Stanford University

Environment

FSI scholars approach their research on the environment from regulatory, economic and societal angles. The Center on Food Security and the Environment weighs the connection between climate change and agriculture; the impact of biofuel expansion on land and food supply; how to increase crop yields without expanding agricultural lands; and the trends in aquaculture. FSE’s research spans the globe – from the potential of smallholder irrigation to reduce hunger and improve development in sub-Saharan Africa to the devastation of drought on Iowa farms. David Lobell, a senior fellow at FSI and a recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant, has looked at the impacts of increasing wheat and corn crops in Africa, South Asia, Mexico and the United States; and has studied the effects of extreme heat on the world’s staple crops.

What is Critical in Critical Infrastructure Protection? An Application of the Science of Networks to Homeland Security

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One of the fundamental challenges facing the United States Department of Homeland Security is the determination of what is critical in critical infrastructure systems such as water, Internet, power, energy, and transportation. Current practice is focused on single-point security audits of things like power plants, airport terminals, and refineries. But this approach does not identify the most vital components of any infrastructure which leads to an inadequate strategy and wasted funding. We show that single-point audits lead to the wrong conclusions and do not provide sufficient national security relative to the effort and money being spent. Instead, we propose an approach similar to social network analysis whereby a critical infrastructure is modeled as a network and then analyzed to identify the critical nodes and links. We present models and software to analyze such networks to obtain optimal resource allocation such that network risk is minimized. In the parlance of network science, our approach extends the theory of scale free networks to incorporate damage estimates for nodes and links. By exploiting the structure inherent in a network, we are able to allocate resources in the most optimal manner, which leads to a fundamentally different strategy than currently practiced.

Rudolph Darken is the Director of the Institute for Modeling, and Simulation (MOVES) and an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He is the Chair of the MOVES Curriculum Committee and is also the Associate Director for Research for the Center for Homeland Defense and Security. His personal research has been primarily focused on human factors and training using virtual environments and computer gaming media with emphasis on navigation and wayfinding in large-scale virtual worlds. He is a Senior Editor of PRESENCE Journal, the MIT Press journal of teleoperators and virtual environments. He received his B.S. in Computer Science Engineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1990 and his M.S. and D.Sc. degrees in Computer Science from The George Washington University in 1993 and 1995, respectively.

Ted Lewis is Professor of Computer Science and Academic Associate of the Homeland Security curriculum at the Naval Postgraduate School. He served as Sr. Vice President of Eastman Kodak Company, President and CEO of DaimlerChrysler Research, North America, Editor-in-Chief (twice) of IEEE Computer magazine and IEEE Software magazine, and has authored more than 100 papers and 30 books over the past 35 years on subjects ranging from software engineering, parallel processing, to hi-tech business. Currently, he teaches the Critical Infrastructure Protection course at NPS and does research in the application of network science to strategy and policy questions for the US Department of Homeland Security. Dr. Lewis' textbook, "Critical Infrastructure Protection in Homeland Security: Defending a Networked Nation" will be published by John Wiley & Sons, in April 2006.

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Rudolph Darken Director, Institute for Modeling and Simulation; Associate Professor of Computer Science Speaker Naval Postgraduate School
Ted Lewis Professor of Computer Science; Academic Associate of the Homeland Security Curriculum Speaker Naval Postgraduate School
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Science, Technology and Security Seminars (2009-2010)

Sustainable Energy: Key to National and International Security

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National security and global climate change are key motivations for seriously examining strategies for sustainable energy independence. We currently import more than 60% of our oil -- soon to be 70% -- from sources that are either unfriendly or unstable. We are also importing a substantial and increasing amount of natural gas from outside of North America.

The effectiveness of recent widespread supply abuses provides evidence of the fragility of the US economy to interruption of that energy supply stream for whatever end. This vulnerability and the mounting evidence of greenhouse gas induced climate change demand a fundamental change in US energy policies and behavior.

This paper draws on data presented at a National Academy of Engineering meeting last June and other sources to examine the options proposed and endeavors to separate the signal from the considerable noise associated with the subject. I propose a set of solutions that appear readily achievable to eliminate all dependency on imported oil and gas. The seminar provides an opportunity to get some expert feedback and discussion of the policy changes involved.

