Example Analysis

Here we show case Archer Ball’s Subject Matter Experts thinking about various events, and past projects.

Example 1 – London’s Transport Shutdown: Implications Of Mass Collective Decision Making

Subject Matter Expert – DR. Chris Flaherty

Monday morning on the 2nd February, 2009 we experienced in London the near total shutdown of the London Transport system ; and what does this tell us about planning for national events needs, given the experience in the UK?

On Monday, the biggest snowfall to hit London in 18 years halted buses and Underground services. However, this predicted winter storm apparently caught the authorities unprepared. According to press reports

transit officials had nearly a week to get ready, but they failed to keep things running normally in the capital, which was buried under more than four inches of snow overnight and another four inches in the afternoon.

At an capability level, Mayor Boris Johnson conceded that London lacked the snowploughs and other equipment in order to keep the roads clear. To be fair from an emergency planning view, can we expect to have to maintain equipment for every contingency, even the very rare, such as heavy snow falls in London, when it has not happened in nearly 18 years?

The bus services were closed because of the fear that skidding buses could become lethal weapons, and there appear to have been insurance drivers and basic safety issues, as well as increasing complex health and safety legislation, behind this.

However, where was business continuity planning in all this? Many people woke up Monday morning, and discovered they were unable to get to work, because there was no transport, and this they discovered by word of mouth, the internet and ringing work, and colleagues. Some newspapers have also reported that from a least 6:30 am to later than 9:00 am the major mobile networks were jammed due to the volume of people attempting to contact work. If transit officials had nearly a week to get ready, then why did not most business initiate continuity plans the previous Friday?

The harsh conditions led to hundreds of school closures, and many courts shut as well, including London’s landmark Old Bailey. Hospitals remained open, but staffing levels were reduced, which all point to near breakdown on any system of business continuity planning.

A Transport for London spokesman has said the agency must largely rely on London’s local councils to treat roads, and that not all of the councils have the same level of ability to deal with a heavy snowfall. This same analysis could be applied many different agencies, organizations and business throughout London, or any other city for that matter worldwide.

There was a domino effect across the city, and many similar decisions being made in response to the same information and perceptions. And what does this tell us about planning for national events? It is clear, this needs to take account and design in an understanding as to how mass collective decision making will impact on transport, business and governmental preparedness, as well as unequal levels of capability, wherewithal and planning; all of which on Monday morning, the 2nd February 2009, shut down London’s transport system without warning.

Example 2 – The Future Battle of Trafalgar

Subject Matter Expert – DR. Chris Flaherty

London is fundamentally chaotic, and traditional command and control cultures are not able to operate in a chaotic environment. The only viable alternative is the Command And Influence (CI) approach.

The basis of CI is that while overall strategic direction is set by policy, this is nevertheless negotiated through rapid dialogue with the people on the ground who actually engages with emergency events as these are taking place, and are reacting/pre-empting these.

As well, CI also allows people outside an emergency event to effectively swarm toward this offering assistance, which again operates through a process of rapid dialogue and negotiation. The driving influence factor, is that people automatically respond, not because they are commanded to do so, but because the events/ or the perception that something needs to be done are triggered because every person has been imbued with the same level of understanding as that normally reserved for senior command, in the traditional C2 model.

Nelson’s signal at Trafalgar "England expects that every man will do his duty" was actually a classic example of CI, from a man who understood the true nature of pell-mell battle. That the event would prove so chaotic, that all traditional forms of command would effectively cease to function, thus the only influence factor left to keep coordination going was that every person in the fleet kept functioning, transforming the whole fleet into one giant self organising, and self directing entity.

Traditional security thinking will adopt a core-zone defence posture which will seek to harden sites like the Olympic Park, and major mass gather points like White City/Shepherds Bush, or Trafalgar square. However, this will gravitationally draw security resources away from other parts of the city. As well, we will see a massive movement and concentration of people along the Central line, over that two week period.

