[Robert's-Theory of Terrorism in Gestalt Psychology] Science and Terrorism
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Robert Nyakundi
Mar 11, 2010, 3:55:02 PM3/11/10
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Post-conference after-thoughts
The World Federation of Scientists conference on terrorism divided into four working
groups:
1. Cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary tools and countermeasures,
2. Cross-disciplinary challenges to the quantification of risk,
3. Cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary community responses, and
4. Cross-cultural evaluation of societal responses.
The last of these groups, under the chairmanship of Ahmad Kamal made a distinction
between responses to the threat of terrorism that are top-down and responses that
are bottom-up: the first being reactionary and defensive, the latter being focused on
the motivations of terrorists.
For most of the conference’s deliberations top-down and bottom-up were kept in
separate compartments. The first group focused on issues of detection, control,
resilience and prevention. The second group focused on ways to quantify the threat
to those on top from those below. And the third group concentrated on preparation
for, and response to, successful acts of terrorism. But at the end of the conference
the fourth group’s concerns were adopted in the form of a consensus that it would be
desirable to form a “cross-cultural”, “multi-cultural” panel.
The remit of such a panel was not clear to this participant. But the use of the word
“culture” in all the group reports alludes to a supposition that conflicting values lie at
the roots of the problem of terrorism. This suggests two approaches to “the problem
of terrorism”: top-down, the dominant culture crushes or controls the weaker; or,
bottom-up, all cultures seek mutual understanding and accommodation.
Assuming that the World Federation of Scientists prefers the latter approach, a first
step for such a panel might be to pursue a framework that contains the diverse
understandings of the words “risk” and “culture” that emerged in the conference
deliberations. The paper below makes some suggestions. It is a revised version of a
paper prepared, before the conference, for the group on risk quantification. Footnotes
have been added (in this font) to highlight issues that might benefit from further
discussion.
I would like to pay tribute to Charles Penn for his superb distillation of the
deliberations of Group 2 – the group addressing the challenges to the quantification
of risk. The after-thoughts presented below are the product of further reflection, not a
challenge to the accuracy of Charles’ representation of our deliberations.
Challenges to the Quantification of the Risks of Terrorism
On starting this paper, I typed “risk” into Google and got 47.7 million hits. Sampling
a small fraction of the millions of websites on which the word is found will reveal that
it means different things to different people. Many arguments could be eliminated
from this literature if people were to be clear about the type of risk under discussion.
Figure 1 presents a typology that I have found useful in clearing away some
unnecessary arguments.
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• Directly perceptible risks are managed using judgment – a combination of
instinct, intuition and experience. We duck if we see something about to hit us
and we do not undertake a formal probabilistic risk assessment before we
cross the road.
• Other risks are perceived with the help of science. Physicists, chemists,
biologists, doctors, engineers, statisticians, actuaries, epidemiologists have all
helped us to see, and manage, risks that are invisible to the naked eye.
• There is a third much larger and more difficult category. Over 80 years ago
Frank Knight in his classic work Risk, Uncertainty and Profit, distinguished
between “risk” – when you know the odds - and “uncertainty” – when you
don’t. This latter category might be termed virtual risk.
Figure 1
Terrorist threats fall into all three circles. Passengers on the London underground,
urged to look out for suspect bags, and airport security personnel conducting fingersearches
of passengers’ luggage rely on direct perception1. Science provides sensitive
scanners, surveillance devices and passenger profiles to assist the separation of
terrorists from the millions of innocent people with whom they mingle2. But the
greatest and most difficult threats of terrorism lie in the virtual circle; here we are in
the realm of competing unconfirmable hypotheses3.
1 Governments of all countries that have identified themselves as likely targets of terrorism
have launched campaigns urging heightened vigilance upon their citizens.
2 Most of the discussion at the conference was focused on applications of science to the
detection, measurement and containment of threats and the denial of access to, or hardening
of, potential targets. The first purpose of Group 2 (the quantification-of-risk group) was to “aid
and inform decision making”.
3 Group 2 acknowledged that some risks cannot, as yet, be quantified, and stressed that “the
limits of quantification should be evident.” But it went on to stress that quantification was
essential to rational decision making - “We need to be able to quantify the risk of harm to
societal values (such as freedom, economy etc) using comparable metrics to the
quantification of both the actuarial and perceived impact of terrorism, so that a risk benefit
analysis on controls and countermeasures can be undertaken.” Unresolved in the group’s
deliberations was the question of whether or not some risks might remain forever beyond the
possibility of quantification. The majority view, conveyed in our report, was that we should
“propose methods for quantifying values such as freedom and national economy, governance
and stability.” I argue below that the pursuit of such methods is futile.
Three kinds of risk
Perceived
through
science
Perceived
directly
Virtual
risk
e.g. climbing
a tree, riding
a bike, driving car
e.g. cholera: need
a microscope to
see it and a
scientific
training to
understand
Scientists don’t
know or cannot
agree: e.g.
BSE/vCJD,
global warming,
low-level
radiation,
pesticide
residues, HRT,
mobile phones,
passive smoking,
stock market ….
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Virtual risks are socially or culturally constructed – when science cannot settle an
argument people are liberated to argue from pre-established beliefs, convictions and
prejudices. They may, or may not be real, but beliefs about them have real
consequences. And, as with directly perceptible risks, when dealing with them we are
forced to fall back on judgment. When virtual risks get mistaken for risks about which
science has clear and useful advice to offer, much confusion results. Pretending we
know the odds when we don’t generates fruitless, often acrimonious, debate.
Managing risk
Let us first look (Figure 2) at the management of directly perceptible risk. The model
postulates that
• everyone has a propensity to take risks;
• this propensity varies from one individual to another;
• this propensity is influenced by the perceived rewards of risk taking;
• perceptions of risk are influenced by experience of accident losses - one's own and
others';
• individual risk-taking decisions represent a balancing act in which perceptions of
risk are weighed against propensity to take risks; and
• accident losses are, by definition, a consequence of taking risks – to take a risk is to
do something that has a probability of an adverse outcome – the more risks people
take, the greater, on average, will be both the rewards they gain and the losses they
incur.
