Does the abundance of technology help or impede homeland terrorism-fighting effectiveness?

Impede

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by Sgan Aluf

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Computers can calculate at staggering speed, but cannot match the human visual system's uncanny ability to assemble a coherent picture from ambiguous fragments in an image. The brain seems to home in effortlessly on the correct interpretation by using built-in knowledge of the statistics of the world to eliminate improbable solutions. (V. S. Ramachandran/Scienti fic American Mind )

What are the lessons from the past

Technology can easily become a double-edged sword. There is no doubt that technology is a vital component in national security. The question remains though, to what extent should it be used, and what is the right dose and mix of machines and real people to achieve the best results. There is no recorded evidence that the system, as a whole, has ever initiated a more in-depth look at the existing arsenal of hi-tech systems and sophisticated devices used on a daily basis in national security. This is because of ongoing events, the daily pressure and urgent developments, and because self-critique is a difficult task. Nevertheless, given the nature of the subject, homeland security, it must be done, preferably by external auditors.
Have we ever truly and honestly re-evaluated, using methodological tools, how much more quantitative and qualitative "security" is actually gained by using very complex and outrageously costly systems? In other words, do we really need all that technology, ranging from traditional to futuristic systems, to be able to effectively deal with the security challenges we are faced with today?

Since biblical times and earlier, enemies were conquered, countries succumbed, and war was won by gathering better real-time information, by applying deception and diversion methods, and by attacking the weakest link. Like Gideon and his 300 "special forces", like David who outsmarted the Philistines by killing Goliath thus preventing a battle where the Israelites had a slim chance of winning, or in the monumental trick of what came to be known as "the Trojan horse", winning was never a matter of only "in-your-face" brutal force, but a game in which the other side was outplayed, much like in a chess game. Outsmarting the more powerful enemy brought victory in many global events triggering regional and global changes. True, along history, wars were also won by armies outnumbering and overwhelming the enemy, but even then, some important victories came after hammering out an ad-hoc pact that tipped the balance, by using a "fifth column", or by supporting dissidents and oppressed minorities in the targeted country.

It is always the human spirit that ultimately is the most important factor in the never-ending war between evil and good. Every time leaders tend to forget this basic truth, or fail to take advantage of it, the result is defeat and radical changes. "D day" in WW II, which is seen as the turning point leading to the invasion of occupied Europe by the Allies and to Germany's defeat ultimately, is another good example. Just consider the enormous scale of diversion and deception created by the allies prior to the invasion into Normandy; It was a classic combination of high quality intelligence and effective disinformation and misinformation schemes aimed at shifting the Germans focus from the planned landing site, in spite of the fact that there were no more than two viable invasion options.

National security experts and the military, agree that modern armies, as advanced and sophisticated as they may be, are bound to fail in major battle without real time, high-quality Intel. During the Cold War era between the West and the Warsaw Pact led by the Soviet Union, maintaining a technological edge provided the most effective way to prevent the enemy from launching an attack. This strategy however, called for a never ending race to develop more and more sophisticated and hi-tech weapons to counter future threats. This race has brought about many positive results and maintained a technological superiority in the West, resulting in a high deterrence and a mutual fear factor that maintained the fragile balance between the two super-powers until the early eighties of the last century. The benefits of this continuous national effort had facilitate the transfer of many advanced military technologies into commercial and civil applications.
Nevertheless, negative results have grown as well during the years. Hereon is a partial list:

Budgets were allocated for security projects on the account of other national projects
In the race to acquire more and better technologies, huge budgets were wasted on projects that had never a chance of taking off from to start with
In many cases the strategic and tactical doctrine was built around, and based-on the weapon, instead of the other way around
There was insufficient supervision on many secret projects by the Congress
The "Communist Fear Factor" was used extensively to overcome objections to the immense allocated budgets; the "Iron Curtain" was often used as the real threat which requires so many technologies and projects, since "there is no certainty what the enemy's resal potential is, so we must be prepared for all alternatives". Only years later had we learned how much exaggerated the information on the enemy's capabilities was
According to academic studies and tank-think researchers, roughly thirty percent of the projects running between 1945 to 1985 actually reached the armed forces, becoming operational.
Studies show that during the last sixty years, due to management and leadership problems, coupled by powerful lobbying of special interests, the armed forces received weapons and equipment that was either not effective as requested, not needed, or not compatible with the operational doctrine

Where we are today

Using the period following the 9/11 attacks to present, we can indicatively measure where we are on this issue today. What we've seen happening in the technological front in the war against the international terror alliance can be summarized in the following phases:

Phase One - Fear, dismay and panic resulting in "shop anywhere and buy everything". This hysteric approach translated into "buy whatever available and place it immediately where you think it's needed , whether it is a good product or not; no plan, no strategy, no accountability
Phase Two - Structural bureaucratic changes the creation of DHS, TSA, etc. Still no national strategy and no clear national security direction. Almost every and any manufacturer of security equipment was welcomed.
Phase Three - The march of the Big Players - The defense and security giants, whether directly involved or by buying existing companies, put a choking grip on the huge budgets allocated by the Congress, as federal agencies and DHS struggle to define a strategy that will better protect vulnerable national, strategic and other high-power potential targets
Phase Four - The basics of a national anti-terrorism strategy is in the works - Although global and local events keep changing the basic assumptions and assessments, we still lack a simple, clear definition of the threats and a backbone strategy around which global, regional and local protection systems can be built. There is a direct correlation between the unplanned activities regarding national security as seen in the phase one, and the defense and homeland security approach, which led to heavily relying on advanced technologies, believing that it is the best way to combat terrorism
Phase Five - We are today, once more, in the midst of a spending campaign where hundred of billions of dollars are, and will be spent to acquire more "smart machines", more super-technologies and more computerized systems, as almost the sole available answer to all threats

In other words, we are now in the exact same spot where we were in the early forties of the last century, when every expert was convinced that communism is about to spread and take over the entire world. Today, we must ask ourselves whether this almost blind rush toward hi-tech systems and equipment is the best answer to terror threats on our national security, Many consider it a "must have" situation, as if nothing was learned from past experience: too much hi-tech reaches a saturation point where it is not effective, and sometime more damaging than low-tech. Does this mean that hi-tech and technology is so bad? Certainly not,but an overdose is. Why? Because of the following:

Technology will never replace people. Technology, however advanced, is not capable of performing more than its predetermined functionality desiged tasks.
No matter how many different system are in place, it is impossible to cover all potential threats
Technology is, an will always be, limited in its performance either by being dedicated to perform a very specific task, or multiple tasks at a lower level
Technology is expensive and will always come at the expense of some other alternatives, whether financial, professional or operational
The more the strategy is technology-based, the less the proper attention is given to the human factor, which as previously discussed, in the leading factor to victory
Replacing the human capabilities with a sophisticated machine that does the same, doesn't achieve the main purpose, because a man-made machine will never be able to replace the humans that created it (see the above entry quote)
The more the use of technology, the easier it is to justify and find excuses for not training designated personnel to perform the tasks that the system does automatically
The higher the investments and the strategic approach to technology as the ultimate answer, strongly supported by the manufacturers and all the other that benefit from it, the stronger the federal commitment to supporting this strategy, which essentially means replacing personnel with machines
The professional training and technical support, the backup, and the redundant sub-systems needed to run and maintain the main security systems, require immense budgets and highly skilled manpower. Since manpower is a struggling issue always, there is a tendency to develop systems that perform automatically, where the operator is restricted to very simple, automatic procedures. Basically, the higher the system's technology, the lower the personnel set skill needed to operate it
When the security protection layers are based on automatic and computerized systems, the operational and professional lessons are mainly in connection with technical problems; the assumption is that personnel training in upgrading its psychological and sensitivity aptitudes is not of primary importance, since technicians are those that need better training to solve potential problems
Unlike the human experience and intuition, in addition to our five senses, a hi-tech system will provide not more, not less than what it was initially design to, which in many instances is neither the needed answers nor the most fit to solve the problem
The more security devices are incorporated/integra ted in the same machine, (i.e. metal detector, explosive sniffers, mm wave detectors, biometrics, etc), the higher the chances of total failure, letting the under-trained personnel with an urgent problem in their hand which they don't know how to deal with

Conclusions

Over-dependency on technology is dangerous. We better take charge and control technology, before it takes charge of us. It is not the hi-tech per say that is the problem, but the way we use it. A federal addiction to technology erodes continuously the use of personnel and creates a disconnect between the national security goals and reality. A much more balanced prevention and protection national and local system is urgently needed. More than five years after 9/11 there are no more viable excuses about why it was not done yet.

The right combination and interaction between men and machine requires a fresh approach, both practically and operation-wise. There has to be a strategy in place that factors-in real-time and long term intelligence. But more than that, the whole system must be able to make the immediate necessary changes in the wake of a real-time threat, adapting its various parts of the security to that threat; Operational flexibility in the national security strategy is vital in order to be able to function effectively.The "heavier" the protection system is, the more it is susceptible to break-downs as a result of weak links, which can be exploited the terrorists.

Those in charge with homeland security should constantly be reminded of the similarity between a modern army fighting an amorphous, amoeba-type terrorist organization as compared to fighting the same enemy at home. Hi-tech provides important advantages up to a certain level only, but only during the first stages of the battle. A terror organization has the ability to change and adapt much faster than a heavily equipped federal/state run homeland security protection system. It is dangerous to add more hi-tech systems to the existing national protection system; Instead, the balance should shift towards an approach that enables more human-based tools to take a more active responsibility in this war defined by non-conventional methods and means. In other words, sometimes, stepping down to the enemy's level, is much more effective that staying far above, where the enemy is obscured and can easily disappear, let alone be conquered. Hi-tech is needed only as one of many important pieces in the security puzzle, but not necessarily THE most important.

This concludes my opinion, and it is an open invitation to debate this extremely important topic.

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