Defense and Security Studies Commons^™

Review, Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden And The American Surveillance State, By Barton Gellman, Patrice Mcdermott

Secrecy and Society

No abstract provided.

Evolving Patterns Of Violence In Developing Countries, Brian Michael Jenkins, Bruce R. Butterworth, Sachi Yagu

Mineta Transportation Institute Publications

In August 2022, MTI issued a report entitled Changing Patterns of Violence Pose New Challenges to Public Surface Transportation in the United States. That report analyzed the frequency and lethality of attacks on public surface transport in economically advanced countries. But what has been going on in non-economically advanced countries – the vast majority of countries in the world? Using the MTI database of Terrorist and Serious Criminal Attacks Against Public Surface Transportation, the authors analyzed attacks against passenger trains and train stations, buses and bus stations and stops, and all rail infrastructure and operating and security personnel in both …

A Program Evaluation Of The Town Of Woodside, Plumas County Fire Safe Council, And Mountain Communities’ Fire Safe Council Defensible Space Projects, Mandeep Gill

Master's Projects

California is one of the most fire-prone regions in the world, with every passing year becoming more hazardous. With a tremendous amount of loss and damage occurring every year due to wildfires, property owners must prepare their homes and structures to withstand fires as much as possible. The best way to achieve this is by building and retrofitting homes with fire-resistant materials and creating defensible space around the property (Cal Fire, n.d.). Although it is the best way to protect one’s property, it is often times difficult for property owners to do so because of financial or physical limitations, or …

Classified: Secrecy And The State In Modern Britain, Diana Clark Gill

Secrecy and Society

No abstract provided.

Is The Transit Industry Prepared For The Cyber Revolution? Policy Recommendations To Enhance Surface Transit Cyber Preparedness, Scott Belcher, Terri Belcher, Eric Greenwald, Brandon Thomas

Mineta Transportation Institute Publications

The intent of this study is to assess the readiness, resourcing, and structure of public transit agencies to identify, protect from, detect, respond to, and recover from cybersecurity vulnerabilities and threats. Given the multitude of connected devices already in use by the transit industry and the vast amount of data generated (with more coming online soon), the transit industry is vulnerable to malicious cyber-attack and other cybersecurity-related threats. This study reviews the state of best cybersecurity practices in public surface transit; outlines U.S. public surface transit operators’ cybersecurity operations; assesses U.S. policy on cybersecurity in public surface transportation; and provides …

Transportation, Terrorism And Crime: Deterrence, Disruption And Resilience, Daniel C. Goodrich, Frances L. Edwards

Mineta Transportation Institute Publications

Abstract: Terrorists likely have adopted vehicle ramming as a tactic because it can be carried out by an individual (or “lone wolf terrorist”), and because the skills required are minimal (e.g. the ability to drive a car and determine locations for creating maximum carnage). Studies of terrorist activities against transportation assets have been conducted to help law enforcement agencies prepare their communities, create mitigation measures, conduct effective surveillance and respond quickly to attacks.

This study reviews current research on terrorist tactics against transportation assets, with an emphasis on vehicle ramming attacks. It evaluates some of the current attack strategies, and …

“Smashing Into Crowds” -- An Analysis Of Vehicle Ramming Attacks, Brian Michael Jenkins, Bruce R. Butterworth

Mineta Transportation Institute Publications

Vehicle ramming attacks are not new. But since 2010 Jihadists have urged their use. Is this the wave of the future, or a terrorist fad? To answer this and other questions the authors expanded and updated the database used in their May 2018 MTI Security Perspective entitled An Analysis of Vehicle Ramming as a Terrorist Threat to include 184 attacks since January 1, 1970. They also reviewed literature and examined some cases in detail. This MTI Security perspective indicates that while not new, vehicle rammings are more frequent and lethal since 2014, although the number of attacks seems to be …

India’S Surgical Strikes: Response To Strategic Imperatives, Karthika Sasikumar

Faculty Publications

In September 2016, militants who were allegedly backed by Pakistan attacked an Indian Army camp in Uri. The government in New Delhi was facing important regional elections. It faced intense public pressure to muster a military response. Such a response, however, ran the risk of triggering a nuclear exchange. Ten days after the Uri attack, India reported that it had carried out ‘surgical strikes’ on terrorist training camps in Pakistan-controlled territory. The paper examines this specific episode in India–Pakistan deterrence dynamics, focusing on the nomenclature ‘surgical strikes’. The paper argues that the choice of the term itself is new and …

An Exploration Of Transportation Terrorist Stabbing Attacks, Brian Michael Jenkins, Bruce R. Butterworth, Jean-François Clair, Joseph R. Trella Iii

Mineta Transportation Institute Publications

In his August 22, 2018 message to supporters of the Islamic State of Iraq and [greater] Syria (ISIS), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi implored ISIS fighters in Syria and Iraq as well as those on various jihadist fronts in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia not to be dismayed by military setbacks suffered by the Islamic State, but to continue fighting, confident that Allah would ultimately reward those who remained steadfast with victory. In the same message, he exhorted homegrown jihadists abroad— “the fierce lions in the lands of the Cross—Canada, Europe, and elsewhere” to carry out simple attacks within their limited …

Managing Cyber Risks & Business Exposure In The Surface Transportation Ecosystem, Jacques R. Francoeur

Mineta Transportation Institute Publications

This report focuses on Surface Transportation (ST), both fixed and route-based, and the growing threats to their information technology (IT) infrastructures. As an industry, ST seeks to optimize the movement of people and goods, while ensuring safety and resiliency and minimizing environmental impact. Cyber threats are a powerful medium for those with the political, social, and economic motivations and wherewithal to disrupt and destroy existing ST systems. The ultimate objective is to develop a new paradigm to define, describe, design, and deploy the most effective protection, at the lowest cost, in the shortest time within the limits of available resources. …

Does “See Something, Say Something” Work?, Brian Michael Jenkins, Bruce R. Butterworth

Mineta Transportation Institute Publications

Do “See Something, Say Something” programs work? The evidence strongly suggests that in the specific case of public surface transportation, the answer is “yes.” Transport staff and passengers play an important role in the prevention of terrorist attacks. By discovering and reporting suspicious objects, they have prevented more than 10 percent of all terrorist attacks on public surface transportation. Detection rates are even better in the economically advanced countries where more than 14 percent of the attempts are detected—and have been improving. This MTI Security Perspective analyzes detections since 1970 and suggests that “See Something, Say Something” campaigns are worthwhile.