Looking forward to Trafalgar square in London 2012, the total complexity of the space, and its interrelationship with the core London transport hub, connecting Charing Cross station, the West End (the entertainment district around Leicester Square and Covent Garden); to the shopping district centred on Oxford Street, the Hay Market, Piccadilly and Oxford Circus; which are book –ended by the massive Westfield London Shopping Centre (located in White City/Shepherds Bush) sits at one end of the Central underground rail line, with Stratford in East London (which will be the site of the Olympic Park), at the other side of the city. In order to ensure security, all these places must be the focus. If not, then an incident anywhere along this rout will cascade across the city, and will largely overwhelm traditional C2. There are four reasons why this will happen:

Overload of information.
The need to respond to multiple threats.
Lack of convenient categories to set priority of action.
The need to respond to simultaneous events (which are each influenced by the other in completely erratic fashion).

The only defence security can adopted is a dynamic or randomised pattern. Dynamic/randomised defence can effectively minimise the tactical advantage of any assailant group. This appears to have happened, with the Indian security response to the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and at the London’s Haymarket in 2007, where parking staff and ambulance crews noticed the vehicles and reacted through a purely chance encounter. All these are examples of CI at work, in the future battle of Trafalgar.

Example 3 – Geographic Information Systems and Security

Subject Matter Expert – DR. Chris Flaherty

Geographic Information System (GIS) captures, stores, analyses, manages, and presents data that refers to or is linked to location.

Using GIS to enable security thinking is on the rise in the US, UK, EU and Australasia. We are seeing GIS based applications such as 3D-CAD (which is used in engineering, architecture and design) being used by security professionals to undertake analysis of crowd spaces, venue interiors and building systems.

Importantly, using GIS based applications opens up a new level of vulnerability analysis, visualising the linkages between systems, their vulnerabilities, and how these cluster in spatial terms. This also enables a new level of risk analysis to be undertaken, which is more focused on consequence and relationship; which from a resilience and business continuity perspective is more insightful than traditional security risk management.

Recent Investment in GIS -Based Security

In Australia, and the US we have seen governments invest heavily since 2001, when it was realised in New York City after the attack on the World Trade Centre occurred, that there was little usable GIS data available to estimate damage and coordinate recovery. The emphasis since, has been development of GIS capability, building and critical infrastructure data in better storage and retrieval systems, to more adequately deliver GIS based security packages to end-users, who need this data in order to develop security risk management and emergency response plans.

Commercial Consequences

The commercial consequence of GIS for the security industry will be, that it will need to align closely with GIS providers and technology developers; in order to deliver security solutions to the market.

In the case of London 2012, GIS will be an important contributor to the development of the overall security strategy, enabling better visualization of critical infrastructure dependency and consequence analysis of clustered vulnerabilities; such as, for example, understanding the complex relationship between mass gathering of people at Oxford Circus, the road transport system and underground and how this impacts on the rest of London if this area was to be subject to a security lockdown or other civil disturbance.

I predict that over the next three years we will see considerable resources put into the development of GIS capability, and the development security solutions for London 2012, and other national, and international mega events. This will become the new standard in the delivery of effective resilience management.

3D GIS Security Visualization

What are the basic requirements for 3D GIS security visualization?

And why is this now important for London 2012 security planning and thinking?

The definition of 3D security is derived from the Flaherty definition of 3D Tactics, which is defined as tactics in the third dimension which is the space above and below ground level in land and urban operations (Flaherty (2009) 2D Verses 3D Tactical Supremacy in Urban Operations: 4th International Conference on Information Warfare and Security paper). More directly, in terms of urban and civil security planning, it is the capacity to use GIS to generate 3D visualization of particular buildings, built up areas and urban mass gathering locations (such as CBDs, and major transport hubs like Oxford Circus). This is then used to generate vulnerability and threats demonstrating the location and clustering of risks, as well as the time and space implications of simultaneous events, which produce consequence cascades. All of which cannot be done with conventional threat based risk assessments.

The second part of the 3D GIS security visualization program is developing groups of subject matter experts in building and systems engineering, security, risk and emergency planning who use these visualization tools to demonstrate various issues that need to be considered in a security problem.

