Defending against Terrorist Attacks with Limited Resources

This paper develops a framework for analyzing a defender's allocation of scarce resources against a strategic adversary like a terrorist group in four settings: (1) a baseline case in which the sites the defender tries to guard are “independent” in that resources dedicated to protecting one site have no effect on any other site; (2) if the defender can also allocate resources to border defense, intelligence, or counterterrorist operations which, if successful, protect all of the sites; (3) if threats have strategic and nonstrategic components (e.g., the threat to public health from bioterror attacks and the natural outbreak of new diseases); and (4) if the defender is unsure of the terrorists' preferred targets. The analysis characterizes the defender's optimal (equilibrium) allocations in these settings, an algorithm or approach to finding the optimal allocations, and relevant comparative statics. These characterizations provide a general way of thinking about the resource-allocation problem in these settings.

[1]  D. W. Blackett.  Pure strategy solutions of blotto games , 1958 .

[2]  Lawrence Freedman.  The Problem of Strategy , 1980 .

[3]  Martin Shubik,et al.  Systems Defense Games: Colonel Blotto, Command and Control , 1981 .

[4]  Walter Enders,et al.  UN Conventions, Technology and Retaliation in the Fight Against Terrorism: An Econometric Evaluation , 1990 .

[5]  Walter Enders,et al.  The Effectiveness of Antiterrorism Policies: A Vector-Autoregression-Intervention Analysis , 1993, American Political Science Review.

[6]  A. Mas-Colell,et al.  Microeconomic Theory , 1995 .

[7]  Brad Roberts.  America the vulnerable , 1999 .

[8]  Biological terrorism and public health , 2001 .

[9]  James C. Belke.  Chemical accident risks in U.S. industry - A preliminary analysis of accident risk data from U.S. hazardous chemical facilities , 2001 .

[10]  C. Chyba.  Toward Biological Security , 2002 .

[11]  Seth D. Guikema,et al.  Probabilistic Modeling of Terrorist Threats: A Systems Analysis Approach to Setting Priorities Among Countermeasures , 2002 .

[12]  Henry H. Willis,et al.  Estimating Terrorism Risk , 2002 .

[13]  Walter Enders,et al.  Patterns of Transnational Terrorism, 1970–1999: Alternative Time-Series Estimates , 2002, Transnational Terrorism.

[14]  Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger,et al.  Emergency Communications: The Quest for Interoperability in the United States and Europe , 2002 .

[15]  Walter Enders,et al.  PATTERNS OF TRANSNATIONAL TERRORISM , 1970-99 : ALTERNATIVE TIME SERIES ESTIMATES by , 2002 .

[16]  T. Sandler,et al.  Terrorism & Game Theory , 2003 .

[17]  I. M. Destler,et al.  Protecting the American Homeland , 2003 .

[18]  George W Bush,et al.  The National Strategy for the Physical Protection of Critical Infrastructures and Key Assets , 2003 .

[19]  Protecting the American Homeland: One Year On , 2003 .

[20]  T. Sandler,et al.  What do we know about the substitution effect in transnational terrorism , 2003 .

[21]  Donald F. Kettl,et al.  The Department of Homeland Security's first year : a report card , 2004 .

[22]  T. Sandler,et al.  An economic perspective on transnational terrorism , 2004 .

[23]  Todd Sandler,et al.  The calculus of dissent: An analysis of terrorists' choice of targets , 1988, Synthese.

[24]  John D. Moteff.  Risk Management and Critical Infrastructure Protection: Assessing, Integrating, and Managing Threats, Vulnerabilities and Consequences , 2004 .

[25]  T. Sandler,et al.  Too Much of a Good Thing? , 2004 .

[26]  E. Talley,et al.  Optimal Liability for Terrorism , 2005 .

[27]  Michael Chertoff.  Secretary Michael Chertoff U.S. Department of Homeland Security Second Stage Review Remarks [July 13, 2005] , 2005 .

[28]  Gerald G. Brown,et al.  Defending Critical Infrastructure , 2006, Interfaces.

[29]  T. Sandler,et al.  Global Terrorism: Deterrence Versus Pre-Emption , 2006 .

[30]  R. Powell,et al.  Defending Against Strategic Terrorists Over the Long Run: A Basic Approach to Resource Allocation , 2006 .

[31]  B. Roberson.  The Colonel Blotto game , 2006 .

[32]  V. Bier.  Choosing What to Protect , 2007, Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis.

[33]  Cycles and Substitutions in Terrorist Activities: A Spectral Approach , 2007 .

[34]  Ethan Bueno de Mesquita.  Politics and the Suboptimal Provision of Counterterror , 2007, International Organization.

[35]  Michael Chertoff.  Department of Homeland Security. , 2007, Disaster medicine and public health preparedness.

[36]  Scott E. Page,et al.  General Blotto: games of allocative strategic mismatch , 2009 .

[37]  John D Moteff.  Critical Infrastructures: Background, Policy, and Implementation , 2009 .