L. David Montague, an independent consultant, retired as President of the Missile Systems Division at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space in 1996. A member of the National Academy of Engineering, Mr. Montague has 50 years of background in design, development and management of strategic and tactical military weapon systems. In addition to his development expertise in both tactical and strategic strike and defensive systems, his experience includes the requirements, development, and national security policy issues of strategic forces and defense systems to protect against weapons of mass destruction.

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David Montague CISAC Affiliate; Former President, Missile Systems Division, Speaker Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space
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Science, Technology and Security Seminars (2009-2010)

Harmony and Disharmony: Exploiting al-Qa'ida's Organizational Vulnerabilities

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This study, conducted by the faculty and research fellows of the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at West Point, serves multiple purposes, the most important of which is contributing to the depth of knowledge about the al-Qa'ida movement. Evidence supporting the conclusions and recommendations provided in this report is drawn from a collection of newly-released al-Qa'ida documents captured during recent operations in support of the Global War on Terror and maintained in the Department of Defense's Harmony database. In the text of these documents, readers will see how explicit al-Qa'ida has been in its internal discussions covering a range of organizational issues, particularly regarding the internal structure and functioning of the movement as well as with tensions that emerged within the leadership.

In the first part of the report, we provide a theoretical framework, drawing on scholarly approaches including organization and agency theory, to predict where we should expect terrorist groups to face their greatest challenges in conducting operations. The framework is informed as much as possible by the captured documents, and provides a foundation upon which scholars can build as more of these documents are declassified and released to the public.

Our analysis stresses that, by their nature, terrorist organizations such as al-Qa'ida face difficulties in almost any operational environment, particularly in terms of maintaining situational awareness, controlling the use of violence to achieve specified political ends, and of course, preventing local authorities from degrading the group's capabilities. But they also face problems common to other types of organizations, including private firms, political parties, and traditional insurgencies. For example, political and ideological leaders--the principals--must delegate certain duties to middlemen or low-level operatives, their agents. However, differences in personal preferences between the leadership and their operatives in areas such as finances and tactics make this difficult and give rise to classic agency problems.

Agency problems created by the divergent preferences among terrorist group members present operational challenges for these organizations, challenges which can be exploited as part of a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy. Thus, the theoretical framework described in this report helps us identify where and under what conditions organizations can expect the greatest challenges in pursuing their goals and interests. Understanding a terrorist organization's internal challenges and vulnerabilities is key to developing effective--and efficient--responses to the threats they pose and to degrade these groups' ability to kill. The captured al Qa'ida documents contribute significantly to this type of understanding.

Our analysis emphasizes that effective strategies to combat threats posed by al-Qa'ida will create and exacerbate schisms within its membership. Members have different goals and objectives, and preferred strategies for achieving these ends. Preferences and commitment level vary across specific roles performed within the organization and among sub-group leaders. Defining and exploiting existing fissures within al-Qa'ida as a broadly defined organization must reflect this intra-organizational variation in preferences and commitment in order to efficiently bring all available resources to bear in degrading its potential threat. While capture-kill options may be most effective for certain individuals--e.g., operational commanders--we identify a number of non-lethal prescriptions that take into account differences in al-Qa'ida members' preferences and commitment to the cause. Many of our prescriptions are intended to induce debilitating agency problems that increase existing organizational dysfunction and reduce al-Qa'ida's potential for political impact.

To achieve long-term success in degrading the broader movement driving terrorist violence, however, the CTC believes the United States must begin aggressively digesting the body of work that comprises jihadi macro-strategy. We therefore also seek to apply our model to the ideological dimension of al-Qa'ida revealed in numerous instances in these documents, the goal being to identify ways to facilitate the ideational collapse of this body of thought. The included documents provide insights into the points of strategic dissonance and intersection among senior leaders that must be better understood in order to be exploited.

In sum, this theoretically informed analysis, along with assessments of the individual captured documents themselves, contributes to existing bodies of research on al-Qa'ida. It provides several tools for identifying and exacerbating existing fissures as well as locating new insertion points for counterterrorism operations. It presents an analytical model that we hope lays the foundation for a more intellectually informed approach to counterterrorism. And perhaps, most importantly, this assessment demonstrates the integral role that scholars can play in understanding the nature of this movement and in generating smarter, more effective ways to impede its growth and nurture the means for its eventual disintegration.

