We believe society can use a modified engineering risk management model that frames terrorism as a combination of serial steps that can, if successful, lead to a terrorist event. Like the Nuclear Reactor fault tree, we suggest terrorist events be classified by the magnitude of the consequences based on a combination of property damage, deaths, and fear that each can create. We recommend an assignment of conditional probabilities to each of the steps necessary to complete a terrorist sequence (no matter how crude the estimate) and to calculate the probability of a terrorist event in terms of the serial conditional probabilities associated with each step. While the terrorist is attempting to maximize the combination of fear, property damage and deaths, the counter-terrorist wishes to minimize that combination. Minimization of a particular path can be accomplished by driving one of the conditional probabilities to near zero and thus, the counter-terrorist need not minimize every conditional probability. In contrast, the terrorist must maximize each conditional probability, i.e. he must practice Total Quality Assurance the most expensive solution for his success. This model can provide a method for assessing the value of a wide variety of counter-terrorist activities and provides guidance in the optimum allocation of resources to minimize the combination of fear, property damage and deaths of potential terrorist targets.
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