After an accident it is often observed, in head-shaking tones, that the person
responsible did not understand the risk. But if one accepts the above definition of risk,
it is possible to conclude that they did understand the risk – and their number came
up. They were unlucky.4
Figure 2 describes risk management as a form of cost-benefit analysis without the
$signs. Certainly money can be a significant reward, and accidents can lead to its loss.
But the “rewards” and “accidents” boxes are full of many other incommensurable
variables5.
4 The discussions of counter-measures reported by Groups 1 and 3 display, in terms of the
model represented by Figure 2, a profound bottom-loop bias. They focus on reducing
“accidents” and virtually ignore the costs of doing so – both the financial costs of extra
security, but also the opportunity costs. On12 May 2004 associations representing 95% of the
US research community complained in a petition to the Government that post 9/11 visa
restrictions threatened irreparable damage “to our nation’s higher education and scientific
enterprises, economy, and national security”
(http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2004/0512visa.shtml). The unrestrained pursuit of the
precautionary principle allied to a vivid imagination will bankrupt any government and, applied
to the threat of terrorism, sacrifice economic efficiency and civil liberties. Risk management
is a balancing act that must acknowledge the impossibility of zero risk – and the
possibility of bad luck. See “When Bad luck is Good” -
http://www.techcentralstation.com/012104F.html
5 The risks and rewards associated with terrorism include hate, anger, resentment,
humiliation, freedom, triumph, vengeance and, of increasing significance, the rewards of
martyrdom. The prospect of finding a common metric for this mixed bag of variables
would appear remote.
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Figure 2
The risk thermostat
Perception
of risks Accidents
Propensity to
take risks
Balancing
behaviour
Rewards
Money, power,
love, glory, food,
sex, rushes of
adrenaline,
control ...
Money, health,
life, status,
self-esteem,
embarrassment,
jail, loss of control ...
Control and loss of control are highlighted because they create particular difficulties.
Consider the case of mobile phones. The risk associated with using a handset is
contested but, according to the available literature6, would appear to range from tiny
to non-existent. Measured in terms of radiation exposure, the risk associated with the
base stations – unless one is up the mast with one’s ear to the transmitter – is orders of
magnitude less. Yet people are queuing up around the world in their billions to take
the first, voluntary, risk, while almost all the opposition is focussed on the base
stations, which are seen as impositions.
What kills you matters. To the people living close to them, chemical plants and
nuclear reactors are resented as imposed risks – unless you work there, in which case
the risk is usually considered voluntary and perceived as much lower. But these are
benign impositions – no one assumes the plant operators want to murder their
neighbours. Terrorist threats are malignly imposed risks and their evil intent amplifies
the perceived risk still further.
The 191 people killed by the Madrid bombers on 11 March 2004 is equivalent to the
number killed in road accidents in Spain every 12 or 13 days. The grief of families
and friends one might suppose is similar in both cases. The latter tragedies usually
merit only a few column inches in the local press. The former evoked three days of
national mourning in Spain and a 3 minute silence all over Europe.
Other examples:
• In the 25 “busiest” years of “the troubles” in Northern Ireland twice as many
people died in road accidents as were killed by terrorists. Most people in England
have never seen a report on television or in the press about a road accident in
Northern Ireland.
• In Israel between 27 September 2000 and 26 September 2003 622 civilian Israelis
were killed by Palestinian terrorists. The annual road death toll over this period
was about 550.
6 A. Burgess (2004) Cellular Phones, Public Fears, and a Culture of Precaution. Cambridge UP.
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• In the first half of October 2002 two people per day were killed in Washington
and its suburbs. They were killed suddenly and without warning by a stranger they
had never met. There was no discernible pattern in their age, sex or ethnicity.
Their families and friends grieved, but otherwise their fates attracted virtually no
media attention. They were victims of road accidents. Over the same period
someone was killed every other day by the Washington Sniper. Again there was
no discernible pattern amongst the victims chosen by the anonymous killer. Their
fates attracted massive media coverage all around the world and led, far beyond
the vicinity of their occurrence, to extraordinary changes in behaviour – ranging
from a massive policing operation to people jogging to their cars in zigzag
patterns with their groceries in supermarket car parks.
• In 2003, worldwide, 23 Americans were killed by acts of terrorism (compared
with 25 in 2002 and about 2800 in 2001). In each of these years about 42000 were
killed on American highways.
Figure 3 suggests the way in which acceptance of a given actuarial level of risk is
likely to vary with the perceived level of control an individual can exercise over it
and, in the case of imposed risks, with the perceived motives of the imposer. With
“pure” risks, the risk itself, and its associated challenge and rush of adrenaline, is the
reward. With an applied risk such as driving, the reward is getting expeditiously from
A to B. Cycling from A to B (I write as a cyclist) is done with a diminished sense of
control over one’s fate. The popular reaction to plane and train crashes, in which the
passenger is a passive victim, suggests that the public demand a higher standard of
safety in circumstances in which they voluntarily hand over control to another.
Figure 3 Amplification of perceived risk
Risk
Self
controlled
No
control
Diminished
control
Imposed
Voluntary
Pure – rock
climbing
Applied –
driving
Cycling
Plane
Train
Malign
Profit
Motivated
Benign Mobile phone
masts
GMOs
Al Qaida
Risk
Amplification
Acceptability
of risk
Nature
Economy
Mount
Impersonal Etna
Risks imposed by nature or impersonal economic forces – such as those endured by
those living on the San Andreas Fault or the slopes of Mount Etnas are placed in the
middle of the scale because they have a wide variance. They are usually seen as
motiveless and responded to fatalistically – unless or until the threat appears
imminent.
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As noted above reactions to risks imposed by others vary according to the perceived
intent of the imposer. Intermediate between radio masts and murderers are risks
perceived as motivated by greed. Big biotech companies, especially in Europe, are
suspected of putting profit ahead of possible threats to the environment and
consumers.
However malign intent alone cannot account for the enormous resources devoted to
countering the terrorist threat. In 2002 in the United States 16,110 people were
murdered, a statistic that evoked much less official concern than the threat of
terrorism – a phenomenon to which I return below.
Virtual risk and perceptual filters
At the time of Britain’s BSE inquiry in 1998, Stanley Prusiner who was awarded a
Noble Prize for the discovery of prions, when asked whether he had changed his diet
since learning about BSE said:
“I have worked in this field for 25 years … did I go out and eat lamb chops,
did I go out and eat lamb brain, sheep brain? The answer was ‘no’, but it was
not based on scientific criteria, it was based on just emotion. … At a scientific
level I cannot give you a scientific basis for choosing or not choosing beef,
because we do not know the answers.”
