bin Laden perceived economics as central to defeating a superpower based on his experiences in that war. For example, in October 2004, bin Laden said that just as the Afghan mujahedin and Arab fighters had destroyed Russia economically, al Qaeda was now doing the same to the United States, continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy.¹⁰ In a September 2007 video, bin Laden claimed that thinkers who study events and happenings were now predicting the American empire’s collapse. Comparing President Bush to Leonid Brezhnev, the architect of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, bin Laden said, The mistakes of Brezhnev are being repeated by Bush.¹¹

A second aspect of bin Laden’s strategic thought stemming from his experiences in Afghanistan deals with the breadth of the conflict. The Soviet invasion outraged the Muslim world, including heads of state, clerics, the Arab media, and the man on the street. In January 1980, the foreign ministers of thirty-five Muslim countries, as well as the Palestine Liberation Organization, passed a resolution through the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) declaring the invasion of Afghanistan to be a flagrant violation of all international covenants and norms, as well as a serious threat to peace and security in the region and throughout the world.¹² The OIC expelled Afghanistan’s Soviet-installed regime, and urged all Muslim countries to withhold recognition of the illegal regime in Afghanistan and sever diplomatic relations with that country until the complete withdrawal of Soviet troops. At the time, the Christian Science Monitor described this condemnation of Soviet actions as some of the strongest terms ever used by a third-world party.¹³

The stream of about ten thousand Arabs who flocked to South Asia to help the Afghan cause was a testament to the widespread outrage caused by the invasion. Mohammed Hafez, an associate professor in the American Naval Postgraduate School’s National Security Affairs Department, notes that these Arab volunteers included humanitarian aid workers, cooks, drivers, accountants, teachers, doctors, engineers, and religious preachers. They built camps, dug and treated water wells, and attended to the sick and wounded.¹⁴ There was, of course, also a contingent of Arab foreign fighters, which bin Laden ultimately joined. Nor were the volunteers who went to South Asia the only Arabs to support the Afghan resistance. The jihad was also aided by a donor network known as the golden chain, whose financiers came primarily from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states.¹⁵ Essentially, bin Laden sat at the top of a major multinational organization during the Afghan–Soviet war. Its members included fighters, aid workers, and other volunteers. It enjoyed a media presence, external donors, and widespread support.

Al Qaeda was founded in August 1988, in the waning days of the Afghan–Soviet war.¹⁶ It was created because bin Laden and his mentor, Abdullah Azzam, agreed that the organization they had built during the conflict shouldn’t simply dissolve when the war ended, but rather wanted it to serve as the base (al qaeda) for future mujahedin efforts. The two strategic pillars for fighting a superpower that emerged from that war—the centrality of economics and the importance of broadening the fight—carried over into the organization’s later struggle against the United States.¹⁷

TERRORIST ATTACKS AND THE ECONOMY

Bin Laden’s attacks on the United States before 9/11 did not have much of an economic impact. The greatest costs inflicted by al Qaeda attacks before September 2001 came from the August 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which prompted the State Department to initiate a $21 billion program to replace 201 different facilities that it regarded as either dilapidated or insecure.¹⁸ But the economic damage caused by 9/11 dwarfed that of previous attacks, a fact that was not lost on bin Laden.

Bin Laden’s perception of the 9/11 attacks was elucidated at length in an October 21, 2001, television interview that he gave to Al Jazeera’s Taysir Allouni. The wide-ranging interview, conducted shortly after the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan began, is significant contemporaneous evidence of what bin Laden intended to accomplish through the 9/11 attacks.¹⁹ When bin Laden was asked to speak of the attacks’ impact, his first observation concerned the economic damage they caused. According to their own admissions, he said, referring to the Americans, the share of the losses on the Wall Street market reached 16%. They said that this number is a record, which has never happened since the opening of the market more than 230 years ago.

Bin Laden then provided an extended exposition of the actual economic numbers, as well as associated costs, which shows he had given much thought to the economic implications of 9/11. The gross amount that is traded in that market reaches $4 trillion, he said. So if we multiply 16% [by] $4 trillion to find out the loss that affected the stocks, it reaches $640 billion of losses from stocks, with Allah’s grace.

He knew, though, that the direct damage to America’s stock market was not the only economic impact. He also factored in lost productivity, as well as building and construction losses, and gloated about all the lost American jobs—stating that 170,000 employees were fired from the airline industry, and the InterContinental Hotel chain had been forced to cut 20,000 jobs. So taking into account the second- and third-order consequences, bin Laden calculated that the cost to the United States was no less than $1 trillion by the lowest estimate. Bin Laden may in fact have been conservative on this point. As former CIA officer Bruce Riedel has noted, the property damage and lost productivity caused by the 9/11 attacks probably cost more than $100 billion. When factoring in lower profits and economic volatility, Riedel writes that the price tag is as high as $2 trillion according to some estimates.²⁰

In a video released in October 2004, bin Laden amplified this analysis by pointing out how much damage 9/11 inflicted upon the U.S. in comparison to the much smaller costs that al Qaeda incurred in executing them. Al Qaeda spent $500,000 on the event, he said, while America, in the incident and its aftermath, lost—according to the lowest estimate—more than $500 billion, meaning that every dollar of al Qaeda defeated a million dollars.²¹

BLEEDING WARS

A second facet of al Qaeda’s economic strategy for combating the United States has been to embroil it in bleeding wars overseas. Bin Laden also explicitly referred to this in his public speeches.