Writing The Official History Of The Joint Intelligence Committee, Michael Goodman

Secrecy and Society

This article recounts the experience of a professional historian in being given the keys to the kingdom: access to the classified vaults of Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee. This article includes some of the problems in having access, but complying with the sensitivities around official accounts, difficulties in writing a global history, or trying to make the work of a committee interesting and accessible, and of trying to determine the impact of intelligence on policy.

Historical Amnesia: British And U.S. Intelligence, Past And Present, Calder Walton

Secrecy and Society

Many intelligence scandals in the news today seem unprecedented - from Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, to British and U.S. intelligence agencies monitoring activities of their citizens. They seem new largely because, traditionally, intelligence agencies on both sides of the Atlantic were excessively secretive about their past activities: even the names “GCHQ” and “NSA” were airbrushed from declassified records, and thus missing from major historical works and scholarship on on post-war international relations. The resulting secrecy about British and U.S. intelligence has led to misunderstandings and conspiracy theories in societies about them. Newly opened secret records now …

Collaboration And Research Practice In Intelligence, Minna Räsänen

Secrecy and Society

Close, intensive research collaboration between universities, companies, and the public sector can open up new and different opportunities for qualitative research, and provide analytic and empirical insights that otherwise might be difficult to obtain. The aim of this paper is to explore collaboration as a means of doing research with the intelligence community. Experiences from a research project concerning dilemmas the practitioners face in their organization within the Swedish Armed Forces, serve as a starting point for this reflective discussion. It is argued here that collaboration is suitable when change is required. The mutual learning between the actors feeds into …

Ethnographic Research In The U.S. Intelligence Community: Opportunities And Challenges, Bridget Nolan

Secrecy and Society

This article considers lessons learned from conducting research inside the intelligence community. Drawing on a year of ethnographic field work and interviews at the National Counterterrorism Center, I show that “boundary personnel”- people who navigate between the worlds of academia and national security - provide value added in the form of tacit knowledge that outside researchers would not be able to deliver. At the same time, these people face delays, challenges to freedom of information, and ethical considerations that are unique to their positions. Despite setbacks, social scientists must continue their engagement with national security organizations to further our understanding …

Secrecy Vs. Disclosure Of The Intelligence Community Budget: An Enduring Debate, Anne Daugherty Miles

Secrecy and Society

Little known U.S. congressional documents, dating from the 1970s, debate public disclosure of Intelligence Community (IC) budget. The documents offer a rich repository of the arguments on both sides of the debate and shine a light on the thoughtful, measured congressional oversight practiced in formative years of the House and Senate intelligence committees.

Branding India: Constructing A Reputation For Responsibility In The Nuclear Order, Karthika Sasikumar

Faculty Publications

Nation-branding professionals have the same goal as diplomats and politicians – the goal of endowing the nation with specific qualities in the minds of the target audience, so that it is identified with those qualities. In other words, they are constructing an identity for the country. Insights from the commercial practice of nation branding can illuminate the process of identity construction by states. As an illustration, the paper investigates the case of India’s branding/self-presentation as a responsible holder of nuclear weapons. In 1998, India declared itself a Nuclear Weapon State (NWS). Since India has not been granted NWS status under …

After Nuclear Midnight: The Impact Of A Nuclear War On India And Pakistan, Karthika Sasikumar

Faculty Publications

During the past decade, computer models have predicted that the physical impacts of a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan, or even a single strike on a large city, would be devastating. The social, economic, and political impacts – although less well known – would also be crippling and would reverberate throughout the world. Efforts to use “Armageddon estimates” to scare the people of India and Pakistan have thus far not significantly reduced the risk of nuclear weapons use in this turbulent region. However, the increasing penetration of television and social media may give members of the public a better …

The Challenge Of Protecting Transit And Passenger Rail: Understanding How Security Works Against Terrorism, Brian Michael Jenkins

Mineta Transportation Institute Publications

Terrorists see transit and passenger rail as an attractive target. Designed for public convenience, trains and stations offer terrorists easy access to crowds of people in confined environments where there are minimal security risks and attacks can cause high casualties. This report examines the unique attributes of the terrorist threat, how security measures against terrorism have evolved over the years, and their overall effectiveness.

Does security work? Empirical evidence is hard to come by. Terrorist incidents are statistically rare and random, making it difficult to discern effects. The fact that terrorists focus most of their attacks on targets with little …

Canada (En)Counters Terrorism: Us-Canada Relations And Counter-Terrorism Policy, Veronica Kitchen, Karthika Sasikumar

Faculty Publications

This paper examines the role of identity in shaping counter-terrorism policy in Canada. We show that identity functions in three ways: constitutively by defining the range of choices a state is likely to consider; strategically by being a resource to buttress arguments based in economic or sovereignty interests; and heuristically by using identity as a marker for risk. This three-faceted explanation helps explain why, despite close economic, social, and political links between Canada and the United States which might lead us to expect Canada to follow American counter-terrorism policy, Canadian counter-terrorism policy often diverges from the American lead.