The fact that Prusiner had been trying and failing for many years to establish the
reality of this risk was reason enough for me to place it a long way down my personal
list of things to worry about. Perhaps I like steak more than Prusiner? Perhaps he is
more alarmed about the potential damage that would result should the hypothesis
linking BSE to vCJD be confirmed. The less conclusive the science, the more
influential become the perceptual filters through which evidence about the rewards
and risks must pass (Figure 4). These filters consist of two types of perceptual biases:
one related to the type of risk (as in Figure 3), and another embodied in the cultural
predispositions of the perceivers. 7
Figure 5 presents, in cartoon form, a typology of cultural filters.
• Hierarchists are committed to the idea that the management of risk is the job of
authority – appropriately assisted by expert advisers. They often cloak their
deliberations in secrecy or technical mumbo-jumbo because the ignorant lay
public cannot be relied upon to interpret the evidence correctly or use it
responsibly. They are extremely uncomfortable in the presence of virtual risk
because they are, supposedly, in charge of events; unpredictability makes them
nervous.8
Figure 4. The Risk Thermostat with Perceptual Filters
7 For more on this theme see J Adams, Risk, UCL Press 1995, and Risky Business, Adam Smith
Institute, 1999; on line at http://www.adamsmith.org/policy/publications/pdf-files/risky-business.pdf .
8 Most of the solutions and responses to threats of terrorism discussed during the conference,
in terms of this typology, can be characterized as hierarchist, i.e. measures devised for, and
to be implemented by, state authorities.
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• Individualists scorn authority as the "nanny state" and argue that decisions
about whether to wear seat belts, drink, smoke or eat beef should be left to individuals
and settled in the market. If science cannot settle the issue they advocate publishing
everything that is known and letting the shopper decide. They are gamblers and
optimistic pragmatists - if you cannot prove it’s dangerous, assume it’s safe.
• Egalitarians focus on the importance of trust; risk management should be a
consensual activity; consensus building requires openness and transparency. They are
advocates of the precautionary principle – if you cannot prove it’s safe, assume it’s
dangerous.
• Fatalists (most of us most of the time) take whatever comes along. We buy lottery
tickets and duck if we see something about to hit us. Que sera,sera.
Figure 5
Individualist
Fatalist Hierarchist
Egalitarian
A typology of perceptual filters
These caricatures can be found in recognizable form in numerous debates about risk.
Britain’s Health and Safety Executive, for example, is a statutory Hierarchist charged
with making and enforcing rules relating to health and safety at work. It is routinely
under attack from Individualist leaders of industry for its bureaucratic strangling of
free enterprise, and from consumer protection groups and environmental NGOs for
not providing the public with enough protection.9
9 See Health and Safety Executive report on “Taking Account of Societal Concerns about
Risk: http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrpdf/rr035.pdf
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The military recognize them10. Armies, navies and air forces are inherently
hierarchical institutions. In the top right-hand corner can be found Eisenhower and the
General Staff concerned with discipline and logistical efficiency. Down the lower lefthand
corner we find the individualistic mavericks of military history – the Nelsons,
Pattons and Montgomerys – routinely at odds with the hierarchy, but rewarded with
heroic status by history when their brilliance is accompanied by good luck – Napoleon
famously preferred lucky generals11. The fatalist corner has by far the greatest number
of occupants; here we find the conscripts, the poor bloody infantry, the refugees and
the civilian flotsam and jetsam of war. Finally the Egalitarians. As their label
suggests, they are motivated by a communitarian ethic that places a high value on
justice and fairness. Here we find conscientious objectors and freedom fighters – and
terrorists.
Policing in a hypermobile world.
We now live in a hypermobile world in which unprecedented numbers of people
routinely cross historic jurisdictional boundaries. Five characteristics of such a world
that are relevant to a discussion of terrorism are: social polarization, anonymity, lowtrust,
paranoia and fatalism12.
In societies where few people know their neighbours, or the people they pass in the
street, the strained relations between haves and have-nots generate more crime or fear
of crime. Policing becomes more Orwellian. Orwellian is the only adjective that can
be applied to the vision of the UK Department of trade and Industry’s Foresight
Directorate. The Directorate’s consultation document entitled “Just Around the
Corner” surveys the potential for new technology to “create new opportunities for
crime and crime prevention.”
It concludes with two scenarios. The first, “TECHies” (Teleworking Executives Co-
Habiting) is the Directorate’s optimistic scenario, in which advances in crimeprevention
technology out-pace advances in crime-promotion technology. It might
best be described as 1984 with a Brave New World gloss – but which appears
oblivious to Huxley’s satirical intent. It depicts a world in which identity theft is kept
in check by all-pervasive surveillance technology, DNA fingerprinting, odour
detectors and probabilistic profile matching. The second “socially exclusive” scenario
is less cheerful – 1984 without the gloss: most people live in walled estates and don’t
venture out much because “all public space is potentially hostile.” With the rising tide
of refugees and the destruction of the World Trade Center by terrorists the Foresight
Directorate’s grim vision is acquiring a global reach. Gated communities are being
10 Available on request: a PDF file of a PowerPoint presentation - Does the Royal Navy have enough
accidents? The Modern Warship - management of safety in war and peace International Conference,
London 24 - 26 November 1999.
11 Also found in this quadrant of the typology is the “corporate warrior”. With the growth of this
phenomenon the ethics of big-business and the market place have become entwined with
security issues on an unprecedented scale. See P.W. Singer (2002) Corporate Warriors:
The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry, Cornell University Press.
12 Hypermobility for Royal Society for the Arts
http://www.rsa.org.uk/acrobat/hypermobility.pdf
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superseded by gated nations. This high-tech policing, decried by civil libertarians, is
an inescapable cost of hypermobility. The alternative is ineffectual policing. If
terrorists and criminals avail themselves of modern means of mobility – physical and
electronic – and the forces of law and order do not keep pace, the latter become
impotent. Low-trust, and its partner paranoia, foster an attitude toward Big Brother
that is at best ambivalent. We are fearful of the lurking, anonymous suicide bomber,
yet resentful of the FBI reading our emails and having access to our library borrowing
records.