The U.S. had a clear interest in taking military action in Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks: to deprive al Qaeda of the sanctuary that the Taliban then provided it. The United States began its bombing campaign on October 7, 2001. When it inserted troops later in the month, America did not enter Afghanistan with a heavy footprint. Rather, the U.S. attacked with a light force, consisting of about 300 Special Forces soldiers and 110 CIA officers who liaisoned with tens of thousands of fighters from the Northern Alliance, a group based in northern Afghanistan that opposed the Taliban. The Taliban had no response to American airpower, which devastated their ranks. The combination of U.S. airpower and the light counterattack toppled the Taliban from power within weeks.

But exploration of further military options against Iraq began almost immediately after the 9/11 attacks, and in November 2001 the Pentagon began formally considering plans to attack Iraq. As the United States prepared to topple its then-president Saddam Hussein, CIA specialists and Special Forces units alike were reassigned from Afghanistan to Iraq.

The Iraq war was explicitly portrayed as a part of the war on terror, and indeed almost certainly would not have occurred absent the 9/11 attacks. As Patrick Clawson, a Middle East expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, has noted, those who argued that the administration came into office determined to attack Iraq—such as former Treasury secretary Paul O’Neill—failed to grasp the actual thrust of President Bush’s early policies. What O’Neill doesn’t notice is that those who wanted to go to war lost, and those who supported ‘smart sanctions’ won, Clawson said.²²

The U.S. did not possess a proper understanding of al Qaeda’s strategy at the time it decided to go to war in Iraq: official documents from the first five years of the war on terror show that top analysts too frequently perceived the jihadi group as simply incapable of strategic thought.²³ But a proper understanding of al Qaeda’s strategic thinking would have suggested that invading Iraq was a poor move with respect to the jihadi group, and could prove disastrous. Bin Laden, as outlined above, had two major ideas about how to defeat America, and the Iraq war provided al Qaeda opportunities on both fronts. In terms of al Qaeda’s economic strategy, the Iraq war was extremely expensive. It will, when all is said and done, cost the United States more than a trillion dollars in direct budgetary outlays. Moreover, the Iraq invasion helped the other major element of al Qaeda’s strategy by feeding its overarching narrative that Islam itself was under attack by the United States and other forces of disbelief.

Long before the financial crisis hit, bin Laden recognized that the invasion of Iraq played into his strategy of economic warfare. He spoke of this in a major address that Al Jazeera broadcast on October 29, 2004, days before the U.S. presidential election—at a time when many Americans thought that the al Qaeda leader was already dead. Bin Laden stood at a podium in the video, his beard gray, wearing a white turban and white tunic covered by a gold cloak. He addressed the American people directly. The overarching theme was how al Qaeda was succeeding in its strategy of bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. He said that it was easy to bait the U.S., that al Qaeda needed only to send two mujahedin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al Qaeda, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses.²⁴

But bin Laden said also that al Qaeda alone was not responsible for America’s coming defeat. Rather, the policy of the White House that demands the opening of war fronts to keep busy their various corporations—whether they be working in the field of arms or oil or reconstruction—has helped al Qaeda to achieve these enormous results.²⁵ Thus, he said, it has appeared to some analysts and diplomats that the White House and us are playing as one team towards the economic goals of the United States, even if the intentions differ. He referred to America’s astronomical budget deficit as evidence of the success of the bleed-until-bankruptcy plan. So, while al Qaeda had gained since 9/11, bin Laden said the Bush administration had gained too, as can be seen by the size of the contracts acquired by the shady Bush administration-linked mega-corporations, like Halliburton.

Who has lost? The real loser, bin Laden said, is you. It is the American people and their economy.

THE WAR ON OIL

On March 24, 2010, Saudi Arabia announced the arrest of 113 alleged al Qaeda militants whom it claimed were planning attacks on oil facilities. We have compelling evidence against all of those arrested, that they were plotting terrorist attacks inside the kingdom, Mansour al Turki, a spokesman for Saudi security services, told Reuters.²⁶

Initial arrests in Arab states often constitute bloated sweeps, with innocents who were caught in the net quietly released later. Despite this, the report that terrorists in Saudi Arabia had focused on oil targets was unsurprising. Between 2004 and the mass arrests in March 2010, al Qaeda had come to see attacks against oil facilities, particularly in Saudi Arabia, as a critical aspect of their economic warfare strategy—and justifiably so, as the United States is the world’s largest oil importer, consuming around 21 million barrels each day. Though the percentage of oil the U.S. imports has declined in recent years, in part due to increased domestic oil and gas production, the U.S. still imports 45% of the petroleum it uses.²⁷

Bin Laden did not always see attacks on oil as part of his fight against America. When he first declared war against the U.S. in 1996, bin Laden specified that oil was not one of al Qaeda’s targets because the resource was a large economical power essential for the soon to be established Islamic state.²⁸ That is, bin Laden was looking toward al Qaeda’s ultimate goal of reestablishing the caliphate. When the caliphate was declared, it would benefit from its control of a significant portion of the world’s oil.

