Temple of Antiterrorism Strategy   [open pdf - 169KB]

"It its report of 15 December 2000, the Gilmore Commission recommends that the next President 'develop and present to Congress a national strategy to address the threat of domestic terrorism - conventional, cyber, chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear - from the perspectives of deterrence, prevention, preparedness and response within one year of assuming office.' Similar calls for a comprehensive, fully coordinated antiterrorism strategy have been made recently. The events of September 11 have in an extremely sad way emphasized this need. In this essay I will present a framework for conceptualizing a possible national counterterrorism strategy. To develop this model, I have used a framework elaborated by RAND, which treats the possible objectives of such a strategy and the means to reach them. In a first step I analyze the RAND framework and I propose some adjustments before using it. In a second step I propose the construction of a 'Temple of Antiterrorism strategy' as an integrated model, taking into account the strategic context, assumptions about the terrorist threats, the objectives of such a strategy and the tools to achieve them as well as the key factors for success and the environmental enablers."