Hypermobility generates fatalism. As we spread ourselves ever wider and thinner in
our social and economic activities, the geographical scope of political authority must
expand in order to keep pace with the growing size of the problems that require
governing, or government becomes impotent. Political authority migrates up the
hierarchy from Town Hall to Whitehall, to Brussels and ultimately to completely
unaccountable institutions like the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation.
Individuals have diminishing influence over the decisions that govern their lives.
Fewer bother to vote.
Fatalism can generate very different kinds of behaviour. The apathy of the non-voter
in the affluent West might be called comfortable fatalism. There is a less comfortable
form. The conditions of life for most displaced and dispossessed refugees render them
fatalistic – but also resentful. Here we find potential recruits to terrorist causes.
In terms of the typology presented in Figure 5 we can find involvement in terrorism in
each of the other quadrants. There are state sponsors of terrorism (Hierarchists) and
cynical entrepreneurs who deal in contraband arms (Individualists). But it is the
ideologically driven inhabitants of the Egalitarian quadrant who provide most of the
leaders, planners and foot-soldiers of terrorist movements.
They are not, characteristically, the most deprived and disadvantaged of those they
claim to represent, but identify strongly with the injustices suffered by their fatalistic
constituents. A faith that can offer the rewards of martyrdom to those who sacrifice
their lives for a cause that promises to right grievous wrongs provides them with a
potent means of empowering the downtrodden fatalistic majority.
Terrorist targets
Until recently terrorists could be relied upon to choose iconic targets. But as these
have become better protected, they have begun conferring iconic status on more
mundane targets – such as bars in Bali and commuter trains in Spain. This makes the
selection of victims more random, as in road accidents, or murder. If random acts of
terror continue, or increase, might we become more fatalistic about them, and begin to
treat them with the same indifference with which, as a society, we react to road
accidents? The contrast between the response of Britons who have lived through the
blitz and many years of the threat of the IRA, and that of more anxious Americans
who are new to such threats – with their draconian suppression of traditional human
rights at Guantanamo Bay and with the Patriot Act – provides some support for the
hypothesis.
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Terrorism confronts target governments with the challenge of devising a proportionate
response. Risk aversion is not cost free. The Patriot Act, the US Department of Justice
proclaims “has played a key part in a number of successful operations to protect
innocent Americans from the deadly plans of terrorists dedicated to destroying
America and our way of life.” But as the American Civil Liberties Union observes
“Many parts of this sweeping legislation take away checks on law enforcement and
threaten the very rights and freedoms that we are struggling to protect. For example,
without a warrant and without probable cause, the FBI now has the power to access
your most private medical records, your library records, and your student records...
and can prevent anyone from telling you it was done.”13
The contrast referred to above between the response of the American Government to
terrorists, and to other killers, such as motorists and murders who claim far more
victims, would appear, at least in part, to be explained by the threat that terrorists pose
to the social order – and to those who purport to maintain it. Murderers and careless
drivers are not seen as threats to the ability of the government (the Hierarchy) to
govern.
Terrorism: can the risks be quantified?
Risk is commonly defined in the literature on quantitative risk assessment as the
product of the probable frequency of a particular event and the magnitude of its
consequences, sometimes discounted by economists to allow for the distance in time
before which the event is thought likely to happen. This is the approach with which
companies who offer insurance against damage inflicted by terrorists are currently
struggling. They are responding to the enormous uncertainties inherent in the task by
spreading the risk as widely as possible14, charging greatly increased premiums,
capping their liability or withdrawing from the market.
But the insurance industry’s task is easy compared to the challenge of quantifying all
the other non-monetizable risks – social, political, macro-economic, military, religious
– embodied in the word terrorism. Risk is inherently subjective. It is a word that refers
to the future, and that exists only in the imagination. Terrorism is, above all, a virtual
risk. It comes with no adequate actuarial databases to assist the process of estimating
the frequency of its future occurrence, and no agreed set of units by which its
imagined consequences might be measured.
Can the risks of terrorism be quantified? No.
13 http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=12126&c=207
14 The quantification of risk group proposed aggregating scenarios of low-probability highconsequence
events by way increasing the probability of such events happening “somewhere
sometime”. This is equivalent to the risk-spreading measures adopted by the international reinsurance
industry. It is a method of limited utility for problems that are not reducible to a
single metric, such as cash, and in the absence of international agreements to share losses.
For self contained low-probability high-consequence terrorist events the estimated
probability will be little more than a quantified expression of belief unconfirmable by
subsequent events. And any attempt to estimate magnitude of the consequences will
be frustrated by the lack of an agreed metric.
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Terrorism and the role of science
Peter Medawar in The Art of the Soluble observed
“If politics is the art of the possible, research is the art of the soluble. Both are
immensely practical minded affairs. Good scientists study the most important
problems they think they can solve (my italics). It is, after all, their
professional business to solve problems, not merely to grapple with them.”
For both politicians and scientists terrorism would appear destined to remain in the
grappling category. Our terrorists are their freedom fighters, and they also employ
scientists. Terrorism is a reflexive phenomenon whose future course will depend on
vast numbers of interactions, and reactions, in a complex web that, in a hypermobile
world, contains all the world’s people, who view terrorism and its threats – and
promises – through a variety of incompatible perceptual filters.15
15 The summary of the working group on challenges to the quantification of risk observed “we
must avoid being the drunk who looks for his keys under the lamp post even though he
dropped them a quarter of a mile away.” Figure 1 might be re-drawn to illustrate this
sentiment. Quantifying science can illuminate only a small part of the terrain over which the
keys to the problem of terrorism must be sought. Our report included a diagram of “the data
types that can be estimated in undertaking these [risk] assessments.” The diagram included,
under the heading “motivation”, variables labelled “political, social, economic … cultural”. It is
not clear how these variables might be estimated in quantitative form. It is the view of this
conference participant, reinforced by events currently unravelling in Iraq, that the most
important keys - an understanding of cultural conflicts and the motives of terrorists,
and the development of the means of peaceful co-existence - are unlikely to be found
under the quantitative/scientific lamp post.