But the events and reactions that the 9/11 attacks set in motion made clear that the U.S. strategy for fighting al Qaeda was very costly. This may have influenced a change in jihadi strategy pertaining to oil. An early indication that jihadi thinkers were beginning to see oil as a desirable target was a treatise entitled The Laws of Targeting Petroleum-Related Interests and a Review of the Laws Pertaining to the Economic Jihad, which was posted online in March 2004. Written by al Qaeda strategist Rashid al Anzi, this document argued for the legitimacy of attacks against oil facilities.²⁹ After the publication of Anzi’s treatise, bin Laden came around to a similar understanding of the permissibility of attacking oil targets, as expressed in an audio address entitled Depose the Tyrants, which was released in December 2004.

Bin Laden’s new call to attack oil targets echoed throughout al Qaeda’s ranks. In a December 2005 video, Ayman al Zawahiri asked al Qaeda fighters to focus their attacks on the stolen oil of the Muslims. Referring to the purchase of oil at then-market prices as history’s greatest theft, he continued, The enemies of Islam are consuming this vital resource with unparalleled greed. We must stop this theft any way we can, in order to save this resource for the sake of the Muslim nation.³⁰ Sawt al Jihad, the now-defunct online magazine of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), claimed in February 2007 that cutting the U.S. oil supply through terrorist attacks would contribute to the ending of the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.³¹

Jihadi discussions of attacks on the oil supply are not just rhetoric. Of particular concern are Saudi Arabian facilities, which are a point of vulnerability for the entire world economy. Saudi Arabia is critical to world oil markets. It produces almost 10 million barrels per day, and is the only country able to maintain an excess production capacity of around 1.5 million barrels per day (a swing reserve) in order to keep world prices stable. Saudi production is vulnerable to attack, however, because it depends on a limited number of hubs.³²

Several incidents show how jihadi terrorists are attempting to exploit this vulnerability. The first incident occurred in September 2005, when a 48-hour shootout with Islamist militants at a villa in the Saudi seaport of al Dammam ended with Saudi police introducing light artillery. When the police entered the compound to conduct a search in the aftermath of the fight, they found not only what Newsweek described as enough weapons for a couple of platoons of guerilla fighters, but also forged documents that would have given the extremists access to the country’s key oil and gas facilities.³³

The most significant security incident to date targeting Saudi facilities came a few months later, on February 24, 2006. Terrorists affiliated with AQAP attacked the Saudi Aramco–operated refinery at Abqaiq, which processes two-thirds of Saudi Arabia’s crude oil. Written evidence submitted to Britain’s House of Commons by Neil Partrick, a senior analyst in the Economist Group’s Economist Intelligence Unit, claimed that the terrorists—who wore Saudi Aramco uniforms and drove Saudi Aramco vehicles—managed to enter the first of three perimeter fences surrounding the refinery. They were fired upon only as they approached the second fence. Partrick wrote that either the terrorists had inside assistance from members of the formal security operation of the state–owned energy company in acquiring the vehicles and uniforms, or else security was sufficiently [lax] that these items could be obtained and entry to the site obtained.³⁴ Needless to say, neither possibility is reassuring—although the U.S. has made efforts since then to bolster the security of Saudi facilities.

There have also been several significant arrests since the February 2006 attempt on Abqaiq, including the March 2010 arrest of 113 alleged militants that opened this section. If there were a catastrophic attack on key Saudi oil installations, the impact on the world economy would be tremendous. As former CIA case officer Robert Baer writes, A single jumbo jet with a suicide bomber at the controls, hijacked during takeoff from Dubai and crashed into the heart of Ras Tanura, would be enough to bring the world’s oil-addicted economies to their knees, America’s along with them.³⁵

THE THOUSAND CUTS

The dramatic collapse of the U.S. economy in September 2008 signaled a new, more perilous era for America. It also ushered in a new phase in al Qaeda’s strategy for combating the United States.

Put simply, the collapse made the country seem mortal. When bin Laden declared war on America in 1996, he explained that the U.S. economy was the driver of the country’s military dominance—and after September 2008, it seemed that the U.S. economy had actually been shattered, dramatically weakening America’s global position. The perception that the economic collapse made America mortal is apparent throughout the ranks of jihadi spokesmen, as well as the rank and file. Due to this jihad, the U.S. economy is reeling today, the late Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al Awlaki said in an interview that posted to the Internet in May 2010. America cannot withstand this Islamic nation. It is too weak. America’s cunning is weaker than a spider web.³⁶

Because of this perception of America’s mortality, al Qaeda and its affiliates came to believe that their economic strategy could benefit from a relatively simple adaptation. Whereas once the United States wouldn’t have been bothered by anything but the most dramatic blows, the weakened economy meant that even smaller attacks could have a large impact. This new phase was described as the strategy of a thousand cuts in the November 2010 issue of AQAP’s English-language online magazine Inspire—an issue commemorating a plot attempted the previous month, in which two bombs disguised as ink cartridges were successfully placed on FedEx and United Parcel Service planes. The bombs were subsequently flown on passenger planes before ultimately being discovered due to a tip from Saudi Arabian intelligence. Although that issue of Inspire represents the best articulation of this new phase in al Qaeda’s strategy, the basic contours were evident even before November 2010.

