A Tale of Two Cities: Approaches to Counter-Terrorism and Critical Infrastructure Protection in Washington, DC and Canberra

摘要

All nations undertake a variety of activities to protect their citizens from the threat posed by terrorism. In the last decade, the requirements of effective counter-terrorism (CT) policy have become more demanding as the result of the changing nature of global terrorism, and the challenges posed by the requirement to protect vulnerable critical national infrastructures (CNI). (Since the events of 11 September 2001, of these policies has taken on an unprecedented importance.) But the approaches taken by different nations regarding national CT and critical infrastructure protection (CIP) policies have varied considerably. In this paper, the authors will examine the approaches to CT and CIP policies adopted by two nations -the United States and Australia - both before and after 11 September 2001. The paper concludes by proposing explanations for the different approaches in CT and CIP policies adopted by the United States and Australia.