Terrorism Items (#19 in each issue)
from Complexity Digest
[plus one note from CHAOPSYC]

 

Archive:  www.comdig.org, European Mirror:  www.comdig.de

Asian Mirror:  http://www.phil.pku.edu.cn/resguide/comdig/ (Chinese GB-Code)

"I think the next century will be the century of complexity." Stephen Hawking

 

2001.39 September-25-2001

 

19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks

Editor's Notes: Scientists were not an exception when it came to offering support and help in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attack. At a MIT workshop experts discussed the traditional weapons of mass destruction -nuclear, chemical, biological- but didn't have much to say about civilian airplanes and box cutters:

Summary: Researchers and antiterrorism experts held a hastily organized symposium here less than 36 hours after the suicide attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon to discuss U.S. R&D efforts to defend against weapons of mass destruction. Last week's attacks have already set off a quiet scramble at federal labs across the country to beef up efforts ranging from new biological and chemical detection techniques to profiling the behavioral patterns of terrorist cliques. But some scientists are worried that a rattled public will expect too much from them.

·         Antiterrorism Programs: The Unthinkable Becomes Real For A Horrified World, Andrew Lawler, Science 2001 293: 2182-2185

Last week we called for ideas from the complexity community (ComDig01-38.20.2) as to what novel, complexity based insights could help to reduce the threat of terrorism. (We don't say "eliminate" because that would be as unrealistic as the attempt to "get rid of all the bugs").

Among the submissions there seemed to be an agreement that terrorism cannot be fought effectively without treating it as a system that is tightly connected to other societal subsystems such as economy, politics, and religion:

"I would like to say that there is a clear connection to a fallacy observed in the creation of large social organizations." (Dr. Jaime Lagunez Otero, Mexico)

"Complexity thinking is not required if all we seek is revenge. However, Complexity thinking is required if anything positive is to finally evolve from the terrible events of that day. Indeed, it is potentially the greatest ever test for Complexity - to help develop a road map for - "A World without Terrorism"" (Ian Robson, UK)

Ian Robson also emphasized that we have to learn from history for instance the emergence of the Nazi terror in Germany after WW-I vs the economic development in Germany and Japan after WW-II:

" After World War II, but before anyone had even thought of Complexity as a way of thinking, the Western Allies used similar principles to try and lay the foundations for a world without world wars. They could have taken the simplistic view that Hitler started the war in Europe, and Germany must be made to pay for the atrocities. They could have equally decided that Japan should pay for its atrocities. That would have been analogous to the simplistic view taken after WW I." (Ian Robson, UK)

Stuart G Hall points out that it would be helpful to have a good "model" of a terrorist in order to anticipate future strikes:

"The serious point I guess is that you've got to model how a terrorist thinks and acts to catch a terrorist. And that model is ill-served by so called 'hard-science' but better served by complexity science for a number of good reasons." (Stuart G Hall, UK)

"Interesting challenge - as it pits western science against guerilla/terrorist intuition - with the possibility of complexity science as a bridge between the two paradigms of thought + action." (Stuart Glendinning-Hall, UK)

We will keep this column open for further thoughts on this topic and invite especially those with links to ongoing research.

·         Other Links: 

o        The Brookings Project on Terrorism and American Foreign Policy

o        Defeating The Suicide Hijackers, Defeating The Suicide Hijackers, Paul Marks, Catherine Zandonella and Justin Mullins, New Scientist Online News, 01/09/19

o        Fighting Against Terrorism, Engaging With Islamic Science, Nature 413, 235 (2001)

o        Technology Will Assist The Fight Against Terrorism, William Triplett, Nature 413, 238 - 239 (2001)

2001.40 October-01-2001

 

19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks

Editor's Notes: We want to continue to present ideas and information that were submitted by our readers of Complexity Digest as well as some related links in the open literature Dr. Andrew Ilachinski of the Center for Naval Analyses writes: "I really feel the time is ripe for CAS [Complex Adaptive Systems, Ed.] research to make a stand at this time."

He has compiled an extensive collection of links on the topic:

"In particular, I'd like to point your attention to a page I added a few days ago that provides links to a number of on-line papers (from around the web) regarding terrorism and some aspects of systems theory (emergence, agents, group behavior, sociology, etc): http://www.cna.org/isaac/terrorism_and_cas.htm

While this list is currently a bit short on "technical" material, I suspect this will remedied in the coming weeks and months."

According to a Washington Post article sent to us by Carl P. Simon, many concepts from CAS are already implemented in the strategy of "War against Terrorism":

"Though RDO [Rapid Decisive Operations , Ed.] and other games are mostly focused on wars against nation states in 2010, they provide a rich basis for thinking about American's current adversary. They help us envision the enemy, not as a traditional nation state but as a "complex adaptive system."

·         A New Mindset for Warfare, William M. Arkin, Washingtonpost.com, 01/09/22, link provided by Carl P. Simon

 

Since terrorists are organized in networks of cells, on might expect that recent progress in understanding the dynamics of complex "small world" networks might be of potential help. Valdis Krebs sent us a link to his current research area. He writes: 

"Before we fight the enemy we need to 'see' and better understand the enemy... map their networks, figure out their 'patterns' for organizing."

He has identified three competing goals of a terrorist network:

1.      Establish efficient communication and information flow within and between many cooperating cells by minimizing path length throughout the network.

2.      Limit discovery and monitoring of the network from outsiders by minimizing the number of communication links in the network.