The cover of Inspire’s November 2010 issue features a photo of a UPS plane and the headline $4,200. That pithy headline provides deep insight into the direction that al Qaeda’s strategy has taken, referring to the great disparity between the cost of executing the ink cartridge plot (and indeed, terrorist attacks more generally) and the cost to Western countries of playing defense. Anwar al Awlaki explains that AQAP settled on the idea of attacking cargo planes because of the principle that if your opponent covers his right cheek, slap him on his left.³⁷

Awlaki explained, The air freight is a multi-billion dollar industry. FedEx alone flies a fleet of 600 aircraft and ships an average of four million packages per day. It is a huge worldwide industry. For the trade between North America and Europe, air cargo is indispensable and to be able to force the West to install stringent security measures sufficient enough to stop our explosive devices would add a heavy economic burden to an already faltering economy. Inspire lucidly explains that large strikes, such as those of 9/11, are no longer required to defeat the United States. To bring down America we do not need to strike big, it claims. In such an environment of security phobia that is sweeping America, it is more feasible to stage smaller attacks that involve less players and less time to launch and thus we may circumvent the security barriers America worked so hard to erect.³⁸

These attacks do not even have to be carried out by recognizable members of al Qaeda. Al Qaeda the organization is attempting, in this phase of its strategy, to more effectively harness al Qaeda the idea by prompting those who share its ideology to lash out on their own. The organization can harness the idea of al Qaeda by encouraging its self-motivated supporters to focus on targets that will advance the organization’s strategy of warfare. Indeed, al Qaeda spokesmen are already doing just that. For example, in a March 2010 video message, Adam Gadahn praised Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan and encouraged other Muslims to follow his example. Although Hasan’s target was not economic, Gadahn linked this emulation of Hasan by other would-be jihadis to the economy, saying that by copying the Fort Hood attack his audience could further undermine the West’s already struggling economies with carefully timed and targeted attacks on symbols of capitalism which will again shake consumer confidence and stifle spending.³⁹

Gadahn continued in this vein in a 100-minute video released in June 2011, urging Muslims to buy guns and attack targets of opportunity in the United States.⁴⁰ The video emphasized economic targets, displaying the logos of Exxon, Merrill Lynch, and Bank of America, while encouraging these strikes. Indeed, rank-and-file jihadis and their online supporters seem to have internalized the importance of economic targets, based on a review of their discussions.

In this new strategy of a thousand cuts, whether attacks succeed in killing infidels is somewhat, though not completely, beside the point. If an attack breaches the enemy’s security, it will significantly drive up costs, even if it kills nobody and inflicts no structural damage. As Awlaki noted in Inspire, blowing up cargo planes in the ink-cartridge plot would have made us very pleased but according to our plan and specified objectives it was only a plus.⁴¹ The attack could be considered a success, in his estimation, even without killing anybody.

Other jihadi statements also reflect an awareness that even failed attacks can achieve their objectives. In March 2010, for example, Gadahn explained that attacks that kill nobody can still bring major cities to a halt, cost the enemy billions and send his corporations into bankruptcy.⁴² The notion that success can be attained solely through driving up security costs, without actually destroying the enemy’s targets, has also been embraced by al Qaeda’s online supporters. One message making this point at length was posted to the Al Fallujah Islamic Forums in December 2009. The author mockingly addressed the security services monitoring the web forum, asking them to write the following in their reports:

A Very Serious Threat

Source: A Radical Islamist Forum

Warn them that they must protect every federal building and skyscraper, such as: Library Tower (California), Sears Tower (Chicago), Plaza Bank (Washington State), the Empire State Building (New York), suspension bridges in New York, and the financial district in New York.

Nightclubs frequented by Americans and the British in Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia (especially our dear Bali Island), the oil company owned by the former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in Sumatra (Indonesia), and U.S. ships and oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, Gibraltar, and the Port of Singapore.

Let us not forget any airport, seaport, or stadium. Tell them to protect [these places] no matter the cost, day and night, around the clock throughout Christmas and the holiday season.⁴³

The point is clear: Security is expensive, and driving up costs can wear down Western economies. These economies can be harmed by failed attacks, or even phantom threats. Indeed, the message goes on to encourage the United States not to spare millions of dollars to protect these targets by increasing the number of guards, closely searching all who enter and exit the enumerated locations, and even preventing flying objects from approaching the targets. Tell them to stop anything that moves on land, flies in the air, and swims on or under the river, it says. Tell them that the life of the American citizen is in danger, and that his life is more significant than billions of dollars. ... Hand in hand, we will be with you until you are bankrupt and your economy collapses.

CONCLUSION

Al Qaeda’s core has been hammered hard in the past two years and diminished. But its weakened core is complemented by resurgent affiliates, including those that control significant portions of Yemen and Somalia. These affiliates, faced with new opportunities and challenges due to the Arab Spring, will likely devote more of their energies to that region than was previously the case.

Despite this, Western countries will not disappear as operational targets. Al Qaeda and its affiliates will likely continue to pursue a strategy of a thousand cuts against their Western adversaries, combining smaller attacks designed to drive up security costs with occasional large-scale plots that could have a bigger impact, but that also have a lesser chance of success. This is the mode of combat against Western states that al Qaeda and its affiliates adopted in the years leading up to bin Laden’s death.

In the past, the U.S. has often had a poor strategic understanding of al Qaeda. This contributed to errors, both large (Iraq) and small. Now that we are in an era of severely constrained resources, America cannot afford the kind of blunders that it made during the early parts of its fight against its jihadi foes. This chapter has described the blueprint of al Qaeda’s strategic thinking: its major principles prior to the 9/11 attacks, and how its strategic thought has evolved since, in large part as a response to challenges it confronted and opportunities that were presented to it. Certain policy prescriptions can attempt to address al Qaeda’s twin reliance on economic attrition-based warfare and broadening its conflict against the United States.⁴⁴ But while points of policy can be debated, the importance of knowing this foe’s strategy cannot. American planners should understand the broad contours of al Qaeda’s strategy, and recognize shifts and adaptations that the group is making, in order to craft better plans for countering it. In fact, devoting more governmental assets to the neglected field of jihadi strategic studies may well be a good investment, one that could pay significant dividends in the long run.

