Corporate Security Crossroads

Corporate Security Crossroads, Responding to Terrorism, Cyberthreats, And Other Hazards in the Global Business Environment, by Richard J. Chasdi, Praeger 2017 

If you could identify and stratify the various terrorist threats - domestic and foreign - that could strike your organization, whether you sit in a high-rise office tower or a landscaped industrial park, could you separate out the emotional side-effects to hone in on the most likely areas that truly could harm you and your group?  Author Dr. Chasdi offers much insight into the hows and whys of terrorism, even offering charts and graphs like "The Lone Wolf Terrorist Profile Traits" and "Risk Factor Taxonomy," as well as two detailed case studies illustrating how he sees and analyses terrorist strikes. 

Lone Wolf Terrorist Data, some 161 terrorists,  starting with John Wilkes Booth, a nationalist killer who at age 26  attacked and killed Abraham Lincoln, shows the importance of nationalism in evaluating a possible terror strike  For cybersecurity, the author offers up-to-date scenarios of how enemies might choose to disrupt or even destroy local security structures, and he covers not just high tech computer targets.

The world of terrorist possibilities is so huge that we come to appreciate the author's methodology and alternatives in a business environment that has experience a range of simple to very complex terrorist actions.  Curiously, as world economies globalized, more terrorist possibilities opened up.  Although the author believes it is possible for businesses to identify and reduce the threat of certain types of terrorism, readers will find that his recommendation to complete the TSM, the Total Security Measure index,  to analyze security conditions at at each site and draw comparisons of traditional defensive protection with hypothetical augmented defensive measures, is key to understanding the possibilities.  Some of his recommendations involve better hardware, but some of them require thinking through the psychology behind the threats and working to negate their power.  For instance, if a situation where grievances from local operations are building a threat, the author suggests improved media campaigns and worker benefits programs to remove anti-capitalist energy, even so far as increasing health and other benefits to the local workforce!

"It's essential to understand the different forms of threats to international business and what can be done to constrain and control those threats," says Chasdi.  "This involves recognizing both the political grievance and non-political greed dimensions of threat."