*{Confronting Asymmetric Threats to Peace [http://www.weforum.org/site/knowledgenavigator.nsf/Content/Confronting%20Asymmetric%20Threats%20to%20Peace?open&topic_id=300250000&theme_id=300]

            01.02.2002

            Annual Meeting 2002}

            *partie=titre How Do We Prevent the Next Terrorist Attack? *partie=nil

            Now that the United States stands alone as the global superpower, asymmetric threats from terrorist groups are likely to become a fact of life. What can be done? Introducing the workshop topic, Robert Klitgaard, Professor of International Development and Security, and Dean, The RAND Graduate School, USA, noted that the threat now ranges from nuclear to biological to cyber warfare.

            Ralph W. Schrader, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Booz Allen Hamilton, USA, told the participants that we are all targets now. "There are no more innocent bystanders in the world of asymmetric threat. None of us can opt out. Not as individuals, not as institutions, and not as nations. In the old symmetrical world, you could hide. Today there is no place to hide." Schrader went on to say that solutions lie in leadership and the relationship between security and strategy. "Security can no longer be an added extra that you bolt on," said Schrader. "It has to be an integrated part of all the strategies that we develop, corporate strategies and national strategies. It needs to be a strategy integrated across the institution."

            Ronald K. Noble, Secretary-General of Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organization, pointed out that while there has been a tremendous mobilization and deployment of military forces, law enforcement has lagged behind. "Each of our countries has been working to build up the domestic law enforcement agencies and to make sure that it works correctly with domestic intelligence agencies," said Noble. But to this day there remains a void. There are over 80 countries that do not have the telecommunications capacity to communicate a threat. Right now the method of communication of these threats is often through the mail which sometimes takes a long time. I’d like to challenge this discussion to ask if we have our priorities set right. "We are willing to spend billions of dollars on the military, hundreds of millions on the Olympics. We are prepared to spend US$ 5 million on security for the Annual Meeting in Davos next year. But if we take all 179 countries who are members of Interpol, the world’s largest police organization, they have devoted only US$ 25 million for police officers worldwide to fight terrorism." The least that we need to do, argued Noble, is to provide funding for police organizations to communicate with one another.

            Discussion groups explored the entire spectrum of asymmetric threats. Graham T. Allison, Director of the John F. Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, noted that a "radiological dispersion weapon," literally a conventional bomb seeded with radioactive material, is one concern, but so is loosely controlled nuclear material in Russia and Pakistan. Another danger is the potential for an attack against an existing nuclear power plant.

            Sam Nunn, Co-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, drew attention to the fact that with the exception of the power industry, most nuclear material is under some form of government control. "We are going to have to think differently about biological and chemical issues," said Nunn. "Most of the biological and chemical business is in the private sector." Nunn thinks that we will need extensive private sector involvement in establishing controls if we want to avoid government intervention that might stifle a promising industry.

            Lawrence Freedman, Head of the School of Social Science and Public Policy at King’s College, University of London, raised the question of whether al-Qaida would have launched its attacks on 11 September, if it had foreseen the response and how much damage was likely to be inflicted. "One of our concerns," said Freedman, " is the danger of responding too much to the latest outrage, rather than thinking about the various other things that might happen, for example low-level, routine terrorism which requires a different sort of response."

            In his concluding remarks, Klitgaard suggested that a new element in dealing with terrorism is the role to be played by the private sector. In a reference to earlier comments made by Schrader, Klitgaard noted that many of the workshop table groups had reached the conclusion that understanding the dimensions of the problem is a key factor in arriving at a solution. "One of the issues of leadership," observed Klitgaard, "is contextualizing a threat so that we correctly see the risks involved."                  

                  *{Contributors:       Alibek Ken
                  Allison Graham T.
                  Bremer L. Paul
                  Caplan Arthur
                  Freedman Lawrence
                  Graham Robert
                  Karaganov Sergei
                  Klitgaard Robert
                  Libicki Martin C.
                  Lim Tik En David
                  Noble Ronald K.
                  Nunn Sam
                  Ockrent Christine
                  Richard Alain
                  Robertson George
                  Saud Nawaf bin Abdulaziz
                  Shrader Ralph W.
                  Stern Jessica
                  Thompson John
                  Vitorino Antonio Manuel
                  Weston John P.}