NOTES

1. Signs Are al Qaeda Is on the Move Again, UPI, March 13, 2012.

2. For examples of commentary declaring the Arab Spring to be a disaster for al Qaeda, see Neal Conan, Bergen Correctly Predicted bin Laden’s Location, interview with Peter Bergen, National Public Radio, May 3, 2011; Fawaz Gerges, The Rise and Fall of al Qaeda: Debunking the Terrorism Narrative, Huffington Post, January 3, 2012; Dan Murphy, Bin Laden’s Death Puts Exclamation Mark on al Qaeda’s Demise, Christian Science Monitor, May 3, 2011. For an extended look at the opportunities that salafi jihadis see in the events of the Arab Spring, see Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Tara Vassefi, Perceptions of the ‘Arab Spring’ within the Salafi Jihadi Movement (unpublished manuscript, draft dated February 16, 2012).

3. Elizabeth Bumiller, Panetta Says Defeat of al Qaeda is ‘Within Reach,’ New York Times, July 9, 2011.

4. See Derek Jones, Understanding the Form, Function, and Logic of Clandestine Insurgent and Terrorist Networks: The First Step in Effective Counternetwork Operations, Joint Special Operations University (forthcoming, 2012).

5. These thinkers include Abd al Aziz al Muqrin, Abu Bakr Naji, Abu Ubayd al Qurashi, and Abu Musab al Suri. See Michael W. S. Ryan, The Deep Battle: Decoding al Qaeda’s Strategy Against America (unpublished manuscript, December 10, 2011).

6. Bruce Riedel, The Search for al Qaeda: Its Leadership, Ideology, and Future (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2008), 42.

7. Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New York: Penguin Books, 2004), 163.

8. Bin Laden Addresses American People on Causes, Outcome of 11 Sep Attacks, trans. Open Source Center, Al Jazeera, October 29, 2004.

9. See Yegor Gaidar, The Soviet Collapse: Grain and Oil, American Enterprise Institute, April 19, 2007.

10. Bin Laden Addresses American People, Al Jazeera.

11. Osama bin Laden, The Solution, trans. Nine Eleven Finding Answers (NEFA) Foundation, video, September 7, 2007, http://www.nefafoundation.org/file/FeaturedDocs/2007_09_08_UBL.pdf.

12. Declaration, 1st Extraordinary Session of the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers, Islamabad, Pakistan, January 27–29, 1980.

13. James Dorsey, Islamic Nations Fire Broadsides at Soviet Military Interventions, Christian Science Monitor, January 30, 1980.

14. Mohammed M. Hafez, Jihad after Iraq: Lessons from the Arab Afghans Phenomenon, CTC Sentinel (Combating Terrorism Center at West Point), March 2008.

15. 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), 55.

16. Indictment, United States v. Arnaout, 02 CR 892 (Northern District of Illinois, 2002), 2.

17. For a description of al Qaeda’s evolution from an organization focused on the threat that Communism posed to the umma into one that primarily targeted the United States, see Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Bin Laden’s Legacy: Why We’re Still Losing the War on Terror (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2011), 23–24.

18. U.S. Government Accountability Office, Embassy Construction: State Has Made Progress Constructing New Embassies, but Better Planning Is Needed for Operations and Maintenance Requirements (June 2006), 1.

19. Taysir Allouni, A Discussion on the New Crusader Wars, trans. Open Source Center, Al Jazeera, October 21, 2001.

20. Bruce Riedel, The Search for al Qaeda: Its Leadership, Ideology and Future (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2008), 1.

21. Bin Laden Addresses American People, Al Jazeera.

22. Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (New York: Penguin Books, 2006), 28.

23. See discussion in Gartenstein-Ross, Bin Laden’s Legacy, pp. 40–43.

24. Bin Laden Addresses American People, Al Jazeera.

25. Ibid.

26. Souhail Karam, Riyadh Says Arrested Militants Planning Oil Attacks, Reuters, March 24, 2010.

27. Neela Banerjee, U.S. Report: Oil Imports Down, Domestic Production Highest Since 2003, Los Angeles Times, March 12, 2012.

28. Osama bin Laden, Declaration of Jihad against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Mosques, trans. Open Source Center, August 23, 1996.

29. Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia: Excerpts from ‘The Laws of Targeting Petroleum-Related Interests,’ GlobalTerrorAlert, March 2006.

30. Newly Released Video of al Qaeda’s Deputy Leader Ayman al Zawahiri’s Interview to al Sahab TV, Middle East Media Research Institute, No. 1044, December 8, 2005.

31. Quoted in Group Suggests Striking Oil Facilities in Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela, Jerusalem Post, February 15, 2007.

32. See Gal Luft and Anne Korin, Terror’s Next Target, Journal of International Security Affairs, December 2003.

33. Christopher Dickey, Saudi Storms, Newsweek, October 3, 2005.

34. Neil Partrick, testimony to the House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, March 2006. Diplomatic cables subsequently released by WikiLeaks further bolster Partrick’s account. See Kevin G. Hall, WikiLeaks Cables Show Worry about Saudi Oil Security, McClatchy Newspapers, June 15, 2011.