Applying the 3D Approach to London 2012

To illustrate how this is done, traditional security thinking will adopt a core-zone defense posture which will seek to harden sites like the Olympic Park, and major mass gather points like White City/Shepherds Bush. This will gravitationally draw security resources away from other parts of the city. As well, we will see a massive movement and concentration of people moving along the Underground Central Line over that two week period of the 2012 Olympics.

In order to ensure security, answering how these complex places connect, and impact on each other must be the focus; if not, then an incident anywhere along the Underground Central Line will cascade across the city. An organic approach, modelling linear connections, people flows and identifying the major congestion points, such as Oxford Circus will ensure greater security preparedness. However, this can only be done in 3D GIS visualization, because otherwise it is too complex. If this cannot be done, then we would have failed to learn a lesson from the 2008 Mumbai attacks. This is because, in that attack multiple groups of attackers were able to fan out across the city hitting at transport, security and leisure centres. The fact, that the attackers were able to gain strategic advantage over the security forces, was through adopting routes which threatened multiple targets, thus keeping the security forces strategically off-balance, unable to protect any one target, and spread too thinly to protect all effectively from attack. Using a 3D GIS security visualization tool helps begin that analysis.

Example 4 – The Tactical Background to Mumbai Terror Attacks

Subject Matter Expert – DR. Chris Flaherty

Co-ordinated attacks in Mumbai, on Nov 26 to Nov 29, 2008 that claimed almost 200 lives, share common features with the 9/11 WTC, Madrid 2006 train bombings, and the Tet Offensive conducted between 30 January and 23 September 1968, by forces of the Viet Cong; where:

throughout the city, small squads of Vietcong fanned out to attack various officers and enlisted men’s billets, homes of ARVN officers, and district police stations. Provided with’blacklists’ of military officers and civil servants, they began to round up and execute any that could be found

A New Form of Tactics

In Mumbai, we had multi-teams hitting multi-targets. The assailants were broken into groups of 2x and 2×2 principally targeting the Railway Terminus, The Taj and Oberoi Hotels and Noramon House. In all, there were 11 points of contact with defence forces (Police and Commandos) which also included two hospitals, the airport, and restaurants.

The traditional terrorist model is based on a targeting strategy focused on an isolated target, or a mass gathering space.

The traditional tactics involve the use of primary and secondary devices, intended to kill or destroy responders so as the achieve a double aim of degrading security capacity to respond to events, as well as capacity for resilience (ie killing ambulance and fire crews).

In the IRA war we also saw a campaign against the industrial capacity of the UK to maintain security, targeting builders and material suppliers in order to try and halt the progress of UK security build up during that period.

In Mumbai, we saw a combination of all these tactics, combined with fast moving teams which – in fact, a preliminary analysis shows that the Indian commandos noted that they were fighting a highly trained adversary who mimicked their every move and clearly had military experience. The Indians kept them moving and first at Noraman House they managed to create a buffer space. and got control back. Similarly with the others area in order to contain the incidents.

Simultaneous Attacks

Greater use of simultaneous attacks, as was the case in the 2005 London underground attacks, and as was attempted with the Haymarket and Glasgow International Airport attack in 2007, is another feature of the new terror tactics.

Mega Events

Mega Events like the London 2012 Games fundamentally need to be approached from a city/nation-wide security thinking and planning.

The games operate at a level far above normal large scale events, and understanding how the brief two weeks of the games impact on London’s infrastructure is crucial to the development of the overall security concept.

For example, the massive Westfield London Shopping Centre located in White City/Shepherds Bush sits at one end of the central underground rail line, with Stratford in east London (which will be the site of the Olympic Park), at the other side of the city.

Traditional security thinking will adopt a core-zone defence posture which will seek to harden sites like the Olympic Park, and major mass gather points like White City/Shepherds Bush. This will gravitationally draw security resources away from other parts of the city. As well, we will see a massive movement and concentration of people moving along the central line over that two week period.

In order to ensure security, these linear linkages which connect the various attractors must be the focus; if not, then an incident anywhere along this rout will cascade across the city.

An organic approach, modelling linear connections, people flows and identifying the major congestion points, such as Oxford Circus will ensure greater security preparedness.