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Nuclear Fuel Supply Assurance

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Michael May is emeritus professor Emeritus (research) in the Stanford University School of Engineering and a senior fellow with FSI. He is the former co-director of CISAC, having served seven years in that capacity through January 2000.

May is emeritus director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he worked from 1952 to 1988, with some brief periods away from the laboratory. While there, he held a variety of research and development positions, serving as director of the laboratory from 1965 to 1971. May was technical adviser to the Threshold Test Ban Treaty negotiating team; a member of the U.S. delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks; and at various times has been a member of the Defense Science Board, the General Advisory Committee to the AEC, the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, the RAND Corporation Board of Trustees, and the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council on International Policy, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

May received the Distinguished Public Service and Distinguished Civilian Service Medals from the Department of Defense, and the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award from the Atomic Energy Commission, as well as other awards. May's current research interests are in the area of safeguarding the nuclear fuel cycle, nuclear terrorism, energy, security and environment, and the relation of nuclear weapons and foreign policy.

Chaim Braun is a vice president of Altos Management Partners, Inc., and a CISAC science fellow and affiliate. He is a member of the Near-Term Deployment and the Economic Cross-Cut Working Groups of the Department of Energy (DOE) Generation IV Roadmap study. He conducted several nuclear economics-related studies for the DOE Nuclear Energy Office, the Energy Information Administration, the Electric Power Research Institute, the Nuclear Energy Institute, Non-Proliferation Trust International, and others.

Braun has worked as a member of Bechtel Power Corporation's Nuclear Management Group, and led studies on power plant performance and economics used to support maintenance services. Braun has worked on a study of safeguarding the Agreed Framework in North Korea, he was the co-leader of a NATO Study of Terrorist Threats to Nuclear Power Plants, led CISAC's Summer Study on Terrorist Threats to Research Reactors, and most recently co-authored an article with CISAC Co-Director Chris Chyba on nuclear proliferation rings. His research project this year is entitled "The Energy Security Initiative and a Nuclear Fuel Cycle Center: Two Enhancement Options for the Current Non-Proliferation Regime."

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Michael M. May

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Professor, Management Science and Engineering, Emeritus
FSI Senior Fellow
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michaelmayrsd17_040_0117aa.jpg PhD

Michael May is Professor Emeritus (Research) in the Stanford University School of Engineering and a senior fellow with the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He is the former co-director of Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, having served seven years in that capacity through January 2000.

May is a director emeritus of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he worked from 1952 to 1988, with some brief periods away from the Laboratory. While there, he held a variety of research and development positions, serving as director of the Laboratory from 1965 to 1971.

May was a technical adviser to the Threshold Test Ban Treaty negotiating team; a member of the U.S. delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks; and at various times has been a member of the Defense Science Board, the General Advisory Committee to the AEC, the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, the RAND Corporation Board of Trustees, and the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the International Institute on Strategic Studies, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

May received the Distinguished Public Service and Distinguished Civilian Service Medals from the Department of Defense, and the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award from the Atomic Energy Commission, as well as other awards.

His current research interests are nuclear weapons policy in the US and in other countries; nuclear terrorism; nuclear and other forms of energy and their impact on the environment, health and safety and security; the use of statistics and mathematical models in the public sphere.

May is continuing work on creating a secure future for civilian nuclear applications. In October 2007, May hosted an international workshop on how the nuclear weapon states can help rebuild the consensus underlying the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Proceedings and a summary report are available online or by email request. May also chaired a technical working group on nuclear forensics. The final report is available online.

In April 2007, May in cooperation with former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry and Professor Ashton Carter of Harvard hosted a workshop on what would have to be done to be ready for a terrorist nuclear detonation. The report is available online at the Preventive Defense Project. A summary, titled, "The Day After: Action Following a Nuclear Blast in a U.S. City," was published fall 2007 in Washington Quarterly and is available online.

Recent work also includes a study of nuclear postures in several countries (2007 - 2009); an article on nuclear disarmament and one on tactical nuclear weapons; and a report with Kate Marvel for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences on possible game changers in the nuclear energy industry.

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Preventing Nuclear Proliferation and Terrorism

Terrorist Risk Assessment: The View from Londonistan

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In the days after 9/11, there was a widespread sentiment that suicidal terrorist attacks were irrational acts well beyond the bounds of quantitative risk assessment. Since then, terrorism risk models have been developed which are based on certain key theoretical principles that are validated by observational terrorism experience. These principles will be elaborated, and illustrated with examples from conflicts around the world.

