The TSA recently announced that most airplane carry-on restrictions will stay in place for at least another year, until new X-ray technology has been fully installed. Surprisingly, one item that will now be permitted on board is a lighter. While it seems crazy to keep people from bringing toothpaste, deodorant, or water on a plane, it doesn’t seem so strange to ban lighters, which could be used to start fires. I wonder whether the lighter manufacturers were lobbying for or against this rule change — on the one hand, having 22,000 lighters confiscated per day would seem good for business; but on the other hand, maybe fewer people will buy lighters if they can’t travel with them.
Hearing about these rules got me thinking about what I would do to maximize terror if I were a terrorist with limited resources. I’d start by thinking about what really inspires fear. One thing that scares people is the thought that they could be a victim of an attack. With that in mind, I’d want to do something that everybody thinks might be directed at them, even if the individual probability of harm is very low. Humans tend to overestimate small probabilities, so the fear generated by an act of terrorism is greatly disproportionate to the actual risk.
Also, I’d want to create the feeling that an army of terrorists exists, which I’d accomplish by pulling off multiple attacks at once, and then following them up with more shortly thereafter.
Third, unless terrorists always insist on suicide missions (which I can’t imagine they would), it would be optimal to hatch a plan in which your terrorists aren’t killed or caught in the act, if possible.
Fourth, I think it makes sense to try to stop commerce, since a commerce breakdown gives people more free time to think about how scared they are.
Fifth, if you really want to impose pain on the U.S., the act has to be something that prompts the government to pass a bundle of very costly laws that stay in place long after they have served their purpose (assuming they had a purpose in the first place).
My general view of the world is that simpler is better. My guess is that this thinking applies to terrorism as well. In that spirit, the best terrorist plan I have heard is one that my father thought up after the D.C. snipers created havoc in 2002. The basic idea is to arm 20 terrorists with rifles and cars, and arrange to have them begin shooting randomly at pre-set times all across the country. Big cities, little cities, suburbs, etc. Have them move around a lot. No one will know when and where the next attack will be. The chaos would be unbelievable, especially considering how few resources it would require of the terrorists. It would also be extremely hard to catch these guys. The damage wouldn’t be as extreme as detonating a nuclear bomb in New York City, of course; but it sure would be a lot easier to obtain a handful of guns than a nuclear weapon.
I’m sure many readers have far better ideas. I would love to hear them. Consider that posting them could be a form of public service: I presume that a lot more folks who oppose and fight terror read this blog than actual terrorists. So by getting these ideas out in the open, it gives terror fighters a chance to consider and plan for these scenarios before they occur.
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You have got be kidding me. Ideas for terrorists?
Think you are being cute? Clever? You are an idiot.
You have got be kidding me. Ideas for terrorists?
Think you are being cute? Clever? You are an idiot.
In Richard Preston’s book, The Cobra Event, his scenario is frightening in its simplicity. A lone terrorist concocts a hybrid virus that spreads like a common cold, but has a very high mortality rate. He produces a lot of the virus in powder form, and then release a bag of it on the New York subway system. It’s very low-risk, and each person who gets infected becomes a carrier spreading the disease in every imaginable direction. That has to be the Center for Disease Control’s nightmare scenario, and would hit most of your five objectives – especially if drops were coordinated simultaneously in many cities at once.
In Richard Preston’s book, The Cobra Event, his scenario is frightening in its simplicity. A lone terrorist concocts a hybrid virus that spreads like a common cold, but has a very high mortality rate. He produces a lot of the virus in powder form, and then release a bag of it on the New York subway system. It’s very low-risk, and each person who gets infected becomes a carrier spreading the disease in every imaginable direction. That has to be the Center for Disease Control’s nightmare scenario, and would hit most of your five objectives – especially if drops were coordinated simultaneously in many cities at once.
Your father and I had exactly the same thought after the DC sniper attacks. Here’s another I had recently: blow up random freeway overpasses and bridges (in a coordinated manner if possible). Very easy to do (roadside bombings in Iraq are proof of that). And if teenage gangbangers can get up onto signs to paint graffitti, it can’t be that hard to get under a highway to plant explosives. And the terror and interruption of commerce would be immense (see Minneapolis).
Your father and I had exactly the same thought after the DC sniper attacks. Here’s another I had recently: blow up random freeway overpasses and bridges (in a coordinated manner if possible). Very easy to do (roadside bombings in Iraq are proof of that). And if teenage gangbangers can get up onto signs to paint graffitti, it can’t be that hard to get under a highway to plant explosives. And the terror and interruption of commerce would be immense (see Minneapolis).
Very interesting piece.
I think one key to triggering a fear response is to play on existing concerns that people have that the government has failed to act on. So my idea would be to send in the terrorist that will execute the random shootings across undefended borders. I would have some of them take a small boat in from a larger vessel off both coasts. I would of course have them come across the border with Mexico. The key, however, would be for the terrorists to get caught and explain how they did it.
Result:
1) Americans lose faith in the government to defend them since border security is already an issue.
2) People would demand a massive expansion of the coast guard, border fences and other major capital allocations
3) States on the coasts, borders would break into vigilante passions
Very interesting piece.
I think one key to triggering a fear response is to play on existing concerns that people have that the government has failed to act on. So my idea would be to send in the terrorist that will execute the random shootings across undefended borders. I would have some of them take a small boat in from a larger vessel off both coasts. I would of course have them come across the border with Mexico. The key, however, would be for the terrorists to get caught and explain how they did it.
Result:
1) Americans lose faith in the government to defend them since border security is already an issue.
2) People would demand a massive expansion of the coast guard, border fences and other major capital allocations
3) States on the coasts, borders would break into vigilante passions