Emerging Threats: Creation of a Regional Foresight Matrix

International Industrial Security Seminar, July 25-26, 2011. Venue: G Hotel, Penang, Malaysia

By Mathew Maavak

mathew@maavak.net

Section 1: Causative Factors to Emerging Threats

Section 2: Introducing Security Foresight

Section 3: Creation of a Regional Foresight Matrix

Section 1: Causative Factors to Emerging Threats

Emerging Threats – Understanding Basic Human Needs (Maslow’s Hirearchy)

Any disruption to “physiological” and “safety” needs at the bottom rungs of Maslow’s Hierarchy will disrupt social order,

creating enough street-by-street mayhem and thereby incapacitate so-called higher chain of activities. After all, a society is

only 9 meals (3 days) away from anarchy.

Notice that “safety” means “security” and it lies at the penultimate foundation of Maslow’s Hierarchy. “Safety” underpins higher forms of human activity. What if safety was removed?

Self Actualization

Esteem

Love/belonging

Safety

Physiological

Source: Wikipedia

What are the emerging threats?

Is it this?

Riots

Famine

DroughtEpidemic

Great Depression?

Or is it this?

The answer is both! Remember….

Terrorism, revolutions and other human evils are the spawns of hopelessness; they are the culminations of

social breakdowns.

The Grim Stats

• Our global society is undergoing multiple interconnected crises. These are converging to affect our societies, our industries and ourselves. The future of the security industry lies not in combating terrorism or militant activities per se but in anticipating the rage – and its fallouts – of an increasingly demoralized population. These are due to:

• 1) Rising unemployment /hyperinflation/ homelessness

• 2) Deteriorating food security

• 3) Deteriorating primary health care

• 4) Corruption, nepotism, cronyism and autocracy.

(incidentally the four grouses succinctly captured on a Cairo placard)

• 5) Ascendency of regional criminal syndicates/militant networks

• 6) Rise in the number of failed/failing states

• 7) Disastrous Capital Flight from failed/failing states.

• 8) Failure of Western laissez-faire capitalist ideology

More Stats

There were 925 million people living in hunger in 2010. That’s 1/7 of humanity. [1] This figure will get worse this year, and aggravate further next year.

There are close to 2 billion people who are either unemployed or poorly employed, representing youths or the most productive working-age segment. [2] For the first time ever, a significant proportion of them will be educated.

Our society is now a fertile ground for every conceivable anti-social activity, and emerging threats will be highly asymmetric vis-a-vis traditional notions of “security”

The Stark Reality

In 2007, The UK’s Ministry of Defence has predicted a global middle class revolt by 2040. [3] This may

prove extremely sanguine as we are already living through some of the MOD’s distant projections. The

March 2011 London riots is a precocious manifestation of a growing middle class rage.

Project Horizon, which was recently conceived and led by the US State Department, brought together USG

national security and global affairs agencies for a joint, scenario-based strategic planning based on

alternative scenarios at the year 2025

Guess where does terrorism stand in this strategic calculus? (See next slide)

Project Horizon – Forces for Change

1. Global Interdependence

2. Science & (S&T) Competition

3. China and India

4. Natural Resources/Energy

5. Global Perceptions of the U.S.

6. Changes in Military Power

7. Environmental Change

8. Global Health and Disease

Most frequently mentioned forces for change expected to drive the

landscape of challenges and opportunities through 2025

9. Advances in Science and

Technology

10. Globalization, Poverty, and

Development

11. Demographics

12. Religion

13. Sovereignty and the Role of

the Nation-state

14. Terrorism

15. Interagency Issues

Source: US State Department

Is there a method to anticipate emerging threats? Yes, it’s called Foresight.

Foresight entails:

Futures (forecasting, forward thinking etc)

Planning (strategic analysis, priority setting etc), and

Networking (participatory, dialogic etc) tools and orientations.*

Security firms and professionals who fail to anticipate emerging trends will be reduced to being sub-vendors in a future security landscape.

A new Maslow’s Hierarchy (of sorts) will emerge, where super generalists will dictate workload to the super specialists! In other words, security firms that apply Foresight will beat specialist security professionals to the clientele race and sub-contract relevant skills and hardware sourcing to all of you here.

Foresight should therefore be central to your business and operations models.

Section 2: Introducing Security Foresight

Case study 1: Indonesia nabs 16 in a plot to mass poison policemen with cyanide – June 14, 2011

This is a new model of terror attack” - Indonesian police.

Do we react like this?

Do we want to be forewarned and forearmed, or do we react to threats as they emerge?

Or do we Anticipate in Advance?

SECURITY FORESIGHT

Security Foresight tracks multiple trends – beyond the scope of one’s professional gamut or training – and apply the subsequent collated data into a more integrated scenario planning structure. It follows these simple steps:

Foresight avoids the cat and mouse modus operandi

For instance: If the cyanide threat is eliminated, then terrorists might try botulinum toxin. If this is in turn is eliminated, then terrorists might import poison dart frogs from the Dendrobatidae family, and use an exotic restaurant as a ruse. Now, if that fails, then mushroom delicacies could be tried. Ricin?