3.      Limit damage when a node is discovered or removed from the network by minimizing the number of direct ties each node has.

o        Terrorist Networks: Mapping the Invisible Enemy, Valdis Krebs, 2001

o        Networks, Netwar, And InformationageTerrorism, John Arquilla, David Ronfeldt, Michele Zanini, Chapter 3 in "Countering the New Terrorism " Ian O. Lesser, Bruce Hoffman, John Arquilla, David F. Ronfeldt, Michele Zanini, Brian Michael Jenkins, RAND publications, 1999

 

"Chaos" is seen as a major component of the future warfare/terrorism in the information dimension:

"The idea is for the U.S. to have its own, secret group of information warfare terrorists, sanctioned by executive order and scattered around the country in secret "cells."

They would constitute a kind of "digital Delta Force," the paper says -- an offensive strike force capable of inflicting chaos on an enemy's electronic infrastructure. Such attacks would be cloaked in anonymity for security and other reasons."

·         Chaos: The Coming Technology War,Tim McDonald,Yahoo/ www.NewsFactor.com, 01/09/28

 

The Brookings Project on Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy makes their discussions available in video and transcripts.

·         America's Response to Terrorism: Reaction at Home and Abroad, Brookings Video, Brookings Project on Terrorism, U.S. Foreign Policy, 01/09/28, Video (requires Real player)

·         See also: In the Next Chapter, Is Technology an Ally?, Katie Hafner, NYTimes, 01/09/27

·         Related ComDig links: ComDig01-39/#19, ComDig01-38/#20.2, ComDig01-37/#1

2001.41 October-09-2001

19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks

Editor's Notes: We are very pleased that our ComDig Complexity Challenge led to the first concrete results and anti-terrorist networking within the complexity community: Konrad Richter of McKinsey & Company sent a letter to the editor:

"After the shock about the tragic events of September 11 had settled down a little, I was convinced that systems theory should be able to make some contribution to defeating terrorism. While looking around in newsgroups and magazines, I was disappointed: No single comment was made on what our contribution might be. So I sat down for myself and tried to figure out where I could imagine that the science of complexity could be of use."

·         Konrad Richter, 01/10/03

He then described some of his own ideas that were very similar to those that Valdis Krebs had shared with Complexity Digest (see ComDig01-40/#19) . In the ensuing discussion other relevant resources were shared: A paper by David Ronfeldt and John Arquilla of RAND clearly outlines how a terririst network is best described as a complex adaptive system:

"Third, in terms of doctrine, the al-Qaeda network seems to have a grasp of the nonlinear nature of the battlespace, and of the value of attack from multiple directions by dispersed small units. (…) Thus, bin Laden and his cohorts appear to have developed a swarm-like doctrine that features a campaign of episodic, pulsing attacks by various nodes of his network - at locations sprawled across global time and space where he has advantages for seizing the initiative, stealthily."

·         Networks, Netwars, And The Fight For The Future, David Ronfeldt, John Arquilla, First Monday, volume 6, number 10 (October 2001)

 

The authors then go on to make some suggestions of how "U.S. doctrine (…) based on aging notions of strategic bombardment" needs to be adapted with the help of insights from complex systems theory.

Based on published information (A Web Of Connections, Washington Post Newsweek Interactive, 2001), Valdis then could apply his network analysis tools to the concrete case of the Hijacker Network of the 19 individuals who are believed to have been responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon:

"Line thickness denotes strength of relationship... the thicker the line the stronger the tie.

This is based on public info source, some of which did not agree with each other.To do a more accurate map I would need data directly from the investigators. This is also a map that changes as new data is discovered... it is emergent.

When network centrality metrics are run on this map, Mohammed Atta does emerge as the leader -- as many news reports have stated. He gets the highest score in Network Activity, Access, and Control -- not only does he have many ties, he is in a position that connects distant parts of the network."

·         Valdis Krebs, 01/10/09

·         Other links: 

o        Intelligence Analysis Software Could Predict Attacks,18:19, 02 October 01, Duncan Graham-Rowe New Scientist

o        War Disturbs The Most Dangerous Political Tectonic Plate In The World, The Independent, Robert Fisk, The Independent, 01/10/08

o        A Cautionary Tale For A New Age Of Surveillance,Jeffrey Rosen, NYTimes, 01/10/07

o        Related ComDig links: ComDig01-40/#19, ComDig01-39/#19, ComDig01-38/#20.2, ComDig01-37/#1 

2001.42 October-16-2001

19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks

Editor's Notes: There have been two different compilations of efforts and ideas from scientists to combat terrorism. The Edge asked a number of scientists and thinkers "What now?". One answer by J. Doyne Farmer of the Santa Fe Institute summarizes the problem and different potential solutions from a complex systems and chaos perspective:

"Change the parameters and get rid of the behavior you don't want. This is hard too, because it involves a deeper level of understanding and more fundamental change. But it has the advantage that, when you can do it, it is more stable, more reliable, and a much better solution. This corresponds to finding the root causes of terrorism and altering the political landscape so that it dies out. This will be very hard, but it has the enormous advantage that it might actually work. "

·         An Edge Question: What Now?, Edge, Oct 2001

 

The National Academies published a list of publications related to the problem of terrorism and security:

"A series of National Academies reports spanning two decades examines anti-terrorism measures, including technologies for screening airline passengers, better designs for buildings that may be targets of terrorist attack, and preparation for the civilian medical community in responding to chemical or biological threats."

·         A Scientific Approach to Terrorism and National Security, National Academies, Terrorism and Security, Collection, Oct 2001

 

Other publications study the more general impact on the 9/11 attack . We already mentioned the shift to videoconferencing that reduces the need for business travels. Now it looks like the anthrax threats also might induce a global transition from snail-mail to e-mail:

"Losing mail delivery in 2001 is nowhere near the problem it would have been just a few years ago. Electronic communications, particularly e-mail, fax and the Web, have already supplanted the postal service—commonly known in the high-tech community as snail mail. It’s just another example of the relentless calculus of the digital revolution, where bits trump atoms. The threat that a deadly disease might be a consequence of opening an envelope could be a tipping point that leads to changes in the way we look at snail mail—and heads us down a road where daily mail delivery goes the way of the milkman."

