Means vs. Intentions

The U.S. has been struggling since 9/11 to develop an effective anti-terrorism policy.  One issue that has hindered success on this front to date is the reluctance to fully accept that a good, threat-oriented security policy is driven by destructive intent – not by searching for the destructive means.

While there are many examples of why intent is critical to the security policy formula, let’s begin by considering 9/11 for just a moment.  What destructive means were the terrorists carrying?  Essentially they had no destructive means other than box cutters and fully fueled airplanes.  They were armed only with their malicious intent and their skill to fly jets into buildings.  Indeed, no incriminating evidence would have been found on the terrorists until the moment they got up from their seats that September morning and started to slit throats and hijack airplanes.

Part of the reason the U.S. tends to focus on means and not intent is the U.S. legal system.  In a democratic society that strives for fairness and justice, proper criminal evidence is indeed important.  In order to prosecute a criminal, the means – a weapon need be identified.  We require tangible evidence for proving guilt.  For example, the war in Iraq started with the objective of “finding Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction”.  The debate about the justifiability of the war did not revolve around the fact that there an evil and dangerous regime intended to harm the United States.  Instead, for months and then years U.S. troops turned over every stone in Iraq to find incriminating evidence against Saddam and his regime – WMD.  Saddam was considered “not guilty” until a weapon of mass destruction would be found in his possession.

Unfortunately the criminal justice system was not built for terrorists or terrorism.  We need to prevent the terrorist from acting before he becomes a criminal.

Besides, the effort to find destructive means lies on the range between difficult to daunting.  Those of you who are security experts (or for that matter, professional terrorists) know that to uncover a well-concealed bomb or weapon is a close to impossible task.  The TSA is tasked with finding knives, bombs and other weapons that a potential terrorist might possess on thousands of flights a day across the U.S.  Some would say they are sagging under the weight of such a mandate.  Yet finding the intent of a person first, and then searching for weapons is not only a much easier task but a more effective one than having a security system that uniformly checks for bombs and not for bombers. 

Finding intent before means is not a new concept.  In fact, traditional security organizations such as U.S. Customs and Immigration as well as the Secret Service have always worked on the basis of intent first.  U.S. Customs does not scrutinize each piece of cargo that arrives in the U.S. to find smuggled merchandise. They look for irregularities and suspicion signs that may indicate malicious intent and then they check for the means.

Good security and threat-oriented security is always driven by intent.  Whether you protect your own home or your country, the intent of the potential aggressor and his methods of operation must be the frame of reference against which you design your security system and policies.  Going for the means may lead to incrimination - but never to prevention

Chameleon Associates, LLC

<< Return to Newsletters | Print this page