“Ricin is a plant toxin that is 30 times more potent than the nerve agent VX by weight and is readily obtainable by extraction from common castor beans.” *4+ Despite this, more than 1 million tonnes of castor beans are processed each year, and approximately 5% of the total is rendered into a waste containing high concentrations of ricin toxin. [5]

Horizon Scanning

Foresight Project

(with Delphic Supervision)

Execution

News, information, trends, networking

Chemical Threat Elimination?

Applying Threat Elimination Solutions

Drug, weapons trafficking?

Working with relevant Authorities/ Clientele

Isn’t Ricin a more cost-effective terrorist tool??? Castor beans

Do we want to play catch up in the toxic threat area alone? What about the weapons, nuclear material,

human and drug trafficking areas? Without proper foresight, incoming information would be simply

overwhelming.

Where Poor Foresight Leads:

Rising food prices were the cause of the ongoing Arab

Revolt today. The Arab leaders were looking for threats

elsewhere. Their strategic intelligence apparatus failed.

Failure to anticipate unconventional weaponry led to 9/11. It was a systemic failure of

the US strategic intelligence apparatus.

Failure to anticipate economic consequences today have led to a mushrooming or resurrection

of terrorist organizations worldwide, including in Northern Ireland.

Failure to anticipate socio-economic undercurrents have led to a regional Naxalite (Maoist)

insurgency across eastern India, costing billions to the Indian economy. Up to ¼ of the Indian

land mass is either Naxal-controlled, troubled or infiltrated.

Failure to regard wildlife trafficking as a serious security threat may result in new modes of

terror attacks i.e. improvised mass ricin poisoning, emanating from the same trafficking

networks.

Show me a demonstration of “Security Foresight”!!!!

Why Not? Let’s conduct a brief foresight study on “Improvised Mass Ricin Poisoning” in Country X (an Asean nation). The following slide was extemporaneously prepared within minutes. Tell me what I had missed?

Mass Ricin

Threat

Controlled item?

Castor Beans endemic to the region?

Castor Bean processing

plants? Laboratories?

How about Ricin

derivatives?

Can it be easily

weaponized?

Better! It can be grown in your tiny balcony [6]

Not at all. The beans are edible and legal. A shipment of castor beans will not raise eyebrows

Not at all. Extremely difficult at best for use as a mass weapon

The big imponderable

Surreptitious extraction of Ricin?

Combine Possibilities

Combine Possibilities

There may be a way to synthesis lethal ricin derivatives for a viable bio-weapon

Case Study 2

The “Next Next Step”

Combine the possibilities of castor bean processing centres/ ricin extraction labs with that of ricin derivative experimentations.

Key Routes

Access all published journals on highly toxic Ricin derivatives

Study all methods of synthesizing such derivatives

Does Ricin potentiate with other compounds to act as a toxic force multiplier?

Can Ricin be extracted from lab kits that could fit into a kitchen?

Should we monitor castor bean processing plants?

And so on….

Wait a minute! Forget about hypothetical futures. Who would likely use Ricin in its raw form as a targeted assassination tool? Who has access to them? It is a Schedule 1 controlled substanceunder both the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention and the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention.

Endless PossibilitiesA post-grad biochemistry researcher today and an unemployed anarchist tomorrow? High-tech laboratories in failing states?

Foresight brings order and structure to tackling the possibles, probables and the imponderables. It even opens up avenues of enquiry and resolution for the outright unthinkable!

Case Study 3: Operation Slambay

Now let’s put our special forces thinking caps and conduct a brief

foresight study a la a Red Team Exercise. Our objective is to

attack a hypothetical coastal financial hub in a foreign land,

called Slambay. Let us assume all of us here have been trained in

the art of close quarter combat and subversion.

Mission Objective

1) To create a maximal reign of terror in shortest time period with minimal arms/logistics/personnel…in a way suicide bombings and insurgencies CAN NOT.

2) To inflict financial damage and enduring loss of investor confidence worth hundreds billions over long the term.

3) To teach those Slambattis a lesson.

Slambay

Weapons

Stealth

High Profile Targets

Manner of Infiltration

No one speaks Slambatti

We stand out in appearance

No problem. We pose as tourists

Career legends assigned

Cameras ready

Intel ProvidedTarget Layouts

Provided

Bonus: Targets in close proximity. Not well guarded

Airport, Land route ruled out

Sea route preferred

Pose as fishermen or yacht yuppies?

Weapons should fit 1 duffel bag and 1 knapsack

Fit one Uzi & pistol each, bullets, bombs & grenades

Decoy bombs

Decoy bombs

Decoy bombs

Decoy bombs

Order of Battle:

Submarines Out. Attracts Naval attention

From the slide above, it can be deduced that:

1) Seaborne route is ideal for infiltration. 2) Lugging weapons into the city should not be a problem 3) Posing as tourists/backpackers provides an ideal cover4) The main targets were in close proximity to each other.5) Exfiltration was the only scenario not covered.6) One of the main objectives was to dent Slambay’s

reputation as an investment hub, and inflict losses worth tens of billions over the years. (Otherwise, they could have just planted bombs and exited)

This is pretty much what happened to Mumbai on Nov 26th, 2008. No private or public agency was ever on record to have gamed out this scenario to the Indian authorities.