·         The End of Snail Mail?, Steven Levy, Newsweek Web Exclusive, 01/10/13

 

·         Other links: 

o        Security Creates More Strains on Deliveries, Claudia H. Deutsch, NYTimes, 01/10/09

o        New Ideas In The War On Bioterrorism, Andrew Pollack, NYTimes, 01/10/09

o        Related ComDig links: ComDig01-41/#19, ComDig01-40/#19, ComDig01-39/#19, ComDig01-38/#20.2, ComDig01-37/#1

2001.43 October-22-2001

19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks

Editor's Notes: Edward Rothstein compares the global terrorist networks with the Internet, that was designed to withstand (nuclear) attacks against any of its nodes. Instead of an evil mastermind sitting at the center of a spider-web, such a decentralized, multiply connected network of loosely coupled agents would be hardly affected by traditional bombing raids as we observe them now in Afghanistan:

"What if the network is designed so that if Mr. bin Laden were removed, the network would proceed unimpeded? What if the network is less hierarchical than it seems, so there are few if any agents with a complete overview of what is happening? Some people in intelligence have theorized that this was the case with some of the hijackers. How is this kind of network, a modified human version of the Internet, to be undermined, particularly given its intermeshing links with other terror networks with their own design?"

·         Lacking A Center, Terrorist Networks Are Hard To Find, Let Alone Fight, Edward Rothstein, NYTimes, 01/10/20

 

Immediately after the 9/11 attack it was called by some politicians an "act of war" against the United States, but at the same time it was also treated as a crime, committed by a group of terrorists against innocent people. Colin Green reminds us that already in 1996 Osama bin Laden and his organization had formally declared a Jihad or Holy War against the United States. He goes even farther and compares this attack with the more than one order of magnitude higher collateral damage of civilian lives during strategic bombings of cities in Germany and Japan during WW-II. Along the lines of Farmer's "parametric control" of the chaos of terrorism he suggests that the current US strategy could have unwanted side-effects:

"(…)many of America's allies would feel more comfortable if the United States stopped treating the campaign against Osama bin Laden as some kind of moral crusade. We all know that one man's hero is another's villain, but Americans gain nothing by launching vitriolic attacks on the morality of Osama bin Laden's actions. His sympathizers abroad, the very people we are trying to win over, tend to see this type of rhetoric as merely another example of American hypocrisy, and it fuels their anger and resentment towards the West."

·         Was The Attack Terrorism Or Legitimate War Act?, Colin Green , eTaiwanNews.com, 01/10/17

·         Earlier ComDig links: ComDig01-42/#19, ComDig01-41/#19, ComDig01-40/#19, ComDig01-39/#19, ComDig01-38/#20.2, ComDig01-37/#1 

2001.44 October-29-2001

 

19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks

After several weeks of massive strategic bombing in Afghanistan it seems that predictions mentioned earlier in this columns could be confirmed: These tradititional ways of warfare cause more complicated responses and do not show the effectiveness as it was the case for a more classical enemy like the Serbian Army in Kosovo or the army of Iraq in Kuwait. Recent modeling work of Jenkins and Bond as discussed by Robert Adler in New Scientist shows that both Pakistan and Tajikistan are in a critical situation that is getting dangerously close to civil war:

"While Jenkins emphasises that the CCC's ["Conflict Carrying Capacity", Ed.] forecasting ability needs to be evaluated and honed through further studies, he thinks it could already help governments spot crumbling regimes. He is particularly worried about Pakistan and Tajikistan, which, according to the index, are teetering on the edge of instability."

o        "Conflict Index" Warns When A Nation Faces Civil War, Robert Adler, New Scientist, 01/10/26

See also the comments by Jim Hendler and W. Lewis Johnson on the role of the internet and agent based simulations in the struggle against terrorism.

o        J. Hendler on Semantic Web, Terrorism, and Security Issues

o        W. Lewis Johnson on Pedagogical Agents and their Application to Peace-Keeping and Anti-Terrorism

2001.45 November-09-2001

19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks

Earlier in this column, Valdis Krebs introduced his suggestion to study graphical representations of the terrorists' personal network. (see ComDig01-40/#19). This approach is now featured in a report on this issue in Business 2.0 :

"(…) Valdis Krebs's examination of the interrelationships between the 19 hijackers aboard the planes used in the Sept. 11 attack and 15 people authorities say are connected with them. Employing proprietary software called InFlow, normally used to help companies improve communication, Krebs entered every publicly disclosed contact between people in the network. He then dated and weighted the contacts. Strong ties -- such as sharing a house or attending the same flight school -- got more weight than weak ones such as telephone calls."

·         Six Degrees of Mohamed Atta,Thomas A. Stewart, Business 2.0, Dec 2001

In the same issue the concept of "Netwar" is discussed: 

"The United States is at war with a foe that is, as the cliche has it, "a shadowy terrorist network," a multinational private army whose nodes and lines of communication reach invisibly and murderously across national borders. It's centipedal, multiheaded, hard to find, difficult to kill. Don't be fooled by familiar-seeming before-and-after images of bomb damage or shots of jet fighters streaking off the decks of aircraft carriers: This is a new kind of war -- netwar. "Netwar requires a whole new set of strategies and tactics," (…)"

·         America's Secret Weapon, Thomas A. Stewart, Business 2.0, Dec 2001

The same magazine holds two public panel discussions on America's Secret Weapon.

