Wiley Handbook of Science and Technology for Homeland Security, 4 Volume Set

THE USE OF THREAT, VULNERABILITY, AND CONSEQUENCE (TVC) ANALYSIS FOR DECISION MAKING ON THE DEPLOYMENT OF LIMITED SECURITY RESOURCES

NICHOLAS A. LINACRE

Faculty of Land and Food Resources, the University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia

MARC J. COHEN

International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, D.C.

BONWOO KOO

Department of Management Sciences, Faculty of Engineering, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

REGINA BIRNER

International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, D.C.

1 OVERVIEW

The United Nations defines terrorism as “any action that is intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or noncombatants, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or compel a Government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act” [1].

On the basis of rational-choice considerations (compare [2]), an organization will choose terrorist actions in addition to other actions, if terrorism contributes to reaching their goals at a relatively low cost and has high impact. Hence, it would be rational for terrorists to attack a target, if this allows them to realize their goals to a larger extent with costs lower than that would be incurred by other means. However, it may be argued that our rational-choice model has limitations in explaining suicide attacks, although these may follow logically from the ideological or religious beliefs of those who carry them out.

The rational-choice considerations ...