For a historical parallel, the guns in Singapore were trained the wrong way when the Japanese landed across Johor.

Future threats to cities, industries and society will be asymmetric. The objectives will differ from current conventions. But aren’t there a host of security firms that provides strategic information?

Yes and No. The first slide in Section 3 briefly outlines the usual focus areas of “threat analysis centres.”

Section 3: Creation of a Regional Foresight Matrix

Threat Analysis Centre

Expanded Networking

Socio-Economic Analysis

Threat Perception

Focus

Data Analysis

Expertise, Hardware

and Logistics

Informant Network

Intelligence

Anticipatory Planning

Public Input/

Horizon Scanning

Inadequate for anticipatory planning.

Monocular rather than Panoramic

Conductedin silos

Not

Comprehensive

Enough

Red = Failed

Yellow = Inadequate

Green = Existing

Lacking ability to

connect the dots

Conventional Threat Analysis Centres: Failed Areas

Virtually non-existent

Can Security Foresight match a gargantuan effort like this one? This is just one portion of a

comprehensive “track and pre-empt” counter-terrror complex developed by US Intelligence services.

It was built upon FORESIGHT!!

Source: Wikipedia.

The Future can be fairly predicted

The US Information Awareness Office (IAO) once ran a project called Futures Markets Applied to Prediction (FutureMAP). FutureMap effectively allowed people to bet on when a terrorist attack would occur. “The bookie would have been the federal government.”*7+ Another demonstration of the power of FORESIGHT!!

Can we run a scaled-down version of FutureMAP that will not entail much cost and personnel? One that will meet our security foresight needs? The Answer is an absolute Yes.

Source: www.iwar.org.uk

Intelligence Networks

Mass Media

NGOs

Specialized Security Expertise

Academia

Native Law Enforcement

Industry/ Guild Sources

Think Tanks

Intelligence Processing

Database Building and Maintenance

Horizon Scanning

Strategic Analysis/ Expert Input (Delphi)

Topical Foresight Projects

Intelligence Actualization

Security Solutions Formulated in Advance via

Foresight Projects

Pre-empting Security Threats

Regional Security Solutions

Public Service Projects

Prerequisites of a Security Foresight Centre

Simultaneously

Capabilities CheckIntelligence Networks

All of you seated here and beyond can provide the Intelligence Networks needed for a comprehensive security foresight matrix for little or no cost. Being involved in the Intelligence Networks phase will also expand your businesses outreach rather organically.

Intelligence Processing

Would a central hub be needed, along with a small team of nimble analysts and a dedicated office, or can it be decentralized among stakeholders within a regional foresight matrix? It can be either; a SWOT-type analyses should be conducted to determine feasibility. A decentralized hub obviates funding and office space.

However, one crucial element in any undertaking of this kind is the need for Super Generalists

i.e. the type of personnel who can connect the dots across a wide variety of fields (from history to

socio-economics to terrorism). Super-generalists also cut costs as they can conduct various foresight

projects that will be demanded by emerging realities and by client demands.

Intelligence Actualization

This will be a culmination of various foresight projects undertaken for the security industry, defence establishments and national law enforcement apparatus .When all hell breaks loose, there will be solutions ready. On a regional

basis!!!

Public Service Projects

This is akin to Public Diplomacy on a corporate scale. Examples include security newswires

(for public, professional and traveller convenience etc), CSR-type lectures/ demonstrations at schools

and online crime prevention techniques for crime-prone neighbourhoods. It will be a natural by-product

of a security foresight exercise.

Security Foresight streamlines disparate threats into a proper matrix

Thailand

Vietnam Singapore

Brunei

Malaysia

Indonesia

Pan-Regional

Can we track them all? Better yet, can we pre-empt them?

Southeast Asian Security Foresight Centre (SEAS-FC) – A Conceptual Outline

HUB

Super Generalists/

Analysts

Foresight Projects

Networks

Databases

Public Service (News)

Horizon Scanning

Strategic Intelligence

The Hub would need 5-6 analysts for an entire region

Can this be run out of an Asean University or Institution. Or from your HQ? Yes!

Conducted within/Funded by Industry lobbies

Delphi

Delphi

One Nightmare Scenario

Shipments of cyanide are illicitly obtained from a Papua New Guinean gold mine. They

are then loaded aboard 2 cargo vessels, one destined for Java and the other Thailand.

They bypass regular customs.

A wave of hacking besets the region, incapacitating public utilities and normal

monitoring mechanisms. Blackouts are common. The cyanide gets introduced into food

processing plants during the attack on utilities.

Weeks later, thousands of children die after consuming a popular snack. Is this possible?

Who is the culprit? JI, Al Qaeda or a group of disgruntled anarchists a la Utøya, Norway?

Is this possible? Will our industrial security models finally incorporate foresight?

Foresight projects the possibilities of tomorrow based

on the simulations of today. – Mathew Maavak

Thank You