This is where we need to learn a lesson from Mumbai, because the multiple groups of attackers were able to fan out across the city hitting at transport, security and leisure centres. The fact, that the attackers were able to gain strategic advantage over the security forces, was through adopting linear routes which threatened multiple targets, thus keeping the security forces strategically off-balance, unable to protect any one target, and spread too thinly to protect all effectively from attack.

New Concept in Urban Security

The problem we face today is how to develop a counter terrorism analysis applicable to mass gathering space. This problem is not adequately addressed in contemporary security thinking. This is because terror tactics are based on a radical approach, which to date has not been properly analysed.

We saw in Mumbai a terrorist force adopt an erratic attack, which was impossible to predict and intercept. In this type of scenario, unless the terrorist force is successfully interdicted at the intelligence phase of the battle, they are effectively guaranteed operational success against the slower decision model employed by security forces. This fact is a reality that needs to be factored into security planning. In Mumbai, we saw a combination of all these tactics, combined with fast moving teams.

Playing 3D Tactics

A terrorist group playing 3D tactics is able to move toward a potential target zone undetected. The reason for this is that the behaviour is so erratic that a regular security group cannot (using conventional target theory) effectively orient and decide to act.

The only option is for the security group itself to adopt some form of dynamic or randomised pattern of defence. This will help effectively minimise the tactical advantage of the terrorist group (as appears to finally happened in Mumbai, in 2008).

This would mean that effectively, the defence was in part relying on pure happenstance or coincidence to thwart any potential terrorist attack. Ironically, it is this precise situation that arose in London’s Haymarket in 2007, when it was parking staff and ambulance crews who noticed the vehicles and reacted through a purely chance encounter.

Social Network Security

In reaction the Australian bushfires Victoria’s Emergency Services Commissioner renewed calls for a national early warning system to be setup. The EWS was referred to as "electronic door knocks", that would send a text or voice message to land lines and mobile telephones, and would be used for a range of emergencies, including bushfires, floods, terrorist attack or tsunami.

Technology and infrastructure exists to set systems such as these up, however the real question which should be asked – what social organisation and investment is needed to make an "electronic door knocks" system actually work?

Recent University of Sussex research into survivor reactions to the 2005 London bombings has identified "collective resilience", where "high levels of mutual aid amongst survivors and witnesses of the bombings supports the view that the public are more resilient than they are given credit" (Dr. John Drury, University of Sussex).

This innovative UK research points to the need for security practitioners to develop strategies that incorporates community engagement; however, to doing so also raises the important public policy issues –

What level of community engagement is needed to enhance security?
How is this organised?
What security standards are we working toward?

These are just a few of the public policy questions that need to be asked, and in particular, what happens with an exercise such as London 2012 where huge numbers of volunteers will be need to be coordinated in order to facilitate a safe and secure games?

In regards to a potential terror attack on London, during 2012, these questions will become even more fundamentally important. For example, say the attack incorporate aspects of the 2005 London Underground attacks, and the 2008 Mumbai attacks where simultaneously a bus bombing at Bond Street, during midday shopping occurs within minutes of several heavy armed parties of gunmen fanning out across the city hitting congestion points, transport nodes, hotels and tourist locations like Trafalgar square. How would a EWS actually work? Given that the police first response would be to shut down the mobile phone network in case there were other devices, deployed; as well, the mobile network may in fact jam anyway, as huge numbers of people begin calling each other. A key lesson learned from APEC in Sydney, was that people would not be aware of a threat emerging at one end of Sydney city, until it impacted on them. To avoid that situation occurring, security guards were prepared to relay crucial information to colleagues across the city as means to rapidly kick-start response. This could be down, because most of the security guards employed worked for one of a small group of security providers who were able to coordinate these guards as an additional service to their clients. This same strategy has been used among night club security in high congestion areas as means to coordinate with police and emergency services where there is unacceptable levels of crime and dangerous behaviour in entertainment zones. What these various examples show is that social network security is a reality, but to work needs a high level of coordination, preparations and appropriately trained people.