Airport security depends to a large degree on the human security agents who search the passenger's luggage for weapons and bombs. From complex systems we know that the instructions that the agents receive are crucial for the success of the operation and the level of security that can be achieved. On a recent international flight with domestic connecting flights we could observe that these procedures seem to be less than optimal and not consistent with each other. For instance in Detroit airport on 01//11/07 passengers could not even get a plastic knife in the airport restaurants for their meals. Once they boarded the plane, they got their meals served, including plastic knives. On 01/11/01 at the same airport, security agents confiscated my key-ring carabiner because it could potentially be used to strike someone. When I asked the security agents, if they could identify plastic explosives, if there were any in my carry-on luggage, they had to decline, they didn't know what it would look like.

Maybe I was lucky that my uttering the words "plastic explosives" did not trigger the evacuation of the terminal building, something that apparently happened when a pilot used the word "gun" at a Baltimore airport when he protested the confiscation of is nail clipper. Extreme literal interpretation of rules can in the end lead to less and not more security when people stop taking them serious.

·         Search For Bombs, Not Nail Clippers, P. Smith, salon.com, 01/10/30

·         See also: Five Thoughts: Cyberterrorism, Stephen T. Barish, manager of security technology solutions at Ernst & Young and former operations planner for the Department of Defense, offers advice on how to guard against cyberterrorism.

·         "The War on Terrorism, the World Oil Market and the U.S. Economy," Analysis Paper #7, by George Perry; Brookings Project on Terrorism, and American Foreign Policy (Oct. 2001)

·         Earlier ComDig links: ComDig01-44/#19, ComDig01-43/#19, ComDig01-42/#19, ComDig01-41/#19, ComDig01-40/#19, ComDig01-39/#19, ComDig01-38/#20.2, ComDig01-37/#1 

2001.46 November-14-2001

19.Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks

The US homeland security program appears to be a classical example of an effort to control a complex system. Centralization and an attempt of direct control are unlikely to be successful:

"Rather than seeking direct authority over homeland security activities, Ridge must find ways to catalyze cooperation across agency lines, engaging officials he cannot possibly command.

Attorney General John Ashcroft, for example, is an absolutely critical player, with oversight over the FBI, Immigration and Naturalization Service and law enforcement generally. Ridge cannot direct Ashcroft; rather, he must ensure that he and Ashcroft work together in a constructive manner. (…)

Ridge's challenge is (…), to coordinate their fight against terrorism under its aegis."

·         How NOT to Reorganize for Homeland Security, Ivo H. Daalder, I.M. Destler, The Hill, 01/11/07

 

Excerpt: Geologists are examining rocks visible in a recent videotape of Osama bin Laden, in hopes of shedding light on his whereabouts.

In theory, by identifying the rock types, they might provide new clues to bin Laden's movements. But so far they disagree in their interpretations of the videotape. That's partly because of uncertainty about the rocks' color and distance from the camera. (...)

The U.S. government has apparently approached geologists for their advice about the videotape. (...)

·         Could Geology Give Bin Laden Away?, Keay Davidson, The San Francisco Chronicle, 10/15/01

o        Contributed by Mason A. Porter

·         Earlier ComDig links: ComDig01-45/#19, ComDig01-44/#19, ComDig01-43/#19, ComDig01-42/#19, ComDig01-41/#19, ComDig01-40/#19, ComDig01-39/#19, ComDig01-38/#20.2, ComDig01-37/#1 

2001.47 November-21-2001

19.Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks

Excerpt: In many ways, the combination of tactics probably could not have succeeded even a decade ago, when Americans were still used to assuming that stalemate was likely, even inevitable. For military planners, the nightmare was "quagmire"; military doctrine called for avoiding any war where Americans couldn't overwhelm the enemy and also assure themselves a way out.

(…) Cells of terrorists are seen as a bigger threat than Russian divisions.

·          Surprise. War Works After All, Eric Schmitt , NYTimes, 01/11/18

Editor's Note: Maybe it is a little early to draw any conclusions about how well "war works" in this case.

 

Excerpt: In the new games unveiled by the Institute, players become enveloped in lifelike wartime environments helped along with extremely accurate lighting and surround sound. They converse and interact with lifelike virtual people on huge movie screens who know military strategy, show emotions, and respond to complex thoughts and speech patterns in sometimes unexpected ways.

(…) one simply clicks a mouse to "modify" the meek lieutenant's "defensiveness level," thereby creating a different set of potential circumstances.

·         Soldiers Play 'Virtual Reality' Training Games, Sarah Tippit, Reuters, 01/11/20

·         Earlier ComDig links: ComDig01-46/#19 and links therein.

2001.48 November-28-2001

18. Optimization In Complex Networks, arXiv

Abstract: Many complex systems can be described in terms of networks of interacting units. Recent studies have shown that a wide class of both natural and artificial nets display a surprisingly widespread feature: the presence of highly heterogeneous distributions of links, providing an extraordinary source of robustness against perturbations. Although most theories concerning the origin of these topologies use growing graphs, here we show that a simple optimization process can also account for the observed regularities displayed by most complex nets. Using an evolutionary algorithm involving minimization of link density and average distance, four major types of networks are encountered: (a) sparse exponential-like networks, (b) sparse scale-free networks, (c) star networks and (d) highly dense networks, apparently defining three major phases. These constraints provide a new explanation for scaling of exponent about -3. The evolutionary consequences of these results are outlined.

·         Optimization In Complex Networks, R. Ferrer i Cancho, R. V. Sole, arXiv, cond-mat/0111222, 01/11/12

 

19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks

Editor's Note: One of the characteristic signatures of an intelligent system is that it learns from mistakes. It is also known that information about the causes of a problem dissipates rapidly over time, that is one reason why investigations typically are most successful if the investigators have early access to the evidence. Having said that, it seems that there are other factors besides the search for truth behind the delay in the investigation -there is a difference between giving an investigation low priority and delaying it- of the intelligence problems related to the 9/11 attack.