Terrorism: searching for the keys
--
Posted By Robert Nyakundi to Robert's-Theory of Terrorism in Gestalt Psychology at 3/11/2010 11:55:00 PM
The World Federation of Scientists conference on terrorism divided into four working
groups:
1. Cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary tools and countermeasures,
2. Cross-disciplinary challenges to the quantification of risk,
3. Cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary community responses, and
4. Cross-cultural evaluation of societal responses.
The last of these groups, under the chairmanship of Ahmad Kamal made a distinction
between responses to the threat of terrorism that are top-down and responses that
are bottom-up: the first being reactionary and defensive, the latter being focused on
the motivations of terrorists.
For most of the conference’s deliberations top-down and bottom-up were kept in
separate compartments. The first group focused on issues of detection, control,
resilience and prevention. The second group focused on ways to quantify the threat
to those on top from those below. And the third group concentrated on preparation
for, and response to, successful acts of terrorism. But at the end of the conference
the fourth group’s concerns were adopted in the form of a consensus that it would be
desirable to form a “cross-cultural”, “multi-cultural” panel.
The remit of such a panel was not clear to this participant. But the use of the word
“culture” in all the group reports alludes to a supposition that conflicting values lie at
the roots of the problem of terrorism. This suggests two approaches to “the problem
of terrorism”: top-down, the dominant culture crushes or controls the weaker; or,
bottom-up, all cultures seek mutual understanding and accommodation.
Assuming that the World Federation of Scientists prefers the latter approach, a first
step for such a panel might be to pursue a framework that contains the diverse
understandings of the words “risk” and “culture” that emerged in the conference
deliberations. The paper below makes some suggestions. It is a revised version of a
paper prepared, before the conference, for the group on risk quantification. Footnotes
have been added (in this font) to highlight issues that might benefit from further
discussion.
I would like to pay tribute to Charles Penn for his superb distillation of the
deliberations of Group 2 – the group addressing the challenges to the quantification
of risk. The after-thoughts presented below are the product of further reflection, not a
challenge to the accuracy of Charles’ representation of our deliberations.
Challenges to the Quantification of the Risks of Terrorism
On starting this paper, I typed “risk” into Google and got 47.7 million hits. Sampling
a small fraction of the millions of websites on which the word is found will reveal that
it means different things to different people. Many arguments could be eliminated
from this literature if people were to be clear about the type of risk under discussion.
Figure 1 presents a typology that I have found useful in clearing away some
unnecessary arguments.
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• Directly perceptible risks are managed using judgment – a combination of
instinct, intuition and experience. We duck if we see something about to hit us
and we do not undertake a formal probabilistic risk assessment before we
cross the road.
• Other risks are perceived with the help of science. Physicists, chemists,
biologists, doctors, engineers, statisticians, actuaries, epidemiologists have all
helped us to see, and manage, risks that are invisible to the naked eye.
• There is a third much larger and more difficult category. Over 80 years ago
Frank Knight in his classic work Risk, Uncertainty and Profit, distinguished
between “risk” – when you know the odds - and “uncertainty” – when you
don’t. This latter category might be termed virtual risk.
Figure 1
Terrorist threats fall into all three circles. Passengers on the London underground,
urged to look out for suspect bags, and airport security personnel conducting fingersearches
of passengers’ luggage rely on direct perception1. Science provides sensitive
scanners, surveillance devices and passenger profiles to assist the separation of
terrorists from the millions of innocent people with whom they mingle2. But the
greatest and most difficult threats of terrorism lie in the virtual circle; here we are in
the realm of competing unconfirmable hypotheses3.
1 Governments of all countries that have identified themselves as likely targets of terrorism
have launched campaigns urging heightened vigilance upon their citizens.
2 Most of the discussion at the conference was focused on applications of science to the
detection, measurement and containment of threats and the denial of access to, or hardening
of, potential targets. The first purpose of Group 2 (the quantification-of-risk group) was to “aid
and inform decision making”.
3 Group 2 acknowledged that some risks cannot, as yet, be quantified, and stressed that “the
limits of quantification should be evident.” But it went on to stress that quantification was
essential to rational decision making - “We need to be able to quantify the risk of harm to
societal values (such as freedom, economy etc) using comparable metrics to the
quantification of both the actuarial and perceived impact of terrorism, so that a risk benefit
analysis on controls and countermeasures can be undertaken.” Unresolved in the group’s
deliberations was the question of whether or not some risks might remain forever beyond the
possibility of quantification. The majority view, conveyed in our report, was that we should
“propose methods for quantifying values such as freedom and national economy, governance
and stability.” I argue below that the pursuit of such methods is futile.
Three kinds of risk
Perceived
through
science
Perceived
directly
Virtual
risk
e.g. climbing
a tree, riding
a bike, driving car
e.g. cholera: need
a microscope to
see it and a
scientific
training to
understand
Scientists don’t
know or cannot
agree: e.g.
BSE/vCJD,
global warming,
low-level
radiation,
pesticide
residues, HRT,
mobile phones,
passive smoking,
stock market ….
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Virtual risks are socially or culturally constructed – when science cannot settle an
argument people are liberated to argue from pre-established beliefs, convictions and
prejudices. They may, or may not be real, but beliefs about them have real
consequences. And, as with directly perceptible risks, when dealing with them we are
forced to fall back on judgment. When virtual risks get mistaken for risks about which
science has clear and useful advice to offer, much confusion results. Pretending we
know the odds when we don’t generates fruitless, often acrimonious, debate.
Managing risk
Let us first look (Figure 2) at the management of directly perceptible risk. The model
postulates that
• everyone has a propensity to take risks;
• this propensity varies from one individual to another;
• this propensity is influenced by the perceived rewards of risk taking;
• perceptions of risk are influenced by experience of accident losses - one's own and
others';
• individual risk-taking decisions represent a balancing act in which perceptions of
risk are weighed against propensity to take risks; and
• accident losses are, by definition, a consequence of taking risks – to take a risk is to
do something that has a probability of an adverse outcome – the more risks people
take, the greater, on average, will be both the rewards they gain and the losses they
incur.
After an accident it is often observed, in head-shaking tones, that the person
responsible did not understand the risk. But if one accepts the above definition of risk,
it is possible to conclude that they did understand the risk – and their number came
up. They were unlucky.4
Figure 2 describes risk management as a form of cost-benefit analysis without the
$signs. Certainly money can be a significant reward, and accidents can lead to its loss.
