The Future of Anti-Terrorism Technologies
June 6, 2005
The Heritage Foundation
Vice President, Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute
James Jay Carafano is a leading expert in national security and foreign policy challenges.
For most of the 20th century, counterterrorism and technology coexisted in a one-sided relationship. In large part, law enforcement and the military adapted the technologies that were commercially available to their needs.
That relationship may simply be inadequate for addressing the challenges of the 21st century. Meeting the test of terrorism will likely require a more proactive approach to technological innovation-betting on the future: formulating clear requirements, prioritizing needs, establishing cooperative means to foster the development of technologies, and building the human and financial capital programs necessary to transition and sustain them as effective anti-terrorism tools.
In my remarks today, I want to list my "big bets" for the future-six technologies that I believe offer the greatest promise for providing significant advantages in combating terrorism-and address as well the challenge to turning the potential of technology into concrete capabilities.
Why Worry?
Traditional means of developing law enforcement technologies are simply inadequate to deal with today's strategic realities, and the war on global terrorism should top our list of concerns.
While every country may not agree on a definition of terrorism, that does not mean that it does not exist and does not represent a terrible threat to world peace. Nor do terrorists seem concerned about definitional nuances. They have decided they are most certainly at war with us, and they think they are in a war they can win.
We are at war. In fact, the global war on terrorism will be like most wars. It will have casualties and sacrifices, victories, defeats, advances, and setbacks. Progress will not be determined by the outcome of individual battles or campaigns. It will, to a remarkable degree, look much like the Cold War. Like the Cold War, it will be a long, protracted conflict because, despite the preponderance of power held by the nations united in their commitment to combat terrorism, we will not be able to come directly to grips with the enemy-then because it risked nuclear war and annihilation, now because the enemy is too disparate and diffuse to be defeated in climactic battle. We are in another long war.
It is, however, a war of a different kind. There are no frontiers in 21st century national security. Distinguishing clear lines of responsibility between foreign and domestic security is a thing of the past.
Additionally, the age when only great powers can bring great powers to their knees is over. The specter of catastrophic terrorism that could threaten tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in destruction will be an enduring concern. And if catastrophic terrorism is a threat to great countries, the prospects for smaller nations is even more daunting to imagine.
Making Big Bets
Technology is, of course, not the only answer to addressing the specter of transnational terrorism, but the technological answers we have today are inadequate to deal with the scope and potential severity of the threat. Rather than adapting technologies to stay apace of evolving dangers and changing tactics, we need to get ahead of the terrorists and develop "overmatching" security systems that protect the public, safeguard their liberties, and leave travel and commerce unencumbered.
Developing technologies that leap ahead of the terrorists requires vision and strategy, and a good strategy requires hard choices. It begins by establishing criteria for selecting the most crucial technological investments. In my mind, there should be three:
· Seeking out technologies that can contribute to building a true national system that addresses all the challenges of terrorism from intelligence and early warning to domestic counterterrorism and response. It is unlikely that any country will have the resources it needs to address every security shortfall or law enforcement need. Thus, the first priority of a sound strategy should be to invest in technologies that best leverage all the existing capabilities that are available by integrating them into a cohesive system.
· Adopting technologies that get the "biggest bang for the buck." Spending a little research, development, and procurement resources on many things may not buy much of anything. Husbanding and targeting investments on the technologies that can provide the most security for the resources invested, ones that are the most flexible, ones that contribute to addressing a wide range of threats from kidnapping to catastrophic, is a better approach for stealing a march on the terrorists.
· Reaching for "breakthrough" technologies. Terrorist groups have limited resources and limited means; thus, they are quick to refine their methods, improving on time-tested techniques, or improvise, seeking out new ways to strike or new targets to attack. In response, law enforcement officials update their investigatory techniques or implement new security measures. Breaking the cycle of innovation and countermeasures between terrorism and counterterrorism calls for unprecedented innovation with which terrorists can simply not compete.
I want to suggest six candidates that meet these standards. They are (1) system integration technologies; (2) biometrics; (3) non-lethal weapons; (4) data mining and link analysis technologies; (5) nanotechnology; and (6) directed-energy weapons.
In some cases, these technologies are fairly mature but are just finding their counterterrorism niche. Others show great potential but will still require many years of research and development before they are ready to become operational. Yet all share a common characteristic: They offer significant potential solutions to addressing the most pressing counterterrorism concerns.
"National" Technologies
My first two candidates clearly fit the first criterion for a counterterrorism technology strategy. They represent a family of capabilities that are essential for building national capabilities.
System Integration Technologies. One of the highest priorities for technological innovation ought to be simply getting the most out of the resources that are already available. That means adopting a new approach to counterterrorism operations as well as the enabling technologies to support it. This approach is often called "network-centric" operations.
Network-centric operations generate increased operational effectiveness by networking sensors, decision makers, law enforcement officials, and emergency responders to achieve shared awareness, increased speed of command, higher tempo of operations, greater efficiency, increased security and safety, reduced vulnerability to potential hostile action, and a degree of self-synchronization. In essence, this means linking knowledgeable entities from the local to the national levels in an integrated network that addresses counterterrorism missions ranging from intelligence and early warning to response and post-strike investigations and forensic analysis.