Gordon Woo is a catastrophist, specializing on mathematical aspects of catastrophe risk modelling. He has developed a quantitative framework for modelling terrorism risk applied e. g. on the Olympic Games 2004 and the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Prior to this, his main focus has been on natural and environmental hazards. He has twenty years of practical experience in consulting for commercial, industrial and government organizations on major public risk issues varying from the disposal of radioactive waste, to oil pollution, flight safety, to earthquake, windstorm and flood protection.

Dr. Woo graduated as the top mathematician of his year at Cambridge University. He completed his PhD in theoretical physics as a Kennedy Scholar at M.I.T., after which he was elected a Junior Fellow of the Harvard University Society of Fellows. His work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal and Newsweek. In July 2004, he was named by Risk & Treasury Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in finance.

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Gordon Woo Principal Risk Analyst Speaker Risk Management Solutions
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Math shows long-term consequences of condoning torture

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Few of us will ever be asked to torture. But, indirectly, all of us have to make a choice: to support, as citizens, those politicians who back torture, or those who seek its prohibition. This decision seems a purely moral question. But what would be the long-term consequences to society if we were to make this radical break with the past? CISAC science fellow Jonathan Farley provides some mathematical insights.

You burst into the room. Sitting on a chair, blindfolded, his hands tied behind his back, is your prisoner. The room is dark, except for a lonely naked bulb hanging from the ceiling. He is sweating. He is afraid.

"Tell me where it is!" you scream. "Now!" You know there is little time left. Somewhere in your city, a time bomb is ticking. Whether it spits serin into the air, uranium into the water or atomic fire into the heavens, you do not know.

He does. But he is not talking. Involuntarily, you raise your hand as if to strike. What you are about to do violates the law and your conscience. And yet...

In peacetime, torture ranks next to murder as a primal sin. But during war, the debate begins over whether this evil can ever be justified to combat the seemingly greater evil of the enemy. Harvard law Professor Alan Dershowitz has said torture should be legalized.

In early October, the U.S. Senate voted 90-9 to ban it. Although Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President Bush have both recently asserted that "We do not torture," five U.S. Army Rangers were charged in November for punching and kicking detainees in Iraq, secret U.S. prisons have caused anxiety in Europe, and Vice President Dick Cheney has battled to win the CIA an exemption from the torture ban. As late as December, the U.S. House of Representatives stood poised to defeat the White House.

Few of us will ever be asked to torture. But, indirectly, all of us have to make a choice: to support, as citizens, those politicians who back torture, or those who seek its prohibition.

The decision of an individual to support, or reject, torture seems at first to be a purely moral question. But what would be the long-term consequences to society if we were to make this radical break with the past?

One cannot do experiments with societies, or predict the future, but, it turns out, one can attempt to address this issue using the cold, hard tools of mathematics and logic. This story begins in 1963.

The United States and the Soviet Union are on the perpetual brink of war, balanced like two sides of an equation. On the American side are "game theorists" like Thomas Schelling, recently awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on the strategy of conflict. On the Soviet side, there is the solitary mathematical psychologist Vladimir Lefebvre.

Just as mathematics could be used to describe logical reasoning, Lefebvre saw that mathematics could be used to describe ethical reasoning. If something was good -- for example, "church," "democracy," "prosperity," "kindness" -- it had value "1."

If something was evil -- "earthquake," "famine," "military defeat," "murder" -- it had value "0." But rarely were ethical situations so simple. For instance, "killing" is bad (0) but protecting one's country is good (1) -- so is war 1 or 0?

Lefebvre saw that, at the crudest level, there were essentially two types of ethical systems. Those that held that employing evil means to attain just ends was good, and those that saw that employing evil means to attain good ends was wrong.

There were also, crudely put, two types of relations between individuals: those entailing compromise (or cooperation) and those entailing confrontation.

Of course, evil people rarely see themselves as evil. So Lefebvre had to incorporate in his model of human nature the capacity of human beings to judge -- correctly or incorrectly -- the goodness or evil of their own acts, and to reflect upon their own judgments, and others'. "Reflexive Theory" was born.

It quickly became a paradigm within the Soviet defense establishment, with the publication of books such as "Mathematics and Armed Conflict." Nothing like it was known in the West.

