Robustness of Optimal Defensive Resource Allocations in the Face of Less Fully Rational Attacker

Hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars have been spent on homeland security since September 11, 2001, while the optimality and effectiveness of those expenditures remain obscure. In this paper, we develop a numerical model a centralized defender (the government) optimal resource allocation among multiple targets, against an attacker (terrorist) who could be either strategic (i.e. rational) or non-strategic. We also study the sensitivities of the optimal defender budget allocation to: (a) the probability that the attacker is strategic and (b) the choices of non-strategic attackers.