A key objective for policymakers and analysts dealing with terrorist threats is trying to predict the actions that malicious agents may take. A recent trend in counterterrorism risk analysis is to model the terrorists' judgments, as these will guide their choices of such actions. The standard assumptions in most of these models are that terrorists are fully rational, following all the normative...

Decentralized organizational approaches to security provision introduce new challenges for controlling information-sharing practices, safeguarding civil liberties, and ensuring accountability. Department of Homeland Security “fusion centers,” and the multiple organizations and databases that are part of fusion centers, engender an environment in which information is migrating beyond original pu...

Recent large-scale terrorist attacks have raised interest in models for resource allocation against terrorist threats. The unifying theme in this area is the need to develop methods for the analysis of allocation decisions when risks stem from the intentional actions of intelligent adversaries. Most approaches to these problems have a game-theoretic flavor although there are also several intere...

This study explores a novel approach to defining terrorism, and evaluating its potential contributions limitations. The objective is provide comprehensive understanding of the concept by analyzing key features, motivations, impact. proposes new definition terrorism that accounts for complex evolving nature this phenomenon, building on conceptual framework proposed Prof. Alex Schmid Ben Saul. By...

In 2004, the White House and then Congress determined there should be an “Information Sharing Environment” that facilitates the flow of critical information for counterterrorism, related law enforcement, and disaster management activities. That work has been progressing but a major challenge is how to create technologies that: ensure compliance with laws and policies of the federal government, ...

To the extent that there is a tension between counterterrorism efforts and protection of citizens’ privacy, it is useful to understand how it may be possible to design counterterrorism information systems to minimize their impact on privacy. This appendix considers privacy protection from two complementary perspectives—privacy protection that is built into the analytical techniques themselves a...

As a means to settle the Obama liberal-realist debate, this article examines his administration’s counterterrorism strategy, with specific attention given to three of the primary tactics employed since 9/11 to combat terrorists: targeted killings, extraordinary rendition, and torture. In general, most assume the targeted killings program to be realist-driven, while the supposed ban of torture a...

This article introduces a supply-side perspective to the study of counterterrorism, where terrorists are viewed as combining terrorist attacks to achieve an aggregate output (e.g., social anxiety). With this novel approach, the elasticity of substitution, associated with the terrorists’ production function, becomes a key determinant of the effectiveness of deterrence. If this elasticity is larg...

We present a novel model capable of distinguishing between the effects of negative incentives (“sticks”) and positive incentives (“carrots”) for influencing the behavior of intelligent and adaptable adversaries. Utilities are developed for the defender and the terrorist. The defender is assumed to have a unit cost of defense, and unit costs of providing negative and positive incentives. The ter...