Setting the Stage Global Foundation Conference

Washington DC. October 10th to 12th 2002

Addressing Vulnerabilities:

Science and Technologies in Secure Energy Systems

Richard WilsonMallinckrodt Research Professor of Physics

Harvard UniversityOctober 10th 2002

Modern Society is very Vulnerable

in many different ways

Energy systemsComputer Networks

Transportation Networks

Do not store a lot of fuel in one place

near a lot of people in one place. (Wigner)  Oil tanks and LNG facilities should be in

remote areas.   (In 1848 London decided to keep petroleum

products 30 miles from London bridge in Canvey Island)

Terrorism and Sabotage already considered for nuclear power.

Hydroelectric DamsMankind has built Ports and

Cities on Estuaries and Rivers

Flood Control Dams and Hydroelectric

Dams are in upper reaches Folsom Dam above Sacramento

Littleton Dam on Connecticut River

Missouri/Missisippi is worse!!

LNG is a fuel almost ready to burn/explode

Just mix with air/oxygen

Typical 17 million gallon tank could be 20 Hiroshimas

Keep your distance.

Transmission Networks have failed for “trivial” reasons

A relay failure in Canada set off the NE blackout of 1967

A substation failure in Naperville ILL shut down O’Hare airport

We must take into account the Low Probability High Consequence event.

Terrorists will and try to make it more probable

Few plans for a major fire at WTC? (FEMA report)

Insulation not tested for durabilityFire and initial impact destroyed all safety

mechanisms (Common mode failure should have been

foreseen!)Helicopter fire fighters?

Protect buildings by cables from towers or balloons?

World Trade Center Building Construction inadequate in many

waysPort Authority had its own code

No code for the insulation

Langer and Morse suggest that:Insulation sprayed on rusty beamsMay NEVER have stuck properly

Not as good as asbestosNot inspected again after other

trades did their workThey claim that IF asbestos had been

used building would still stand

Inspect the insulation of all buildings over 50 stories high.

(expensive but possible;

e.g. apply a heat source to steel in one location and compare the

temperature - time profile with calculation)

We can protect energy systems a bit better but not enoughwe should step back and:

Try to stop terrorists being created

Try to stop terrorists having access

WITHOUT ruining our society

Imagine what a terrorist might do: and

devise a system to make it hard for him to do it. 

Stop the event as early in the chain as possible

(dont let trouble spots fester)

Event Tree Analysis

The chain starts even further back:

(1) Creation of a terrorist(2) Terrorist has access to a

vulnerable system(3) Terrorist acts

The best is trying to stop terrorists being created

but that is not this conferenceSo consider next step

Trying to prevent access can be done in a variety of ways

Use profiling to identify suspicous groups (BUT studies show that terrorists are just like

us)Keep track of all suspicous

activities.Dont let anyone near anything

dangerous (no handguns shotguns etc)

Fundamental Question

How do we have a Department of Homeland

Security without it becoming like the

infamous KGB?

USSR society was probably more free from crime.

They did it by fear.

Some terrorists are now educated.

Also some act in concert

    Sabotage and terrorism are unfortunate facts of life.

  They will be with us until the end

of the human race. 

We must not let terrorism distort our lives.

Other risks are bigger.Car accidents:

45,000/yr vs. 3,500 onceDrugs destroy society more

Security vs. FreedomOur human rights are what makes life worth living.

“If you still want to belong to an organization dedicated to killing Americans, there’s always the tobacco lobby.”

Alex Gregory, Cartoonbank.com

First task:Define the problem.

Next task: break it into manageable

component partsfactorizable as much as possible

Bush's Prescriptionto stop terrorism

“Get the guy who did this”But in a suicide attack he is dead.  

   How do you find the planner?

Who is a terrorist?  When is a man a terrorist and when is he a

freedom fighter?

  Is a terrorist a coward? 

Did September 11th 2001 (4000 people killed)

change the world?

Not mine by much.The Rape of Nanking killed

300,000 (1938)The UK air raid on Dresden

300,000 (1944)(but it was the first in America)

Globalization and its Consequences

    Globalization seems inevitable.

Consequence of scientific breakthroughs

(1) Communication technology (2) Biology (genome)

(3) in physics.We cannot say:

Stop the world I want to get off !

I have few conclusions but many questions to answer.

We must address disagreements

Bush Called Osame Bin Laden EVIL

Does he compare with:Adolf Hitler?

Emperor Hirohito?Saddam Hussein?

There are a lot of bright people in the worldCan’t one of them find a way of getting rid of

that man?

Definition of a Terrorist (OED) The terrorists, as they were justly denominated, from the cruel and impolitic maxim of keeping the people in

implicit subjugation by a merciless severity (1795)   Several notables are believed to be more or less

implicated in the acts of the Terrorists (1905)    Miss G...., daughter of a Wexford terrorist, directed

many of the tortures which were so extensively practiced (1866)

some book of the religious terrorists which tended to infuse the alarm of foul perdition(1805)

Was Hitler and his Nazis a gang of terrorists?

even though they were the legitimate government of

Germany, originally elected by the people?  

Were opponents of Hitler terrorists?

Esp. Colonel Von Stauffenburg who tried to assassinate Hitler with a bomb in a brief case?