Excerpt: Congressional leaders have agreed to delay until next year any major investigation into the government's failure to prevent the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, citing the need to give the administration time to focus on the war in Afghanistan and the global effort to destroy the Qaeda terrorist network."

·         Inquiries Into Failures Of Intelligence Community Are Put Off Until Next Year, James Risen, Todd S. Purdum, NYTimes, 01/11/23

 

Editor's Note:  The changes in the US law system including special treatment for suspected terrorists are another example that in complex systems more might not always be better. Giving the US president more power to prosecute and potentially execute suspected terrorists without the established procedures for a fair trial might not only weaken the international support for the struggle against terrorism but also -in the long run- support the terrorists' goal of doing damage to democratic society and human rights.

Excerpt: Spain, which caught and charged eight men for complicity in the Sept. 11 attacks, last week balked at turning over the suspects to a U.S. tribunal ordered to ignore rights normally accorded alien defendants. Other members of the European Union holding suspects that might help us break Al Qaeda may also refuse extradition. Presumably Secretary of State Colin Powell was left out of the Ashcroft try- 'em-and-fry-'em loop.

·         Kangaroo Courts, William Safire, NYTimes, 01/11/26

 

Excerpt: U.S. President George W. Bush is expected to put the case for military tribunals to Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar when the pair meet in Washington on Wednesday.

Spain has refused to extradite al Qaeda suspects to the United States, partly because it finds the prospect of secret trials by such tribunals unacceptable.

·         Bush Lobbies Spanish Prime Minister, CNN, 01/11/28

 

Editor's Note:  It has become more and more evident that complex systems have a lot to contribute to the understanding of how the problem of global terrorist networks can be solved.

Excerpt: In a piece that combines scientific insight with personal experience — and which ought to be mandatory reading by the Bush administration — chaos theory pioneer Doyne Farmer notes that with any such system “there are two fundamentally different approaches to prediction and control.” The first, which is essentially the approach being taken by the Pentagon, is to try to predict the detailed trajectory the system will take and then attempt to stop it from achieving that path.

·         New World Disorder: What Now? Scientists On The Edge, Margaret Wertheim, LAWeekly, 01/11/02

 

Editor's Note: We just learned that the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff is co-ponsoring an open workshop where the pontential contributions from complex systems are explored.

Excerpt: Recent research into the behavior of complex organizations in complex environments may provide military leaders with fresh perspectives and innovative solutions for the challenges that lay ahead. This two-day open workshop will be an opportunity for researchers and practitioners from academia, business and the military to meet in an unclassified setting and discuss the potential applications of complex systems research to the employment of conventional forces against terrorism.

·         New Perspectives on Conventional Military Force and the War on Terrorism, Washington, DC, 01/12/11-13

·         Earlier ComDig links: ComDig01-46/#19 and links therein.

2001.49 December-05-2001

19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks

Excerpt: Since the mid-1980s, the U.S. Army laboratory that is the main custodian of the virulent strain of anthrax used in the recent terrorist attacks distributed the bacteria to just five labs in the United States, Canada and England, according to government documents and interviews. Two of the labs -- both in the private sector -- received the strain this spring, only a few months before letters tainted with anthrax spores were mailed to New York and Washington, the records show. The documents, obtained by The Washington Post, offer the first official accounting of how the microbes, known as the Ames strain, were originally disseminated. They show that the distribution of Ames was much narrower than recently thought, and a top anthrax researcher said the strain may be limited to a dozen labs. (...)

·         Ames Strain Of Anthrax Limited To Few Labs, Steve Fainaru, Joby Warrick, The Washington Post, 11/30/01

·         Contributed by Mason A. Porter

 

Editor's Note: The workshop New Perspectives on Conventional Military Force and the War on Terrorism, originally to be held in Washington, DC next week needs to be postponed until spring 2002. In this workshop participants from academia, industry and government were to explore ways in which methods from complex systems could be applied to solve the problem of global terrorist networks. According to the organizer, the military funding for travel and conference participation was frozen and it would not make sense to hold the workshop without participation from the military.

Viewing governments as complex adaptive systems, budgets are primary evolutionary fitness parameters that discriminate between competing programs and largely determine which ones will grow and which ones will go extinct. In regards to the declared goal of solving the problem of terrorism it remains to be seen if the multi-billion dollar expenses allocated to the bombing campaign in Afghanistan is indeed so much more effective than corresponding investments in human intelligence and innovative, complexity based strategies and efforts.

"Still, parts of the war are adding up: the estimated $5,000 an hour to fly a Navy FA-18 fighter-bomber, the $25,600 cost of one of the frequently used Joint Direct Attack Munition bombs [the type of bomb that killed three U.S. troops earlier today (AP), Ed.], the top-of-the-line Tomahawk cruise missiles."

·         War May be Costing $1 Billion a Month, AP/excite News, 01/11/11

·         Estimated Cost of Operation Enduring Freedom, Steven M. Kosiak, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), 01/11/02

·         3 U.S. Troops Killed in Afghanistan AP/excite News, 01/12/05

·          Earlier ComDig links: ComDig01-46/#19 and links therein.

2001.50 December-13-2001

19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks

Excerpt: (...) Hundreds of volunteers began receiving injections of smallpox vaccine yesterday, answering the call of researchers trying to determine whether the US can dilute and expand its store of 15 million doses of the treatment in case of a terrorist attack using the virus. The vaccine, which is being administered in varying strengths, will make many volunteers feel as if they have flu symptoms, and, in extremely rare cases, could cause inflammation of the brain or even death. The vaccine, made from a virus related to smallpox, prompts the immune system to develop antibodies. (...)

