We Need a Defense Against a 'Swarm' Terrorist Attacks

John Arquilla is the Director of the Information Operations Center at the Naval Post Graduate School. He is a serious thinker and analyst who specializes in networked warfare, both technology-wise and tactically. There is a lot to be said for that and he says it well. He recently had a piece in the San Francisco paper advocating some sort of networked defense against a Mumbai style swarm attack here in the US. I’m glad he and his compatriots are thinking about this and advancing ideas, but the one he proposes makes very little sense at all.

He mentions Northern Command and says that their plan to counter a major terrorist attack is to deploy a Brigade-sized element in a day or so. Now I’m not going to go into exactly what our plan is to counter a terror attack, but NORTHCOM is not the main element that would take on the terrorists. They would deploy to take over command, security and and disaster response to a large enough terror attack or a mass casualty event.

Instead of this big, bulky approach, planners should aim at being able to deploy many small teams within minutes. This means giving a lot of attention, training and resources to local law enforcement and other first responders. It means doing simple things like providing more small-arms practice for all police. They don’t have to become SWAT-like master snipers to take down terrorists – incremental improvements in a patrolman’s already strong weapons-handling skills will pay huge dividends.

I recommend the notion of building a swarming capacity of our own. Police, military and other responders should be prepared to seize control from the terrorists at or near the outset of any incident, wherever it might take place.

If we are not going to train these people up to some minimal SWAT capability, then we stand a good chance of many becoming cannon fodder. In the case of an attack by teams armed like the Mumbai weasels they would need to be Rangers to be effective. That is not to say that we don’t expect our first responders to, well… respond first. To train large numbers of them in counter-terror tactics nation-wide is a monumental task with an extremely small reward, if you could find money to do so. I believe we can count on our sheepdogs to run to gunfire if the wolves show up, knowing they may die. They do every day. He then considers what to do with this Brigade force that NORTHCOM would deploy.

The military should be preparing in fresh ways to back up the local first line of defense against Mumbai-style terror strikes. A good step would be to break up the brigade-size reaction force into, say, 50 platoon-size (40 to 50 soldiers each) detachments, then disperse them across the country close to major urban centers, within less than an hour’s reach of any attack site. Between these first and second responders, a dense network of counterterrorist nodes would be ready at all times, all over the country.

First of all, this force is not designed, nor capable of being the tactical response or hostage rescue element. They would provide security in the event of a major attack with mass casualties, and provide communications and command and control. The idea of breaking them up into platoons that could operate independently and actually be able to deploy and effectively engage terrorists operating in a city is ludicrous. A platoon could fire and maneuver rolling in like the Marines into Fallujah., but you would see collateral damage that would be light years beyond acceptable. This also assumes that all of these super platoons are manned by infantry which is not the case, many would be support troops. Not to mention the fact that you would have to duplicate so many functions with personnel and equipment not suited to them that the costs alone shoot the idea down.

If such a swarm attack occurs we are best off by trusting the natural boldness and bravery of the police and first responders, not to mention the local populace as Grim pointed out so aptly at BLACKFIVE. Well at least in cities where we haven’t disarmed them (Chicago, NYC etc). If it’s an attack on the scale of Mumbai, then Delta can deploy from Ft. Bragg to anywhere in the States in less than 5 hours, FBI Hostage Rescue pretty much the same, most major cities have very competent SWAT teams, we have Rangers and a Special Forces Group in Tacoma, WA, and SF Groups in Colorado, and Kentucky and these folks all do this extremely difficult task for a living. Matter of fact those SF Groups are already broken down into 12 man teams with particular specialties. All of these folks are packed and ready to rock. Professor Arquilla seems to be infatuated with his concept of small networked groups acting intelligently and independently. To the extent it makes sense to do that, we have.