Were the Hutus in Ruanda terrorists when they killed Tutsis although the legitimate government?

    Were the Young Turks terrorists when they victimized the Armenians in 1916?

Or were the Armenians terrorists because they were not model citizens?

Were (and are) the opponents of British rule in Ireland

terrorists?    Has the situation changed since partition in 1922?

Is the government of Russia guilty of terrorism against the people of Chechnya (who have as much voting power as other

residents of Russia) or are the radical Chechens guilty of

terrorism against Russia?

Or both?     Is the government of Sri Lanka acting like the Jacobins against the Tamils of the

north, or are the Tamils a bunch of terrorists to be tamed?

Was the US terrorising people in WACO Texas, or fighting

terrorists?Timothy McVeigh thought the former

    Was General Custer fighting a band of Indian terrorists, or

were the Indians fighting an oppression worse than the French had experienced in

1795?

Was Castro a terrorist or a freedom fighter when he opposed

the government of Batista? 

What about those branded by Castro as terrorists to whom the USA has given citizenship?    

We must not duck the difficult questions but face them head on.

Is the government of Israel a terrorist government because they follow " the

cruel and impolitic maxim of keeping the (Palestinian) people in implicit

subjugation by a merciless severity"? Or are the Palestinians all terrorists

because they belong to an organization opposing the present government of Israel and its policies and particularly in its early

days, aim to drive them into the sea?  

Possible criteria for choosing sides A terrorist is a man with a bomb and no airplane to drop it from (EM Purcell, 1983).

The Azeris were bad first (Elena Bonner, 1984) 

"Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day; but a series of

oppressions, begun in a distinguished period and pursued unilaterally thro' every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate, systematical plan of reducing

us to slavery".

Gerry Adams?

Possible criteria for choosing sides A terrorist is a man with a bomb and no airplane to drop it from (EM Purcell, 1983).

The Azeris were bad first (Elena Bonner, 1984) 

"Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day; but a series of

oppressions, begun in a distinguished period and pursued unilaterally thro' every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate, systematical plan of reducing

us to slavery".

Kashmiri Leader?

Possible criteria for choosing sides A terrorist is a man with a bomb and no airplane to drop it from (EM Purcell, 1983).

The Azeris were bad first (Elena Bonner, 1984) 

"Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day; but a series of

oppressions, begun in a distinguished period and pursued unilaterally thro' every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate, systematical plan of reducing

us to slavery".

Yasser Arafat?

Possible criteria for choosing sides A terrorist is a man with a bomb and no airplane to drop it from (EM Purcell, 1983).

The Azeris were bad first (Elena Bonner, 1984) 

"Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day; but a series of

oppressions, begun in a distinguished period and pursued unilaterally thro' every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate, systematical plan of reducing

us to slavery".

NO!

Possible criteria for choosing sides A terrorist is a man with a bomb and no airplane to drop it from (EM Purcell, 1983).

The Azeris were bad first (Elena Bonner, 1984) 

"Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day; but a series of

oppressions, begun in a distinguished period and pursued unilaterally thro' every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate, systematical plan of reducing

us to slavery".

  Thomas Jefferson (1774)

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

Monachem Begin; terrorist in 1945 leader of Israel 1978

Bourgiba, jailed in Cairo, first President of Tunisia

    A rebellion is a Revolution that does

not succeed (Victor Weisskopf) May 1940,  I learned unarmed combat.

Was I becoming a terrorist or a Freedom fighter?

30 years ago a friend of mine became a terrorist.

Then he became a freedom fighter

Within 6 months he was a statesman

He did not change. He lives in Bangladesh

The Planners and Financiers of Terrorism

    President Bush says he opposed the planners, and financiers, of terrorism.

How about those in NY and Boston who financed the IRA?

Civilian or Military Targets?

    Are they different?Must a civilian be unarmed?What about throwing stones?

Even at worshippers? Does a military target justify Collateral

damage?What about the terror of Mutually

Assured Destruction

Cowardly acts

    Are "suicide bombers" "cowardly"?

Japanese Kamikaze pilots?Colonel Claus von Stauffenburg in 1944?Pilots dropping bombs on a UN refugee

camp?

Suicide bomber in Tel Aviv?

Step 1

The root causes of Terrorism   We ...... a diverse community of many races,

religions, cultures and nations, commit ourselves to work for peace and justice everywhere in the world. 

We invite others to join in this commitment.   We must and will fight ignorance, poverty, hunger,

intolerance and injustice wherever and whenever they show their ugly faces.  We must succeed  so 

that  no one state, no one group or even one individual will ever again have the desperation  to perform such an abominable act as the attack on

September 11th 2001 or shelter one of the perpetrators"

Step 2.Keeping Terrorists at Arm’s length   Resolve major trouble spots

before they festerKashmir

Israel - PalestineCapitalize on present unanimity

Mikhail Gorbachev urges use of UNset up in 1945 for such purposes but bypassed by USA and USSR

Pilots would now resist a hijacking

Bar cockpit doorsHidden switch to take control of

plane to ground or automatic pilot

(already suggested)

Anthrax scare easyIrradiate all mail at sorting offices (Co60 or Cs137)

poisoning water supplies? Emergency purification?