·         Smallpox Vaccine Tested, Lix Kowalczyk, The Boston Globe, 11/6/01

·         Contributed by Mason A. Porter

 

Excerpt: (...) The DNA-based test uses technology developed by Swiss drugmaker Roche olding AG to look quickly for DNA from the bacteria that cause anthrax. (...)

"Until now, local labs have been able to quickly determine the presence of a bacterium, but they can't tell whether it is anthrax or not," he said."The current process to identify he presence of anthrax may take several days. The events of the last several weeks require as rapid a response as possible." (...)

·         Mayo Clinic Develops One-Hour Anthrax Test, Maggie Fox, Reuters, 11/05/01

·         Contributed by Mason A. Porter

 

Excerpts: Anyone who attempts a key counter-stroke against terrorism must ask first whether he is hurling a boomerang.(¡K) This is why the alleged choice between civil liberties and effective measures against terrorism is regularly less simple than it seems. Nothing does more to breed terrorism than the closing of the normal political and legal channels, and injustice against which there is no legal remedy is perhaps the biggest present we can offer to any terrorist organization. (¡K) internment was one of the best recruiting sergeants the IRA ever had.

·         Don't Give Terrorists The Gift Of Bad Laws, Conrad Russell, 2001 Independent Digital (UK), 01/12/09

 

Excerpts: The order [by US President Bush, Ed.] may actually make it harder to prevent and punish terrorism. Actually using military tribunals could also reduce our ability to uncover and prosecute terrorist cells operating in this country. (¡K)

First, it threatens a basic tactic in fighting complex criminal organizations: prosecuting a low-level member to help develop more evidence for another case against someone higher in the organization's chain of command. (¡K)Second, prosecutors have greater success when they put as many defendants on trial at the same time as possible.

·         Rooting Out Terrorists Just Became Harder, James Orenstein, The New York Times, 01/12/06

 

Excerpts: President Bush and Attorney General Ashcroft have promised not to abuse their extraordinary new powers. But human beings are fallible. Which is why, when life and liberty are at stake, due process and judicial review are so critically important. (¡K)

There were reasons why the founding fathers established a system of checks and balances in the national government. Terrorism is not a good reason to sidestep that system.

·         Mistakes Will Be Made, Bob Herbert, NYTimes, 01/12/10

 

Excerpts: Mr. bin Laden has fundamentally changed the nature of terrorist financing. (¡K) when state sponsorship for terrorism was in decline, Mr. bin Laden undertook a privatization of terror, creating a far more diffuse network than any faced in the past.

"The decline in state-sponsored terrorism means that the private support for terrorist groups has become the most essential element in fund-raising," (¡K) "That means any attempt to cut the money flow into Al Qaeda or other similar organizations will prove far more difficult than it has been in the past."

·         Terror Money Hard To Block, Officials Find, Kurt Eichenwald, NYTimes, 01/12/10

 2001.52 December-27-2001

19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks

Editor's Note: After having witnessed elderly ladies having their cosmetic utensils confiscated at a US airport security check I asked one of the security inspectors if he would recognize plastic explosives if I had some in my carry-on luggage. The answer was that they were not instructed to look for plastic explosives.

Last week the quick thinking of a flight attendant and the collective action of several passengers in combination with the lack of intelligence of the would-be terrorist (fortunately he didn't try to light his sneakers in the bathroom) prevented another airplane disaster. Mr. Reid didn't fit the profile of a cold-blooded terrorist and still he could get hold of sophisticated C4 and smuggle it on an airplane even after he has gone through considerable efforts to raise red flags. One might wonder if current security measures really have improved the chance to prevent a sophisticated terrorist to blow-up a plane in a suicide mission.

Excerpt:  The plastic explosive that a passenger allegedly tried to detonate aboard a trans-Atlantic American Airlines flight last week was "very, very sophisticated," (…)

Officials say Richard Reid hid 10 ounces of PETN-based material, a version of the plastic explosive C4 that is very sensitive to heat and friction, in each of his shoes when he boarded Flight 63 in Paris on December 22. (…)

Investigators, the official noted, have also found a safety fuse -- black powder packed inside a cord that is attached to and designed to detonate the explosive.

·         Official: Plastic Explosive 'Very Sophisticated', CNN, 01/12/27

·         See also Complexity Digest 2001-45#19, 01/11/09

2002.01 January-03-2002 

19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks

Reader's Comment: To support your suggestion that not much official thinking has changed in response to Sept 11 I would also cite the fact that when the Pentagon publicly announced a search for possible solutions to the problem - the focus was on entirely technological fixes. Both your critical observation of airport security, and commendation of the work of crew/passengers in overcoming the recent attack, revolve around what are primarily non-technological situations. However, we are blinkered by a culture which sees systems/technology and people as separate. That's all very philosophical until you start to see the real negatives/positives of this in the current situation.

Thus, I content the value of complexity theory in the 'Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks' is in enabling us to first theorise, and then act on the paradigm of people and systems as equal and inter-connected, with suggest valuable practical lessons to be gained in the fight against terrorist networks.

·         Stuart Glendinning-Hall, e-mail, 01/12/28

·         See also: Plastic Explosive 'Very Sophisticated', CNN, Complexity Digest 2001.52#19

 

Excerpt: The F.B.I. renewed its push on Capitol Hill for money to create a computer system that would allow various field offices to share and analyze information collected by agents. Until late last year, Congress had refused to pay for the project.

