Antiterrorism and Threat Response: Planning and Implementation

As security professionals, we tend to get seduced by the beauty of our technology. We go to trade exhibitions filled with the latest innovations and marvel at what we see without understanding how it fits in with what we do. It’s both overwhelming and distracting, like trying to learn to cook by walking through a grocery store.

This focus on technology teaches us to judge the effectiveness of physical protection systems by the strength of the barriers, the acuity of the cameras, and the sensitivity of the sensors. Terrorists and criminals look for something else entirely, though: where we see strength, they find weakness and vulnerability. We are looking at the same things, but not seeing the same things. If we want to stop them, we need to know more than how they work. We need to learn to see the way they see.

A physical protection system - that collection of people, sensors, barriers, policies, and technology - is a lot like a piano: and you cannot tell if a piano is in tune by looking at it. You have to play it. The major contribution of Antiterrorism and Threat Response: Planning and Implementation, 2e is the detailed instruction and practical advice on how to see the weaknesses and vulnerabilities in physical protection systems and upgrade them to meet the challenges of terrorists and criminals.

Key features of this book are:

• Provides professionals with the background to understand how terrorists think and operate, in order to best coordinate their counterterrorism efforts and antiterrorism strategies
• Examines difficult new problems facing security professionals: such as the use of drones, guns, and the internet as a tool of both recruitment and indoctrination
• Teaches the reader how to step outside the security department to find and fix weaknesses and vulnerabilities in physical protection systems
• Introduces and discusses security management and insider threat risk management programs

This is the advanced course in protecting physical assets from terrorists and criminals.

Ross Johnson, CPP is the President of Bridgehead Security Consulting, Inc. He has 47 years of international and domestic experience in intelligence and security in both the private and public sectors. With his combination of government sector intelligence experience and private sector critical infrastructure protection experience, he is well-suited to understand security issues from both government and private industry perspectives. He has taken part in security operations and training in the United States, Canada, Equatorial Guinea, Rwanda, Angola, Egypt, Israel, Guam, the Gulf of Mexico, Malaysia, Singapore, the Strait of Malacca, Singapore Strait, Burma, and Ukraine. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Military Arts and Sciences from the Royal Military College of Canada and is Board-Certified in Security Management by ASIS International. Ross is also a photographer and took most of the photographs in this book.