With very simple assumptions -- for instance, that an individual who correctly sees his actions to be good when they are good, and evil if they are evil, is more highly regarded by society than an individual who incorrectly sees himself -- Lefebvre showed that in a society that accepted the compromise of good with evil, individuals would more often seek the path of confrontation with each other.

Lefebvre's insights were called upon by the State Department during negotiations with Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik, Iceland. (And perhaps Lefebvre's model could be re-enlisted to help U.S. officials understand and negotiate with Arab and Muslim heads of state, who must also negotiate with their people.)

In support of Lefebvre's revolutionary new theory, a survey of Soviet émigrés and Americans was conducted in the 1970s. They were asked questions like, "Should a doctor conceal from a patient that he has cancer in order to diminish his suffering?" Overwhelmingly, the Americans would say no, and overwhelmingly, the Soviets yes. The Soviets accepted the compromise of good with evil; the Americans rejected it.

What does this mean? If Americans begin to accept the use of torture, American society might turn into a society of individuals in conflict.

Not uniformly, thanks to something called free will, but generally, with harmful consequences for society: Imagine two roads, with a stream of cars moving along each one. Each driver wants to reach his destination as quickly as possible; on occasion, drivers will impede each other.

On the first road, drivers rise in their own, and in other drivers', estimation if they yield. Drivers on the second road lose face when they yield. It is clear that traffic will move faster on the first road than on the second.

It can be argued that repressive states like Saudi Arabia, which bred most of the Sept. 11 hijackers, are on the second road. If the United States moved to accept torture, it could veer toward the second road, too -- the road of the Soviet Union.

And we know where that road ends. The Soviet Union no longer exists.

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Torturer's Dilemma: The Math on Fire with Fire, The

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You burst into the room. Sitting on a chair, blindfolded, his hands tied behind his back, is your prisoner. The room is dark, except for a lonely naked bulb hanging from the ceiling. He is sweating. He is afraid.

"Tell me where it is!" you scream. "Now!" You know there is little time left. Somewhere in your city, a time bomb is ticking. Whether it spits serin into the air, uranium into the water or atomic fire into the heavens, you do not know.

He does. But he is not talking. Involuntarily, you raise your hand as if to strike. What you are about to do violates the law and your conscience. And yet. ...

In peacetime, torture ranks next to murder as a primal sin. But during war, the debate begins over whether this evil can ever be justified to combat the seemingly greater evil of the enemy. Harvard law Professor Alan Dershowitz has said torture should be legalized.

In early October, the U.S. Senate voted 90-9 to ban it. Although Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President Bush have both recently asserted that "We do not torture," five U.S. Army Rangers were charged in November for punching and kicking detainees in Iraq, secret U.S. prisons have caused anxiety in Europe, and Vice President Dick Cheney has battled to win the CIA an exemption from the torture ban. As late as December, the U.S. House of Representatives stood poised to defeat the White House.

Few of us will ever be asked to torture. But, indirectly, all of us have to make a choice: to support, as citizens, those politicians who back torture, or those who seek its prohibition.

The decision of an individual to support, or reject, torture seems at first to be a purely moral question. But what would be the long-term consequences to society if we were to make this radical break with the past?

One cannot do experiments with societies, or predict the future, but, it turns out, one can attempt to address this issue using the cold, hard tools of mathematics and logic. This story begins in 1963.

The United States and the Soviet Union are on the perpetual brink of war, balanced like two sides of an equation. On the American side are "game theorists" like Thomas Schelling, recently awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on the strategy of conflict. On the Soviet side, there is the solitary mathematical psychologist Vladimir Lefebvre.

Just as mathematics could be used to describe logical reasoning, Lefebvre saw that mathematics could be used to describe ethical reasoning. If something was good -- for example, "church," "democracy," "prosperity," "kindness" -- it had value "1."

If something was evil -- "earthquake," "famine," "military defeat," "murder" -- it had value "0." But rarely were ethical situations so simple. For instance, "killing" is bad (0) but protecting one's country is good (1) -- so is war 1 or 0?

Lefebvre saw that, at the crudest level, there were essentially two types of ethical systems. Those that held that employing evil means to attain just ends was good, and those that saw that employing evil means to attain good ends was wrong.

There were also, crudely put, two types of relations between individuals: those entailing compromise (or cooperation) and those entailing confrontation.

