Under dark skies: Port cities, extreme events, multi-scale processes and the vulnerability of controls around counter terrorism

这项研究试图探索英国港口城市面对恐怖主义威胁时面临的特殊脆弱性，以及港口的动态如何塑造这些脆弱性的性质。在这项研究中，港口被定义为为货物和人员提供进入英国的入境点，它们可以是机场、海港或铁路终点站。人们认为，那些在其边界之内或附近有港口的城市在应对“新”形式恐怖主义的威胁方面给安全和紧急事务部门带来了一系列特殊的问题。特别是，对自杀式恐怖主义的重视和使用大规模毁灭性武器的可能性意味着港口特别脆弱，因为通过港口的人数很多，而且存在可就地使用造成大规模死亡的货物、货物和技术。这对货物和旅客的检查都有相当大的影响，而且随着新的边境机构的成立，涉及机构间工作和信息共享的重大问题。针对西方国家的“后9/11”恐怖袭击浪潮改变了与恐怖主义风险管理相关的“交战规则”。这些袭击表明，恐怖团体的重点和他们试图采用的作案手法发生了重大转变。不再对即将发生的袭击发出警告，也没有理由将选择的目标归类为“军事”或“政治”。相反，大规模死亡和破坏的可能性(无论是物质上的还是象征性的)似乎是目标选择的主要驱动因素，这打开了一系列必须由安全和紧急事务部门保护的新地点。此外，与新恐怖主义有关的还有一种升级的感觉，这与袭击的规模(表现出更大的协调感)、使用危险范围更大、破坏力更大的材料，以及恐怖分子显然愿意为他们的事业而死有关。此外，新的恐怖分子结构松散，很难渗透进来，越来越多地是“土生土长的”，没有被地缘政治界限所驱使，受到一套意识形态信仰的驱使，这些意识形态信仰很难被敌对国家的安全部门破坏。对于港口城市来说，进口恐怖分子的可能性以及通过集装箱和其他运输方式进行破坏的手段意味着，它们具有一系列使其成为潜在目标的特点。如果我们再加上攻击国家关键基础设施的这些要素可能造成的经济损害，那么问题的规模就变得显而易见了。这项研究试图通过研究城市内部复原力和脆弱性的潜在过程，考虑组织间网络对改善安全和紧急服务性能的影响，并探索港口可以为其城市腹地产生更重大的风险组合的过程，来探索保护港口城市的过程。这项研究对港口的保护采取了系统的观点，并基于风险评估、组织理论和复杂性科学(特别是生物复杂性)领域的初步分析，以检查港口城市内围绕风险的适宜景观的产生。这项研究将试图在“健康景观”的背景下对港口城市进行建模，试图确定服务、组织和网络相互关联的性质方面存在的脆弱性关键点。然后，这将被用作提供强化资产战略和建立机构间网络复原力的一种手段。

This research seeks to explore the particular vulnerabilities that are faced by port cities in the UK to terrorist threats and the manner in which the dynamics of ports can shape the nature of those vulnerabilities. Within the context of this study, ports are defined as providing a point of entry into the UK for goods and people and they can either be airports, seaports, or railway termini. It is felt that those cities which have ports within or close to their boundaries present a particular set of problems for the security and emergency services in terms of dealing with the threat from 'new' forms of terrorism. In particular, the emphasis on suicide terrorism and the potential for the use of weapons of mass destruction mean that ports have a particular vulnerability due to the numbers of people who pass through them and the presence of goods, cargo and technology that could be used in situ to cause mass fatalities. There are considerable implications for the screening of both goods and passengers and, with the creation of the new border agency, significant issues relating to inter-agency working and information sharing. The wave of ''post-9/11' terrorist attacks on Western nations have changed the 'rules of engagement' associated with the management of terrorism risks. These attacks represent a significant shift in the focus of terrorist groups and the modus operandi that they seek to employ. Warnings are no longer given of an impending attack and there is no sense in which the targets of choice can be categorised as 'military' or 'political'. Instead, the potential for mass fatalities and damage (both material and symbolic) appears to be a principal driver for target selection and this opens a range of new sites that have to be protected by the security and emergency services. In addition, there is also a sense of escalation associated with the new terrorism that is related to the scale of the attack (showing a greater sense of co-ordination), the use of materials with a greater hazard range and destructive power, and the apparent willingness of the terrorists to die for their cause. In addition, the new terrorists are loosely structured in a way that makes them difficult to infiltrate, are increasingly 'home-grown', are not mapped onto geo-political boundaries and are driven by a set of ideological beliefs that are difficult to undermine by the security services of enemy states. For port cities, the potential for the importation of terrorist agents as well as the means of destruction through container and other forms of transport, means that they have a set of characteristics that make them potential targets. If we add to that the potential for economic damage that can be caused by attacking these elements of the national critical infrastructure then the scale fo the problem becomes apparent. This research seeks to explore the processes through which it is possible to protect port cities by examining the underlying processes of resilience and vulnerability within cities, considering the impact that inter-organisational networks can have for improving the performance of the security and emergency services, and exploring the processes by which ports can generate a more significant portfolio of risks for their city hinterlands. The research takes a systems perspective on the protection of ports and grounds that initial analysis within the fields of risk assessment, organizational theory, and complexity science (notably biological complexity) to examine the production of fitness landscapes around risk within port cities. The research will seek to model the port city within the context of a 'fitness landscape' in an attempt to ascertain the key points of vulnerability that exist in terms of the interconnected nature of services, organisations and networks. This will then be used as a means of providing strategies for asset hardening and building resilience in terms of inter-agency networks.