Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Episode 2: Preventing Acts of Terror

To begin, I mentioned that the Army has a two-part process that focuses on a potential event looming on the horizon. That event is an enemy attack. In preparing for an enemy attack the threat is examined at a strategic, operational and tactical level. Strategic refers to a worldwide focus, operational to a regional focus and tactical to a local focus. Strategic is winning a war, Operational is winning a campaign and tactical is winning a battle. It is important to keep these in mind. You have heard the saying, we won the battle but lost the War,” and what this is referring to is success at one level and failure on another.

This discussion will not deal with Strategy or Operations. It will focus on Tactical matters which are local measures taken to anticipate and prevent an act of terror . The battle (Skirmish?) will be to anticipate and neutralize a terrorist attack prior to its taking place.

Now I know what I have to say next is going to make my readers groan but anticipating something begins with someone sitting in a quiet place with a pencil (Keyboard?) and trying to think like a terrorist. It begins with defining the problem, which is important because if you get that wrong everything that follows is a waste of time and energy.

For the purpose of this exercise first consider the words of Hesiod who was a contemporary of Homer. He wrote a letter to his brother saying that there are three types of minds. The first is the type that can conjure excellence out of thin air, the second is a mind that knows excellence when they see it and the third type is one that can do neither. I believe that if the last one hundred acts of terror were analyzed it would be shown that eighty percent were carried out by idiots, nineteen point nine percent by second tier intellects and less than one tenth of one percent by seriously talented thinkers. Now this is important because eighty percent of the people who are involved in these acts don’t have a whole lot of spin on the ball. They are what might be considered, “Monkey see monkey do,” actors at best. The other nineteen and some odd percent are what might be termed veterans, who have survived several battles and maybe a campaign or two and that alone gives them some claim to a tier two intellect, however that might be too generous. Suffice it to say they have a low cunning born of experience.