While President Bush made terrorism prevention a priority in his State of the Union address, University of Wisconsin professors are working to develop effective ways to reduce the risk of terrorist threats.
Three UW professors are taking part in a project funded by the recently created Department of Homeland Security, designed to create new strategies to most effectively protect America’s infrastructure and buildings from new attacks.
The University of Southern California centers the operations of the Homeland Security Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events, in which UW professors Vicki Bier, Larry Bank and Larry Samuelson participate.
Bier, a professor of industrial engineering and engineering physics, explained the purpose of the center.
“The basic idea is we try to protect against terrorist threats,” she said. Bier also said one of the center’s goals is to determine targets most susceptible to attack and use that information to reduce vulnerability. Since resources for protection are scarce, Bier said another facet of the center is to prioritize where these resources would be most effective.
The center strives to create original ideas to reduce the threat of terrorism rather than attempt to merely deflect disruptive attacks. Bier said that if all post offices installed anthrax-detection devices, terrorists would send anthrax-contaminated materials through private distribution services like United Parcel Service and bike couriers.
Bank, a professor of civil and environmental engineering, said the center’s experts work to “evolve” their theories because of terrorists’ ability to change their targets to respond to government action.
Samuelson, a UW economics professor, said terrorism is relatively new, and research is needed for the new threat of terrorists.
Samuelson also pegged the need for research as the reason why the game theory receives major attention during terrorism-prevention policy. Game theory, Samuelson explained, means deciphering the results when unique individuals possess conflicting desires.
“You have to make the right tradeoffs,” Samuelson said.
One issue the center faces is determining the types of attacks terrorists will most likely utilize and how these will affect people, along with identifying groups who are the most vulnerable.
These tradeoffs, Bank said, must be made because terrorism prevention will be the most costly form of safety in years to come.
He also said changes are already being made to structural engineering, but nearly every possible target still must be considered.
“We need a raising of consciousness in general,” he said. Banks added America should not be a country of fear, but one that is well prepared. Banks drew a comparison between terrorism prevention and car crash testing — you cannot always avoid highway fatalities, but the goal is to improve safety in the end.
