A mathematical analysis of short-term responses to threats of terrorism

Abstract

A terror threat information model capturing the uncertainty in timing and location of terror attacks is developed to create a mathematical framework for analyzing counterterrorism decision making. Using this framework two important defensive mechanisms, warnings and the deployment of physical resources are studied. Warnings are relatively inexpensive to issue but their effectiveness suffers from false alarms. Physical deployments of trained security personnel can directly thwart attacks but are expensive and need to be targeted to specific locations. By structuring the tradeoffs faced by decision makers in a formal way we try to shed light on an important public policy problem. We show that the interaction between the use of warnings and physical defenses is complex and significant. © 2009 Springer Vienna.