But the “rewards” and “accidents” boxes are full of many other incommensurable
variables5.
4 The discussions of counter-measures reported by Groups 1 and 3 display, in terms of the
model represented by Figure 2, a profound bottom-loop bias. They focus on reducing
“accidents” and virtually ignore the costs of doing so – both the financial costs of extra
security, but also the opportunity costs. On12 May 2004 associations representing 95% of the
US research community complained in a petition to the Government that post 9/11 visa
restrictions threatened irreparable damage “to our nation’s higher education and scientific
enterprises, economy, and national security”
(http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2004/0512visa.shtml). The unrestrained pursuit of the
precautionary principle allied to a vivid imagination will bankrupt any government and, applied
to the threat of terrorism, sacrifice economic efficiency and civil liberties. Risk management
is a balancing act that must acknowledge the impossibility of zero risk – and the
possibility of bad luck. See “When Bad luck is Good” -
http://www.techcentralstation.com/012104F.html
5 The risks and rewards associated with terrorism include hate, anger, resentment,
humiliation, freedom, triumph, vengeance and, of increasing significance, the rewards of
martyrdom. The prospect of finding a common metric for this mixed bag of variables
would appear remote.
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Figure 2
The risk thermostat
Perception
of risks Accidents
Propensity to
take risks
Balancing
behaviour
Rewards
Money, power,
love, glory, food,
sex, rushes of
adrenaline,
control ...
Money, health,
life, status,
self-esteem,
embarrassment,
jail, loss of control ...
Control and loss of control are highlighted because they create particular difficulties.
Consider the case of mobile phones. The risk associated with using a handset is
contested but, according to the available literature6, would appear to range from tiny
to non-existent. Measured in terms of radiation exposure, the risk associated with the
base stations – unless one is up the mast with one’s ear to the transmitter – is orders of
magnitude less. Yet people are queuing up around the world in their billions to take
the first, voluntary, risk, while almost all the opposition is focussed on the base
stations, which are seen as impositions.
What kills you matters. To the people living close to them, chemical plants and
nuclear reactors are resented as imposed risks – unless you work there, in which case
the risk is usually considered voluntary and perceived as much lower. But these are
benign impositions – no one assumes the plant operators want to murder their
neighbours. Terrorist threats are malignly imposed risks and their evil intent amplifies
the perceived risk still further.
The 191 people killed by the Madrid bombers on 11 March 2004 is equivalent to the
number killed in road accidents in Spain every 12 or 13 days. The grief of families
and friends one might suppose is similar in both cases. The latter tragedies usually
merit only a few column inches in the local press. The former evoked three days of
national mourning in Spain and a 3 minute silence all over Europe.
Other examples:
• In the 25 “busiest” years of “the troubles” in Northern Ireland twice as many
people died in road accidents as were killed by terrorists. Most people in England
have never seen a report on television or in the press about a road accident in
Northern Ireland.
• In Israel between 27 September 2000 and 26 September 2003 622 civilian Israelis
were killed by Palestinian terrorists. The annual road death toll over this period
was about 550.
6 A. Burgess (2004) Cellular Phones, Public Fears, and a Culture of Precaution. Cambridge UP.
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• In the first half of October 2002 two people per day were killed in Washington
and its suburbs. They were killed suddenly and without warning by a stranger they
had never met. There was no discernible pattern in their age, sex or ethnicity.
Their families and friends grieved, but otherwise their fates attracted virtually no
media attention. They were victims of road accidents. Over the same period
someone was killed every other day by the Washington Sniper. Again there was
no discernible pattern amongst the victims chosen by the anonymous killer. Their
fates attracted massive media coverage all around the world and led, far beyond
the vicinity of their occurrence, to extraordinary changes in behaviour – ranging
from a massive policing operation to people jogging to their cars in zigzag
patterns with their groceries in supermarket car parks.
• In 2003, worldwide, 23 Americans were killed by acts of terrorism (compared
with 25 in 2002 and about 2800 in 2001). In each of these years about 42000 were
killed on American highways.
Figure 3 suggests the way in which acceptance of a given actuarial level of risk is
likely to vary with the perceived level of control an individual can exercise over it
and, in the case of imposed risks, with the perceived motives of the imposer. With
“pure” risks, the risk itself, and its associated challenge and rush of adrenaline, is the
reward. With an applied risk such as driving, the reward is getting expeditiously from
A to B. Cycling from A to B (I write as a cyclist) is done with a diminished sense of
control over one’s fate. The popular reaction to plane and train crashes, in which the
passenger is a passive victim, suggests that the public demand a higher standard of
safety in circumstances in which they voluntarily hand over control to another.
Figure 3 Amplification of perceived risk
Risk
Self
controlled
No
control
Diminished
control
Imposed
Voluntary
Pure – rock
climbing
Applied –
driving
Cycling
Plane
Train
Malign
Profit
Motivated
Benign Mobile phone
masts
GMOs
Al Qaida
Risk
Amplification
Acceptability
of risk
Nature
Economy
Mount
Impersonal Etna
Risks imposed by nature or impersonal economic forces – such as those endured by
those living on the San Andreas Fault or the slopes of Mount Etnas are placed in the
middle of the scale because they have a wide variance. They are usually seen as
motiveless and responded to fatalistically – unless or until the threat appears
imminent.
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As noted above reactions to risks imposed by others vary according to the perceived
intent of the imposer. Intermediate between radio masts and murderers are risks
perceived as motivated by greed. Big biotech companies, especially in Europe, are
suspected of putting profit ahead of possible threats to the environment and
consumers.
However malign intent alone cannot account for the enormous resources devoted to
countering the terrorist threat. In 2002 in the United States 16,110 people were
murdered, a statistic that evoked much less official concern than the threat of
terrorism – a phenomenon to which I return below.
Virtual risk and perceptual filters
At the time of Britain’s BSE inquiry in 1998, Stanley Prusiner who was awarded a
Noble Prize for the discovery of prions, when asked whether he had changed his diet
since learning about BSE said:
“I have worked in this field for 25 years … did I go out and eat lamb chops,
did I go out and eat lamb brain, sheep brain? The answer was ‘no’, but it was
not based on scientific criteria, it was based on just emotion. … At a scientific
level I cannot give you a scientific basis for choosing or not choosing beef,
because we do not know the answers.”