35. Robert Baer, Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), xxv.

36. Yemeni-American Jihadi Cleric Anwar al Awlaki in First Interview with al Qaeda Media Calls on Muslim U.S. Servicemen to Kill Fellow Soldiers, Middle East Media Research Institute, release no. 2480, May 23, 2010.

37. Head of Foreign Operations [Anwar al Awlaki], The Objectives of Operation Hemorrhage, Inspire, November 2010, 7.

38. Editorial, Inspire, November 2010, 4.

39. Adam Gadahn, A Call to Arms, video, March 2010.

40. ’What Are You Waiting For’: U.S. Born al Qaeda Spokesman Calls on Americans to ‘Buy Guns and Start Shooting People,’ Daily Mail (London), June 4, 2011.

41. Awlaki, The Objectives of Operation Hemorrhage.

42. Gadahn, A Call to Arms.

43. Threat Message on Jihadist Forum Names U.S., International Targets, Open Source Center summary in Arabic, December 31, 2009.

44. For my own extended thoughts on this point, see Gartenstein-Ross, Bin Laden’s Legacy, pp. 201–32.

CHAPTER 2

THE TERRORIST THREAT TO SURFACE TRANSPORTATION: THE CHALLENGE OF SECURING PUBLIC PLACES

Brian Michael Jenkins

Director of the National Transportation Security Center at the Mineta Transportation Institute

INTRODUCTION

The discovery of notes in Osama bin Laden’s compound indicating that the terrorist leader was contemplating attacking trains in the United States on the tenth anniversary of September 11 underscores the continuing terrorist threat to public surface transportation.

Public surface transportation—trains and stations, buses and bus depots, even groups of people waiting at bus stops—offers terrorists an attractive target: easy access and easy escape, concentrations of people in confined environments that enable an attack to achieve the high body counts terrorists seek, and confined environments that can enhance the effects of explosives and unconventional weapons. This poses enormous challenges for security.

THE THREAT IS REAL

The terrorist threat to public surface transportation is real. While terrorists remain obsessed with attacking commercial aviation, they regard surface transportation as a killing field. Between September 11, 2001 and December 31, 2011, terrorists carried out 75 attacks on airliners and airports worldwide, causing 157 deaths. During the same period, terrorists carried out nearly 1,804 attacks on surface transportation, most of them against bus and train targets, killing more than 3,900 people. (This does not include attacks in war zones like Afghanistan and Iraq.)¹

While terrorists recently have attacked aviation targets less often, they have been attacking surface transportation more frequently. Between 1970 and 1979, terrorists carried out a total of 15 surface transportation attacks that caused fatalities. (Only incidents with fatalities are included to avoid apparent increases that are due solely to better reporting.) The number grew to 43 attacks with fatalities in the 1980s, 281 in the 1990s, and 465 in the decade between 2000 and 2009.

Many of these attacks involved a few fatalities and did not make headline news, but 11 of them since 9/11 resulted in 50 or more deaths, and three of the attacks (including one carried out by a deranged arsonist) each killed nearly 200 people. The total number of fatalities in these 14 attacks is the approximate equivalent of the fatalities in seven major airline crashes. One can imagine the furor that would have resulted if seven commercial airliners had been brought down by terrorists after 9/11.

The West is not immune. Most of the attacks have occurred in developing countries like India, but there have been attacks on trains and buses in France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Russia, and Japan. Further terrorist plots against surface transportation targets have been uncovered and foiled in the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Australia.

Attacks on surface transportation could also occur in the United States. Since 9/11, there have been seven reported terrorist plots involving attacks on trains in the United States. Authorities reportedly uncovered a plot in 2003 to release poison gas in New York’s subways. In 2004, New York police infiltrated a plot by two men to bomb a mid-Manhattan subway station. In 2006, a terrorist plot was uncovered in Lebanon to blow up train tunnels under the Hudson River. Bryant Vinas, a homegrown recruit to al Qaeda, offered terrorists his assistance in attacking the Long Island Railroad where he once worked, and in 2009, authorities uncovered a mature plot to bomb New York’s subways. Faisal Shazad, the Time Square bomber, initially planned to follow up that attack with a bombing at New York’s Grand Central Station. In 2010, Farooque Ahmed was arrested in an FBI sting operation for planning to bomb Washington’s Metro stations.²

BOMBINGS ACCOUNT FOR THE MOST CASUALTIES

Of 3,150 attacks on public surface transportation between 1970 and 2011, 44 percent were directed against rail targets, including trains, subways, train stations, and tracks; while 48 percent were directed against bus targets, including buses of all types, bus depots, and bus stops. Eight percent were directed against infrastructure, including bridges, tunnels, etc.

Improvised explosive devices are the most common tactic, accounting for 57 percent of the total attacks. All types of explosives including improvised explosive devices, grenades, mines, dynamite, etc. account for more than two-thirds of all attacks.³ Shootings and armed assaults account for 14 percent. Incendiary devices and other forms of arson account for 10 percent of all attacks. Mechanical means of sabotage (mostly of rails) account for less than two percent.