Without the analytical aid of a computer system, Mr. Bryant said, the bureau's counterterrorism program would be hobbled, particularly if the goal was to avert a crime. "We didn't know what we had," he said. "We didn't know what we knew."

·         Many Say U.S. Planned for Terror but Failed to Take Action,NY Times, 01/12/30

 

Excerpt: But some critics say the president's order includes so many provisions violating the Geneva Conventions that it would be difficult for the regulations to meet the conventions' requirements. (...)

For example, he said, the president's assuming the authority to make the final decision on the disposition of each case is in direct conflict with the third Geneva Convention's provision that no prisoner be tried by a court that fails to offer "the essential guarantees of independence and impartiality."

·         Critics' Attack on Tribunals Turns to Law Among Nations, William Glaberson, NYTimes, 01/12/26

 

Excerpt: The American attack on the convoy has laid bare the complex and fluid allegiances that shape life in Paktia. The Taliban came, Pashtun tribal leaders joined with them, and now the Taliban are gone. And so it is that a former Taliban deputy minister is now in Kabul to pay his respects to the government that came to power fighting it.

But negotiating such changes is not a simple matter, and Paktia is, in some ways, feeling the fall of the Taliban harder than most.

·         Debate Over U.S. Raid on Convoy Exposes Fluid Loyalties in Area Shaken by War, Amy Waldman, NYTimes, 01/12/28

 

Excerpt: (...) groups that have become too contentious for Pakistan to continue supporting have "re-badged" themselves under new names, and resumed their attacks in Kashmir.

·         Kashmir's Islamic Guerrillas See Little to Fear From U.S., John F. Burns, NY Times

 2002.02 January-10-2002

19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks

Excerpt: Flight instructors said little can be done to avert a repeat of what happened in Tampa. One aviator called the incident a "breach of trust" more than a security breach.

·         Tampa Crash Raises Serious Security Questions, CNN, 02/01/06

 

Excerpts: Few flight schools have security measures in place that could have averted a Florida teen-ager who crashed a small plane into a skyscraper. Instructors say even with the heightened awareness after the September attacks, there is little they can do to identify a dangerous would-be pilot, though some are reviewing their procedures anew. (…)

A Coast Guard helicopter and two military jets pursued him before he finally crashed near the 28th floor of the 42-story Bank of America building. No one inside the building was injured.

·         Spotting Dangerous Pilots Hard For Flight Schools, CNN, 02/01/06

 

Editor's Note: For more than ten years it had been recognized that there is not much that can be done to detect, intercept or stop a small airplane. This fact has been exploited by illegal drug traffickers for years. The suicide mission of the Florida teenager (fortunately without any explosives on board) made this risk to homeland security dramatically visible.

 2002.03 January-17-2002

19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks

Editor's Note:  In some of the arguments about how to deal with "detainees" apprehended in the war against terrorism it seems to be implicitly assumed that the "detainees" are guilty and therefore have forfeited their rights. With that logic the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" is suspended and the detaining forces are given implicit judicial powers. Without the control of checks and balances between executive and judicial powers a complex systems perspective would view this situation as highly unstable against abuse.

Excerpts: (...) the Pentagon says the detainees are not prisoners of war (POWs) protected by the Geneva Conventions and describes them as "unlawful combatants" instead.

Human rights groups and some British parliamentarians insist that the detainees should be treated as POWs. (...)

"The individuals currently being held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should not be considered prisoners of war, or criminals under any accepted civil or military definition of those terms.

These "detainees", as they are labelled, skirted international norms and abandoned their rights as sovereign nationals when they chose to participate in the stateless pursuit of terrorism.", Jay C Farrar, Center for Strategic & International Studies, Washington DC

·         Head to Head: Guantanamo Prisoners, BBC News, 02/01/16

 

''It is not the prerogative of the Secretary of Defense or any other US administration official to determine whether those held in Guantánamo are POWs'', Amnesty International said. "An independent US court, following due process, is the appropriate organ to make this determination." (…)

Any detainee who is suspected of a crime, whether or not they are POWs, must be charged with a criminal offense and tried fairly or released. Denying POWs or other people protected by the Geneva Conventions a fair trial is a war crime.

·         USA: AI Calls On The USA To End Legal Limbo Of Guantánamo Prisoners, Amnesty International , 02/01/15

 

Excerpt: Terrorist acts committed in wartime have a different legal connotation. Violence - carried to its extreme - is inherent in war; it is also inherent in terrorism. This raises the question of the distinction to be made between two different types of violence: "licit violence" in armed conflicts governed by the laws of war, as opposed to "illicit violence" (which includes terrorism). On what criteria is the distinction based?

·         Prohibition Of Terrorist Acts In International Humanitarian Law, Hans-Peter Gasser, International Review of the Red Cross, August 1986

2002.04 January-24-2002

19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks

Excerpts: Modern industrial societies, because they are complex arrangements optimized for efficiency, tend to be quite resistant to random failure; but careful studies of various networks, including subsystems of our own efficient industrial economy, reveal a troublesome feature. The Internet exemplifies the pattern: It consists of multiple nodes (…). The organization is scale-free, because added nodes connect preferentially to others that are already well connected. Such networks are robust with respect to random failure. But they are highly vulnerable to targeted disruption of the most highly connected nodes.

·         Science, Terrorism, and Natural Disasters, Donald Kennedy, Science 2002 295:. 405

 

Excerpts: (…)examine the so-called "CNN Effect"-the impact of 24-hour-a day, live television coverage broadcast from around the world by all-news cable channels

Policymakers acknowledge that they often first learn of new trouble spots around the globe from cable channel coverage. World leaders often direct messages to each other through such news channels, as President Bush has done in the current crisis. And videotaped statements by Osama bin Laden are an example of how America's enemies can take advantage of the all-news channels to spread propaganda against the United States.