Of course, evil people rarely see themselves as evil. So Lefebvre had to incorporate in his model of human nature the capacity of human beings to judge -- correctly or incorrectly -- the goodness or evil of their own acts, and to reflect upon their own judgments, and others'. "Reflexive Theory" was born.

It quickly became a paradigm within the Soviet defense establishment, with the publication of books such as "Mathematics and Armed Conflict." Nothing like it was known in the West.

With very simple assumptions -- for instance, that an individual who correctly sees his actions to be good when they are good, and evil if they are evil, is more highly regarded by society than an individual who incorrectly sees himself -- Lefebvre showed that in a society that accepted the compromise of good with evil, individuals would more often seek the path of confrontation with each other.

Lefebvre's insights were called upon by the State Department during negotiations with Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik, Iceland. (And perhaps Lefebvre's model could be re-enlisted to help U.S. officials understand and negotiate with Arab and Muslim heads of state, who must also negotiate with their people.)

In support of Lefebvre's revolutionary new theory, a survey of Soviet émigrés and Americans was conducted in the 1970s. They were asked questions like, "Should a doctor conceal from a patient that he has cancer in order to diminish his suffering?" Overwhelmingly, the Americans would say no, and overwhelmingly, the Soviets yes. The Soviets accepted the compromise of good with evil; the Americans rejected it.

What does this mean? If Americans begin to accept the use of torture, American society might turn into a society of individuals in conflict.

Not uniformly, thanks to something called free will, but generally, with harmful consequences for society: Imagine two roads, with a stream of cars moving along each one. Each driver wants to reach his destination as quickly as possible; on occasion, drivers will impede each other.

On the first road, drivers rise in their own, and in other drivers', estimation if they yield. Drivers on the second road lose face when they yield. It is clear that traffic will move faster on the first road than on the second.

It can be argued that repressive states like Saudi Arabia, which bred most of the Sept. 11 hijackers, are on the second road. If the United States moved to accept torture, it could veer toward the second road, too -- the road of the Soviet Union.

And we know where that road ends. The Soviet Union no longer exists.

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Primary Commodity Exports and Civil War

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Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler at Oxford University have reported that countries with a higher percentage of national income from primary commodity exports have been more prone to civil war, an interesting finding that has received much attention from policy makers and the media. In this paper, James Fearon shows that this result is quite fragile, even using Collier and Hoeffler's data. Minor changes in the sample framing and the recovery of missing data undermine it. To the extent that there is an association, it is likely because oil is a major component of primary commodity exports and substantial oil production does associate with civil war risk. Fearon argues that oil predicts civil war risk not because it provides an easy source of rebel start-up finance but probably because oil producers have relatively low state capabilities given their level of per capita income and because oil makes state or regional control a tempting "prize." An analysis of data on government observance of contracts and investor-perceived expropriation risk is consistent with this hypothesis.

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Journal of Conflict Resolution
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James D. Fearon

Degradation of Biological Weapons Agents in the Environment: Implications for Terrorism Response

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We investigate the impact on effective terrorism response of the viability degradation of biological weapons agents in the environment. We briefly review the scientific understanding and modeling of agent environmental viability degradation. In general, agent susceptibility to viability loss is greatest for vegetative bacteria, intermediate for viruses, and least for bacterial spores. Survival is greatest in soil and progressively decreases in the following environments: textiles, water, hard surfaces, and air. There is little detailed understanding of loss mechanisms. We analyze the time behavior and sensitivity of four mathematical models that are used to represent environmental viability degradation (the exponential, probability, and first- and second-order catastrophic decay models). The models behave similarly at short times (<30 min for our example case) but diverge to significantly different values at intermediate to long times. Hence, for a release event in which the majority of atmospheric exposure or deposition occurs over very short times, the current response models likely provide a good representation of the hazard. For longer time phenomena, including decontamina tion, the current model capabilities are likely insufficient. Finally, we implement each model in a simple numerical integration of anthrax dispersion, viability degradation, and dose response. Decay models spanning the current knowledge of airborne degradation result in vastly different predicted hazard areas. This confounds attempts to determine necessary medical and decontamination measures. Hence, the current level of understanding and representation of environmental viability degradation in response models is inadequate to inform appropriate emergency response measures.

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Environmental Science and Technology
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