Bombings are generally the most lethal form of attack and account for more than 60 percent of the nearly 8,000 fatalities in surface transportation attacks since 1970. This statistic is underscored by spectacular attacks like the 1980 bombing of the Bologna train station, which killed 85 people; the 2003 Stavropol train bombing in Russia, which killed 40; the 2004 Madrid commuter train bombings, which killed 191; the 2004 Moscow Metro bombing, which killed 41; the 2005 London Transport bombings, which killed 52; the 2006 Mumbai commuter train bombings, which killed 207; the 2009 bombing of the Samjhauta Express in India, which killed 66; and the 2010 Moscow Metro bombing, which killed 40 people.

TERRORIST CAMPAIGNS

These data are informative, but must be seen in their historical context. Many of the attacks on surface transportation targets were components of broader terrorist campaigns. For 25 years, from the 1970s to the 1990s, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) carried out a terrorist campaign attacking rail lines in Northern Ireland and public transportation in England.⁴ In the mid–1990s, terrorists in France carried out a series of bombings aimed at surface transportation, among other targets.⁵ Spain’s Basque separatists (the ETA) were responsible for numerous attempts to derail passenger trains.

Muslim separatists made numerous attempts to derail trains in southern Thailand. The Tamil Tigers carried on a 20-year terrorist campaign in Sri Lanka, frequently targeting public transportation. During the Second Intifada, from 2001 to 2006, Palestinian extremists carried out numerous suicide bombings on Israeli buses.⁶ Chechen separatists bombed and derailed trains in Russia and carried out a number of suicide bombings on Moscow’s metro. India confronted bombings and sabotage campaigns by Muslim extremists, Maoist insurgents, and separatist tribesmen in the Northeastern states. Jihadist fanatics bombed Pakistan’s trains and buses.

Two spectacular terrorist successes—the 2004 Madrid and 2005 London bombings—and most of the foiled terrorist plots in the West during the first decade of the twenty-first century were part of an ongoing global campaign of terrorism directed against a variety of targets in Western nations that were branded by jihadists as enemies. This terrorist campaign was inspired by continuing exhortations from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda communicators, and it was waged by individuals who subscribed to al Qaeda’s ideology, some of whom had trained in its training camps or had learned from information posted on various jihadist websites. This is not to say that the campaign was centrally directed. Some of the terrorist plots were instigated and assisted by al Qaeda or by Pakistan’s Taliban. Others were merely inspired by al Qaeda’s ideology. All, however, appear to have been the products of local initiative—individuals or small groups determined to be part of the global armed struggle, with or without al Qaeda’s direct support. The campaign reached a high point in mid-decade, with three major terrorist attacks on trains in Madrid, London, and Mumbai, and seven foiled plots between 2004 and 2006, after which the activity declined.

This has important implications for security. Protecting vast public systems against terrorist attack is difficult and costly. Much can be achieved by eliminating the source of threat—the terrorists—or at least by degrading their operational capabilities.

CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL ATTACKS WERE AN INITIAL FAD

The early part of the jihadist terrorist campaign (from 2001 to 2004) focused on various forms of chemical attack, reflecting al Qaeda’s own exploration of chemical and biological warfare, possibly inspired by the 1995 nerve gas attack on Tokyo’s subways, which killed 12 people and sent more than 5,000 to hospitals. Three of the four plots to use chemical–biological weapons involved poison gas and one involved ricin.

Given the difficulty of acquiring chemical or biological substances in large quantities, it seems doubtful that any of the plots would have resulted in mass casualties, but the discovery of laboratories and evidence of chemical-weapon tests having been conducted at al Qaeda’s training camps in Afghanistan made it clear that the architects of 9/11 were pursuing an active chemical and biological weapons development effort. It is therefore not difficult to understand official apprehension.

Even if the plots were no more than talk, they say something about terrorist thinking at the time. Al Qaeda’s global terrorist campaign was still in its early stages. The 9/11 attacks encouraged imagination and audacity. Armed with superficial knowledge, the plotters understood that the crowded, confined spaces of subway trains offered an ideal venue for the dispersal of poison gas and lethal toxins. Even if only handfuls of people died, the novelty and terrible effects of these invisible weapons would cause panic and widespread alarm.⁷

None of the plots succeeded, and by mid-decade, the poison fad was over. Meanwhile, terrorists in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005 demonstrated that by using more-reliable explosive devices on trains and subways, terrorists could achieve the slaughter they desired. Multiple bombs became the new prototype for terrorist attack. This pattern continued through the end of the decade.

WILL TERRORISTS MOVE TOWARD DERAILMENT?

Osama bin Laden’s later notes urged followers to derail speeding passenger trains in the United States. Guerilla fighters and terrorists have frequently attempted to derail passenger trains either by planting bombs on the tracks or by mechanical means such as removing spikes or sections of rails, or loosening fish plates, sometimes succeeding spectacularly as they did in 2010 in India, where coaches from a derailed passenger train were struck by a freight train going in the opposite direction; 141 people died. Maoist Naxalites claimed responsibility for causing the derailment.

The spread of high-speed rail systems appears to offer terrorists new possibilities. The high-speed trains themselves are iconic targets sought by terrorists, while their higher velocity would seem to make derailments potentially more lethal. (Actually, data from high-speed rail accidents suggests that the more rigidly-connected cars of high-speed trains make them less likely to jack-knife or tip over, which is a major source of casualties.) Still, bombs placed on the tracks are on average twice as lethal for high-speed rail as bombs placed in the passenger compartments of high-speed trains. This may be because passenger loads on high-speed trains—per-car and per-train—are much less than slower-speed commuter trains. Terrorists choose between volume—the possibility of high body counts on crowded subways and commuter trains—and velocity—the possibility of a catastrophic derailment of a high-speed train.