The fact that Prusiner had been trying and failing for many years to establish the
reality of this risk was reason enough for me to place it a long way down my personal
list of things to worry about. Perhaps I like steak more than Prusiner? Perhaps he is
more alarmed about the potential damage that would result should the hypothesis
linking BSE to vCJD be confirmed. The less conclusive the science, the more
influential become the perceptual filters through which evidence about the rewards
and risks must pass (Figure 4). These filters consist of two types of perceptual biases:
one related to the type of risk (as in Figure 3), and another embodied in the cultural
predispositions of the perceivers. 7
Figure 5 presents, in cartoon form, a typology of cultural filters.
• Hierarchists are committed to the idea that the management of risk is the job of
authority – appropriately assisted by expert advisers. They often cloak their
deliberations in secrecy or technical mumbo-jumbo because the ignorant lay
public cannot be relied upon to interpret the evidence correctly or use it
responsibly. They are extremely uncomfortable in the presence of virtual risk
because they are, supposedly, in charge of events; unpredictability makes them
nervous.8
Figure 4. The Risk Thermostat with Perceptual Filters
7 For more on this theme see J Adams, Risk, UCL Press 1995, and Risky Business, Adam Smith
Institute, 1999; on line at http://www.adamsmith.org/policy/publications/pdf-files/risky-business.pdf .
8 Most of the solutions and responses to threats of terrorism discussed during the conference,
in terms of this typology, can be characterized as hierarchist, i.e. measures devised for, and
to be implemented by, state authorities.
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• Individualists scorn authority as the "nanny state" and argue that decisions
about whether to wear seat belts, drink, smoke or eat beef should be left to individuals
and settled in the market. If science cannot settle the issue they advocate publishing
everything that is known and letting the shopper decide. They are gamblers and
optimistic pragmatists - if you cannot prove it’s dangerous, assume it’s safe.
• Egalitarians focus on the importance of trust; risk management should be a
consensual activity; consensus building requires openness and transparency. They are
advocates of the precautionary principle – if you cannot prove it’s safe, assume it’s
dangerous.
• Fatalists (most of us most of the time) take whatever comes along. We buy lottery
tickets and duck if we see something about to hit us. Que sera,sera.
Figure 5
Individualist
Fatalist Hierarchist
Egalitarian
A typology of perceptual filters
These caricatures can be found in recognizable form in numerous debates about risk.
Britain’s Health and Safety Executive, for example, is a statutory Hierarchist charged
with making and enforcing rules relating to health and safety at work. It is routinely
under attack from Individualist leaders of industry for its bureaucratic strangling of
free enterprise, and from consumer protection groups and environmental NGOs for
not providing the public with enough protection.9
9 See Health and Safety Executive report on “Taking Account of Societal Concerns about
Risk: http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrpdf/rr035.pdf
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The military recognize them10. Armies, navies and air forces are inherently
hierarchical institutions. In the top right-hand corner can be found Eisenhower and the
General Staff concerned with discipline and logistical efficiency. Down the lower lefthand
corner we find the individualistic mavericks of military history – the Nelsons,
Pattons and Montgomerys – routinely at odds with the hierarchy, but rewarded with
heroic status by history when their brilliance is accompanied by good luck – Napoleon
famously preferred lucky generals11. The fatalist corner has by far the greatest number
of occupants; here we find the conscripts, the poor bloody infantry, the refugees and
the civilian flotsam and jetsam of war. Finally the Egalitarians. As their label
suggests, they are motivated by a communitarian ethic that places a high value on
justice and fairness. Here we find conscientious objectors and freedom fighters – and
terrorists.
Policing in a hypermobile world.
We now live in a hypermobile world in which unprecedented numbers of people
routinely cross historic jurisdictional boundaries. Five characteristics of such a world
that are relevant to a discussion of terrorism are: social polarization, anonymity, lowtrust,
paranoia and fatalism12.
In societies where few people know their neighbours, or the people they pass in the
street, the strained relations between haves and have-nots generate more crime or fear
of crime. Policing becomes more Orwellian. Orwellian is the only adjective that can
be applied to the vision of the UK Department of trade and Industry’s Foresight
Directorate. The Directorate’s consultation document entitled “Just Around the
Corner” surveys the potential for new technology to “create new opportunities for
crime and crime prevention.”
It concludes with two scenarios. The first, “TECHies” (Teleworking Executives Co-
Habiting) is the Directorate’s optimistic scenario, in which advances in crimeprevention
technology out-pace advances in crime-promotion technology. It might
best be described as 1984 with a Brave New World gloss – but which appears
oblivious to Huxley’s satirical intent. It depicts a world in which identity theft is kept
in check by all-pervasive surveillance technology, DNA fingerprinting, odour
detectors and probabilistic profile matching. The second “socially exclusive” scenario
is less cheerful – 1984 without the gloss: most people live in walled estates and don’t
venture out much because “all public space is potentially hostile.” With the rising tide
of refugees and the destruction of the World Trade Center by terrorists the Foresight
Directorate’s grim vision is acquiring a global reach. Gated communities are being
10 Available on request: a PDF file of a PowerPoint presentation - Does the Royal Navy have enough
accidents? The Modern Warship - management of safety in war and peace International Conference,
London 24 - 26 November 1999.
11 Also found in this quadrant of the typology is the “corporate warrior”. With the growth of this
phenomenon the ethics of big-business and the market place have become entwined with
security issues on an unprecedented scale. See P.W. Singer (2002) Corporate Warriors:
The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry, Cornell University Press.
12 Hypermobility for Royal Society for the Arts
http://www.rsa.org.uk/acrobat/hypermobility.pdf
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superseded by gated nations. This high-tech policing, decried by civil libertarians, is
an inescapable cost of hypermobility. The alternative is ineffectual policing. If
terrorists and criminals avail themselves of modern means of mobility – physical and
electronic – and the forces of law and order do not keep pace, the latter become
impotent. Low-trust, and its partner paranoia, foster an attitude toward Big Brother
that is at best ambivalent. We are fearful of the lurking, anonymous suicide bomber,
yet resentful of the FBI reading our emails and having access to our library borrowing
records.
