How Can We Assess Novel Threats to Homeland Security?
When it comes to investing homeland security resources wisely, policymakers must account for both known or likely attack modes and for “novel” ones—previously unknown but plausible attack modes that could appear in the future. Since responding to each possible threat can be costly, planners must decide if a new technology or potential attack justifies changes in homeland security spending or if it is adequately addressed by measures that are already in place. A RAND Corporation study presents an approach to making that decision by examining a new threat from both the attacker’s and the homeland security planner’s perspectives and uses it to examine one type of potential novel threat to the homeland: terrorist use of cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The approach considers these technologies as one option among many attack possibilities available to a potential adversary and compares the consequences of attacks using them to other options terrorists already have avail