Terrorists have attacked high-speed rail systems in Japan, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, and Russia. In 1995, terrorists failed to derail France’s TGV between Lyons and Paris, but in 2009, terrorists succeeded in derailing Russia’s Moscow–St. Petersburg Nevsky Express, killing 27.⁸

AN AVIATION SECURITY MODEL WILL NOT WORK

Protecting public places that, by their very purpose, must be easily accessible to large numbers of people, is extremely difficult. This does not mean that physical security and other countermeasures have no effect.

In retrospect, the enormous investment in aviation security seems to have worked, at least as a deterrent to many terrorist attacks. Between the late 1960s and the late 1970s, an average of nine to ten terrorist airplane hijackings occurred each year. This dropped to an average of six a year in the 1980s, and to three a year between 1987 and 1996. In the past 15 years, there have been only six airplane hijackings, including the four successful hijackings on 9/11.

Several factors in addition to improvements in aviation security contributed to this decline, including the elimination of some terrorist groups and international agreements to prosecute or extradite hijackers. Increased security after 9/11 and, more importantly, a fundamental change in passenger reactions—from passive acceptance to defiant action—oblige terrorists to think twice before attempting a hijacking today.

Terrorist attempts to sabotage airliners also have declined over time, from three to four attempts a year in the 1960s and 1970s to less than two a year in the late 1980s and 1990s. In the past decade, only six attempts have been made to smuggle bombs onto passenger planes and only two onto cargo planes. Unfortunately, the terrorists succeeded in placing their devices on board all eight planes, although they brought down only two of the passenger planes, both in Russia. Security worked here too, albeit indirectly. By forcing terrorists to build smaller, more easily concealed devices using harder to detect components and ingredients, their bombs became less reliable.

But the aviation security model will not work for surface transportation, given the current and even near-term limits of technology. Screening of all train (let alone bus) passengers would be nearly impossible. Even before airline screening was initiated, passengers boarded airliners in single lines on the tarmac, but trains and their stations use multiple, simultaneous access points. Moreover, the difference in the volume of air and train passengers is staggering. New York’s Penn Station alone handles in each morning’s rush hours the same number of passengers that O’Hare International Airport in Chicago handles in 60 hours.

And while airline passengers may be willing to wait 15-20 minutes to be screened for a flight to a distant city, train passengers would not be willing to add that time to their daily commute each way. Also, train systems and stations tend to be more diverse than their airport counterparts, making a uniform approach less likely to work.

Moreover, the cost of screening would be prohibitive. Staffing a force of TSA officers to screen subway and commuter train passengers would require adding $7 to $8 to each fare, which would destroy public surface transportation. Finally, the waiting lines at the security checkpoints themselves would make tempting targets, easy for terrorists to access.

The bottom line is that security that shuts down the public surface transportation system—as an airline-style screening regime would if applied to surface transportation—or that even makes it more vulnerable, is not acceptable.

There is another important conceptual difference between protecting airplanes and protecting trains and buses. Airline security is front-loaded, that is, it aims at deterrence, detection, and prevention. In contrast, surface transportation encompasses a broader spectrum of countermeasures, including deterrence, detection, prevention, mitigation of casualties through the design of coaches and stations, and reducing fatalities by facilitating evacuation and rescue. In the case of armed assaults, rapid intervention can prevent further killing. The multitude of entry points and volumes of passengers limit what can be done at the front end, but there are still opportunities to save lives even after a terrorist event.

SURFACE TRANSPORTATION SECURITY MUST BE REALISTIC

Security for surface transportation protection has lagged behind airport security. It did not really become a major concern until after the 2004 Madrid bombing. Even then, security resources remained limited. Increased police patrols in stations and on trains, random passenger screening, explosives-sniffing dogs, and the installation of working cameras came along slowly. More can be done, of course, but security proposals must be realistic.

Protecting public places that, by their very nature require easy access, is difficult and costly. To be worthwhile, security must provide a net security benefit. The result cannot be a mere diversion of the attack to another equally accessible public place where the attacker can achieve the same results in numbers of casualties. One hundred percent security in surface transportation is not possible. Some risk is unavoidable, just as when we drive our automobiles, but the risk to individual citizens from terrorism is minuscule.

Security must be sustainable. We cannot look forward to the end of terrorism when the security structures erected over the past several decades can be dismantled. Security measures put into place today are likely to become a permanent feature of the landscape. Therefore, they must be sustainable in terms of public acceptance, and costs for operations, maintenance, upgrades, evaluation, and replacement.

Despite these difficulties, measures can be taken to make terrorist planning more difficult, to increase deterrence, and to make responses to terrorist threats rapid and flexible, as well as to improve the effectiveness of responses to attacks.

Rail operators and transit systems have increased the presence of security personnel. They have added cameras to improve surveillance, assist in rapid diagnosis if an event occurs, and deter terrorists who want to avoid capture. Smarter camera systems alert monitors to objects that do not move when they should or to movement where there should be none. Some transportation systems have implemented random passenger screening, which introduces uncertainty for attackers and therefore has deterrent value.⁹

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration has deployed VIPR (Visual Intermodal Prevention and Response) teams to randomly reinforce the security presence