The latest controversy over a Defense Department project called the Policy Analysis Market, designed to predict future terrorist attacks through a market forum, has once again focused our attention on the public-private counterterrorism nexus. The outcry denouncing the plan cast an unwarranted shadow on the otherwise beneficial role of business contributions in combating terrorism.
A more accurate assessment of Corporate America’s role is therefore in order as terrorism continues unabated worldwide, as demonstrated by the recent terrorist bombings at a Marriott Hotel in Indonesia, a grocery store in Israel, and the Jordanian Embassy in Iraq.
The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, whose second anniversary draws near, were the impetus for the active involvement of U.S. business in the war on terrorism. Almost immediately, U.S. companies rushed to offer a broad menu of products and services under the emblem of homeland security.
The panoply of corporate responses to terrorism have ranged from traditional defense products (e.g., jet fighters, unmanned aerial vehicles, and missiles), security and data storage software, biometric systems, biological-chemical-radiological detection devices and bomb-detection systems, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology products assuaging terrorist’s use of pathogens, and diverse service providers (e.g., corporate security, risk management, political risk, and germ remediation consultants).
Initially, these companies often acted independently, trying to portray themselves as a stand-alone answer to terrorism. Not long after, a growing acknowledgement took hold. The multiplicity of terrorist threats, ease of initiating terrorist attacks, staggering costs in fighting terrorism, time constraints, finite human resources, and narrow expertise in disparate components of defending the population necessitated a shift away from unilateral, noncollaborative corporate responses drawn up in a vacuum to a different paradigm.
The newly crafted approach to fighting terrorism entailed an integrated, multifaceted, and communicative approach among firms. Illustrative of this new dynamic are informal alliances, formal links, joint ventures and outright mergers and acquisitions among homeland security manufacturers and service providers.
Selected acquisitions in this arena included:
c Integrated Defense Technologies, which offers electronic and technology equipment to defense and intelligence agencies, acquired a radio frequency surveillance equipment unit of BAE Systems.
c And L-3 Communications, a security and detection systems company, purchased the detection systems business of PerkinElmer.
Concurrently, there arose relationships between homeland security companies and firms outside that space though threatened by terrorism. For example, an alliance was recently forged between Kroll Inc., a leading risk-consulting company, and Cushman & Wakefield, a pre-eminent real estate services firm, in the areas of risk, including property threat assessments, security, and business continuity.
The heightened role of security in property management, coupled with growing attention to risk management and disaster-planning programs, are positive developments.
In fact, the very nature of safeguarding real estate — greater use of physical barriers and access controls as well as architectural, engineering and construction improvements to make buildings more resistant to terrorist attacks — calls for an expanding multidisciplinary approach in crafting counterterrorism solutions.
Dynamic joint ventures such as this enable firms to concentrate on their specialties while allowing for collaboration that enhances each contributor’s capabilities in combating terrorism. While not without risks, such partnerships allow for the integration of security practices into traditional business activities — all the more important in this post September 11 era.
During fall 2002, hundreds of Moscow theatergoers were taken hostage by Chechen terrorists, who stormed the House of Culture Theater. That incident demonstrated that any business — a theater in this case — might become a target of terrorism. As such, enterprises must be cognizant that diverse service providers (e.g., corporate security and property management) and manufacturers (e.g., metal detectors) can assist in protecting their clients and the public at large.
Such developing responses are all the more critical as the terrorist battlefield against business expands worldwide. Terrorists have attacked properties from restaurants, theaters, stores, and malls to factories, warehouses, and even hospitals, schools and religious institutions. Sadly, it is not inconceivable that terrorist groups, such as al Qaeda, will choose similar targets in the United States.
Corporate America’s fight against terrorism has resulted in diverse links between seemingly disparate product and service providers within the homeland security realm and external thereof. Collaboration among companies, in unison with a growing public-private partnership and improved labor-management resolve, is a key element of society’s struggle — and ultimate victory — over terror.
Yonah Alexander is director of the International Center for Terrorism Studies at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. Books authored by him include “Terrorism and Business: The Impact of September 11, 2001” (Transnational, 2002).
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