Comments on: Chertoff Addresses the Beta

By: Arnold

Arnold — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:33:37 +0000

Funny that you mention the danger from asteroids. In case you missed it, a recent article from the Atlantic describing that danger and calling for urgent action:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200806/asteroids

And even better, the article is called “The Sky is Falling.”

By: William R. Cumming

William R. Cumming — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:48:24 +0000

A somwhat facetious comment from me. Now that we know that Chertoff does finally recognize Mother Nature as a potential terrorist and his risk management analysis says let’s deal with the asteroid and meteorite danger (hight consequences) I guess we should ask how does he measure consequences? What are his measurement techniques? Just finished reading about the threat of global cooling from volcanoes in science magazine. Interesting threat. Because Carter’s REorg project creating FEMA in 1977-1978 supported strongly by OMB did not want far out risk management they restricted FEMA from planning for extreme catastrophe. Of course, at that time, pre-Nuclear Winter, execution of the SIOP was not considered an extreme event.
But let’s look at DHS management. How much has really been done to prioritize its programs, functions, and activities and in doing so looked at first principles. I argue Risk Management and the tradeoffs between probability and consequences is always tough and in particular when Congress does not risk manage except for potential election defeat. So where does that leave us? Interesting that NO Chief Economist positon in DHS examing benefits and cost. After all this post did start with a Wharton presentation!

By: Arnold

Arnold — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 22:32:45 +0000

To be honest, I knew it was somewhat of an unfair question in that Chertoff does not have much say in nuclear matters beyond detection and preparedness/response. I just wanted to put in a plug for security at the source.

I see the problem you raise, but I guess the answer is not that unlimited amounts are spent on all imagined threats with catastrophic consequences, but that those with a low, but real, possibility are dealt with in some manner. So nuclear terrorism, some forms of bio, pan flu, etc. But this requires a framework for deciding what low probability/high consequence threats are worth spending money on.

As much as I would argue that nuclear terrorism requires urgent attention, I would also argue that the “EMP” threat is overblown. But I’ve done my own analysis of this issue and have came to this conclusion. DHS, and the wider national security enterprise, must come up with their versions of such an analytic exercise and make choices.

Another problem then becomes when the choice is made and people disagree with it. See the EMP threat or the trouble Chertoff landed himself in with his remarks concerning airline vs. train security.

By: Jonah Czerwinski

Jonah Czerwinski — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 22:08:58 +0000

Arnold — Good question. My guess is that Chteroff could duck that one since MPC&A (securing the source activities) is not part of his budget. That’s for DoE, State, and DoD. I know that DHS does consider these efforts as part of their calculus for, say, designing the global nuc detection architecture. Its just that Chertoff doesn’t have to face a trade-off since these are two different budgets.

The problem with this overall view of risk, however, is that there’s no end in sight for spending. All you need to do is imagine a scenario that is so devastating and would cost $100 billion to design/develop/deploy a defense against and — whether or not is very likely — you have some justification for going forward.

By: Arnold

Arnold — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:45:03 +0000

But how does the equation change when you take into account that investing in detection has a much lower “rate of return” in preventing nuclear terrorism that investing in locking down nuclear weapons and weapons-usable material at the source?

Of course, the total investment in preventing nuclear terrorism is still far below that of a missile defense system designed against threats that do not yet exist (i.e. North Korean and Iranian missiles that can hit the U.S.).