·         "The CNN Effect": How 24-Hour News Coverage Affects Government Decisions and Public Opinion,Brookings/Harvard Forum, 02/01/23

 

Excerpts: Even in the chat rooms, the initial tone of xing zai le huo (gloating at the pain of others) faded as the death toll grew.

Yet there is something going on here, something more complex - and, to me, far more worrying - than simply schadenfreude at seeing America humbled. It is a rapidly increasing Chinese nationalism.

This nationalism has deep roots in China and results in part from the battering that the country suffered at foreign hands over the last 200 years.

·         The Chip On China's Shoulder, Nicholas D. Kristof, NYTimes, 02/01/18

 

Excerpt: "Secretary of Defense [Donald] Rumsfeld and others insist that these are not prisoners of war and there, frankly, he's wrong," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "The Geneva Conventions require all prisoners to be treated as presumptive prisoners of war until a competent tribunal determines otherwise."(¡K)

But Attorney General John Ashcroft defended his classification of the detainees as "war criminals." "These people are terrorists, they haven't fought like soldiers, they don't wear uniforms, they don't reveal themselves," Ashcroft said Sunday.

·         Ashcroft Defends Detainees' Treatment, CNN, 02/01/21

 

Excerpts: Some (…) presumably thought they were part of the Afghan army. Are they POWs? Washington says no, because the Taliban had no clear chain of command and was not a legitimate government. That may be so; unfortunately, as Amnesty International has pointed out, under the Geneva Convention the Pentagon has no business making such a determination. Those who fall into the enemy's hands are entitled to POW status until a "competent tribunal" has determined their status. In the case of those in Cuba, that hasn't happened.

·         Camp X-Ray, When Is A War Prisoner Not A POW?, Michael Elliott, Time, 02/01/28

2002.05 January-31-2002

19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks

Excerpts: (...) European Union has looked skeptically on Washington's claim that the captives are not POWs, but "unlawful combatants." No such category exists in international law, say the Europeans, backed up by many leading international jurists who insist the captives are entitled either to the rights of POWs, or else to those of common criminals.

The dispute doesn't detract from the fact that the Europeans have enthusiastically and effectively taken up the war against al Qaeda. They have uprooted its European networks, shared intelligence (...).

·         Why Guantanamo Has Europe Hopping Mad, Tony Karon, Time.com, 02/01/25

 

Excerpts: Under the airport security bill passed in November, the federal government has just nine months left to build and staff a new agency that will have more employees than the Education, Housing and Urban Development and State departments combined.

Virtually everything about the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) must be built from scratch.

(…)Focus on performance at every turn. The airport security law requires the undersecretary to establish a result-based management system that sets measurable goals and milestones.

·         Getting it Right [Transportation Security Agency, Ed.], Brookings Government Executive, February 1, 2002 Paul Light

 

2002.06 February-07-2002

19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks, CNN

Excerpt:  A senior French government minister has attacked the U.S. approach to fighting terrorism as "simplistic."

Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine told France Inter radio on Wednesday: "We are friends of the United States, we are friends of that people and we will remain so.

"But we are threatened today by a new simplism which consists in reducing everything to the war on terrorism.

"That is their approach, but we cannot accept that idea. You have got to tackle the root causes, the situations, poverty, injustice."

·          France Raises Terror War Concerns, CNN, 02/02/07

 

Excerpt: Xinhua news agency on Sunday quoted Wang as saying in a security conference in Munich that the fight against terrorism should be "clearly targeted and that it should avoid hurting innocent people."

"We should boost mutual understanding and dialogue among different countries and peoples," he said, adding it was not proper to exacerbate the contradictions among civilizations.

The official media on Monday also carried the views of politicians and parliamentarians from countries including Russia, Germany and the U.K., opposing Bush's stance on the three axis countries.

·         Beijing Blasts Bush On 'Axis Of Evil', CNN, 02/02/03

 

This item is taken directly from CHAOPSYC,
a discussion forum of the Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology and the Life Sciences
[Not taken from Complexity Digest]

From: Anatoliy Shiyan sim@HMEL.VINNITSA.COM
To: CHAOPSYC@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject:      The Civilization will be destroyed?
Date: Tuesday, January 01, 2002 5:45 PM

Friends,

Our discussion of the Sept 11, 2001 terrorist attack is passed to the question on culture and Civilization phenomena. I wrote about these problems, and my opinion can be summed in following points:

1. The attack on the state level (on the level of USA as a separate country) demonstrates a set of crises:
—The crisis of information-analytical service systems on the level of State government (CIA, FBI, State-department, etc.)
—The crisis of mass media in sense of their interaction with society.
—The crisis of the system of decision making on the State level (the war is not adequate answer on terrorist attack).

2. We must remember the crises in moral and ethical spheres, which have been previous, and which today are in judicial field: cloning and euthanasia.

3. The crisis, which the mankind cannot decide: globalization (the old system of "world management" has been destroyed by terrorist attack), ecological crisis, and the crisis of "scientific Picture of the world" (this crisis is unknown for many specialists).

4. The nature of these crisises is that adequate theoretical models for the Man are absent. There are no models for including of the Man as the element into the technological chains. We have the "technological" picture of Nature, but we have not the "technological" picture of Man and Society.

5. The future dangers: the destruction of the European culture by the channel of destruction of both the "scientific" Picture of world and the system of knowledge translation. As result the Civilization would be destroyed into a set of separate regional civilizations with the traditional type of culture. This processes are go today. There is a set of markers for these processes.

6. There is the variant of model for the Man description, which can be used for overcoming of these crisises.

Anatoliy Shiyan
(some copy editing by fda)