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Description

America’s potential vulnerability to terrorist attack through exploitation of the global trade and transportation system is now widely recognized. The sheer magnitude and diversity of this global system coupled with the permeability of U.S. borders afford numerous avenues to attack American targets. Maritime commerce, and container shipping in particular, provides a highly attractive means not only of delivering weapons but also of smuggling terrorists themselves into the American homeland. Thousands of ships from every part of the globe deliver millions of individual containers to American ports each year. Compounding the problem is an inspection process that has been slow to shift from more traditional practices, such as the search for illegal narcotics, to the search for terrorist weapons. This situation stems in part from a lack of information specifying cargo contents, complicating U.S. Customs Service efforts to identify high-risk containers for inspection upon arrival, and from the commercially driven need to move trade goods rapidly through the transportation system. The problem does not end at the American shoreline, however. The intermodal transportation network, encompassing sea, land, and rail linkages, represents a vast conduit that could be exploited for an attack on not only port facilities and marine terminals but also inland population centers and shore infrastructure. By using global positioning system technology, terrorists may achieve precision targeting capabilities and create a “poor man’s” intercontinental ballistic missile from a container.

Document Type

Policy Brief

Publication Date

8-2002

Publication

Defense Horizons

Publisher

National Defense University Press

City

Washington, DC

The Virtual Border: Countering Seaborne Container Terrorism

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