Hypermobility generates fatalism. As we spread ourselves ever wider and thinner in
our social and economic activities, the geographical scope of political authority must
expand in order to keep pace with the growing size of the problems that require
governing, or government becomes impotent. Political authority migrates up the
hierarchy from Town Hall to Whitehall, to Brussels and ultimately to completely
unaccountable institutions like the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation.
Individuals have diminishing influence over the decisions that govern their lives.
Fewer bother to vote.
Fatalism can generate very different kinds of behaviour. The apathy of the non-voter
in the affluent West might be called comfortable fatalism. There is a less comfortable
form. The conditions of life for most displaced and dispossessed refugees render them
fatalistic – but also resentful. Here we find potential recruits to terrorist causes.
In terms of the typology presented in Figure 5 we can find involvement in terrorism in
each of the other quadrants. There are state sponsors of terrorism (Hierarchists) and
cynical entrepreneurs who deal in contraband arms (Individualists). But it is the
ideologically driven inhabitants of the Egalitarian quadrant who provide most of the
leaders, planners and foot-soldiers of terrorist movements.
They are not, characteristically, the most deprived and disadvantaged of those they
claim to represent, but identify strongly with the injustices suffered by their fatalistic
constituents. A faith that can offer the rewards of martyrdom to those who sacrifice
their lives for a cause that promises to right grievous wrongs provides them with a
potent means of empowering the downtrodden fatalistic majority.
Terrorist targets
Until recently terrorists could be relied upon to choose iconic targets. But as these
have become better protected, they have begun conferring iconic status on more
mundane targets – such as bars in Bali and commuter trains in Spain. This makes the
selection of victims more random, as in road accidents, or murder. If random acts of
terror continue, or increase, might we become more fatalistic about them, and begin to
treat them with the same indifference with which, as a society, we react to road
accidents? The contrast between the response of Britons who have lived through the
blitz and many years of the threat of the IRA, and that of more anxious Americans
who are new to such threats – with their draconian suppression of traditional human
rights at Guantanamo Bay and with the Patriot Act – provides some support for the
hypothesis.
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Terrorism confronts target governments with the challenge of devising a proportionate
response. Risk aversion is not cost free. The Patriot Act, the US Department of Justice
proclaims “has played a key part in a number of successful operations to protect
innocent Americans from the deadly plans of terrorists dedicated to destroying
America and our way of life.” But as the American Civil Liberties Union observes
“Many parts of this sweeping legislation take away checks on law enforcement and
threaten the very rights and freedoms that we are struggling to protect. For example,
without a warrant and without probable cause, the FBI now has the power to access
your most private medical records, your library records, and your student records...
and can prevent anyone from telling you it was done.”13
The contrast referred to above between the response of the American Government to
terrorists, and to other killers, such as motorists and murders who claim far more
victims, would appear, at least in part, to be explained by the threat that terrorists pose
to the social order – and to those who purport to maintain it. Murderers and careless
drivers are not seen as threats to the ability of the government (the Hierarchy) to
govern.
Terrorism: can the risks be quantified?
Risk is commonly defined in the literature on quantitative risk assessment as the
product of the probable frequency of a particular event and the magnitude of its
consequences, sometimes discounted by economists to allow for the distance in time
before which the event is thought likely to happen. This is the approach with which
companies who offer insurance against damage inflicted by terrorists are currently
struggling. They are responding to the enormous uncertainties inherent in the task by
spreading the risk as widely as possible14, charging greatly increased premiums,
capping their liability or withdrawing from the market.
But the insurance industry’s task is easy compared to the challenge of quantifying all
the other non-monetizable risks – social, political, macro-economic, military, religious
– embodied in the word terrorism. Risk is inherently subjective. It is a word that refers
to the future, and that exists only in the imagination. Terrorism is, above all, a virtual
risk. It comes with no adequate actuarial databases to assist the process of estimating
the frequency of its future occurrence, and no agreed set of units by which its
imagined consequences might be measured.
Can the risks of terrorism be quantified? No.
13 http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=12126&c=207
14 The quantification of risk group proposed aggregating scenarios of low-probability highconsequence
events by way increasing the probability of such events happening “somewhere
sometime”. This is equivalent to the risk-spreading measures adopted by the international reinsurance
industry. It is a method of limited utility for problems that are not reducible to a
single metric, such as cash, and in the absence of international agreements to share losses.
For self contained low-probability high-consequence terrorist events the estimated
probability will be little more than a quantified expression of belief unconfirmable by
subsequent events. And any attempt to estimate magnitude of the consequences will
be frustrated by the lack of an agreed metric.
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Terrorism and the role of science
Peter Medawar in The Art of the Soluble observed
“If politics is the art of the possible, research is the art of the soluble. Both are
immensely practical minded affairs. Good scientists study the most important
problems they think they can solve (my italics). It is, after all, their
professional business to solve problems, not merely to grapple with them.”
For both politicians and scientists terrorism would appear destined to remain in the
grappling category. Our terrorists are their freedom fighters, and they also employ
scientists. Terrorism is a reflexive phenomenon whose future course will depend on
vast numbers of interactions, and reactions, in a complex web that, in a hypermobile
world, contains all the world’s people, who view terrorism and its threats – and
promises – through a variety of incompatible perceptual filters.15
15 The summary of the working group on challenges to the quantification of risk observed “we
must avoid being the drunk who looks for his keys under the lamp post even though he
dropped them a quarter of a mile away.” Figure 1 might be re-drawn to illustrate this
sentiment. Quantifying science can illuminate only a small part of the terrain over which the
keys to the problem of terrorism must be sought. Our report included a diagram of “the data
types that can be estimated in undertaking these [risk] assessments.” The diagram included,
under the heading “motivation”, variables labelled “political, social, economic … cultural”. It is
not clear how these variables might be estimated in quantitative form. It is the view of this
conference participant, reinforced by events currently unravelling in Iraq, that the most
important keys - an understanding of cultural conflicts and the motives of terrorists,
and the development of the means of peaceful co-existence - are unlikely to be found
under the quantitative/scientific lamp post.
Terrorism: searching for the keys
--
Posted By Robert Nyakundi to Robert's-Theory of Terrorism in Gestalt Psychology at 3/11/2010 11:55:00 PM
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