We are living in the age of the Terrorism of Things (ToT) where the perpetrators of terror weaponise ordinary, everyday objects to kill, maim and instil fear into the general population. A truck in Nice. A machete in Charleroi. Petrol bombs in Paris. Fires in national forests. A knife in Russell Square. How do we respond as civilians to this type of violence as we go about our everyday business?

I ask this question because in 2012 I wrote a Ballsy Thinking piece entitled (see here) “ROI Terrorism, a Smouldering Issue” which posited that smart terrorists don’t need to go for massive spectaculars to get the scary media coverage that they crave. They can attack weak parts of our national life and infrastructure and get a much better ‘terror return’ on their efforts. Whether because of the great work of our security services or an inability to organise it does seem that our terrorist foes have decided to adopt a variant of this approach – the “Terrorism of Things”. In fact, yesterday's Sunday Times informs us that "ISIS has called on supporters 'behind enemy lines' in Britain to embark on a wave of spontaneous attacks that the authorities will struggle to spot in advance." (see full article below)

As a former soldier who fought terrorism (photo above) I carried a gun and went into certain areas to patrol British streets expecting to be attacked in any manner of ways. Today, I do not travel to London or to other western cities or towns expecting to be attacked but I am at least conscious of the possibility. Here is my personal strategy for being ready for the Terrorism of Things:

1. Be aware of your surroundings. I am as bad as anyone at having my head in a screen but I watch who gets on the tube at every stop when I’m underground and check out my surroundings before I sit down at a restaurant. A few years ago I would have added as a separate point here “assess the likelihood of your location as a target”. Are you in a government owned or militarily connected building for example. However, importantly, in the age of ToT anywhere can be a target. Just ask those enjoying the promenade in Nice.

2. Plan your escape routes. I’m sure you’d be surprised to learn that I am probably not as fit as I used to be in my days as a soldier on counter-terrorism duty. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have the same instincts. No soldier likes to get caught without having options and neither should you when you are going about your business in cities or towns. If you stay in a hotel know where the fire escapes are. If you are in a restaurant spy the exits (don’t forget a way out through kitchen - it saved punters during the recent Islamist attack in Bangladesh). Remember how many terrorist incidents you see where people have got out of the area of immediate danger and hidden somewhere (think the Tunisia beach attack where local shopkeepers took people in). Get away but if you are not sure of the area, go hide.

3. Think about what objects that you can weaponise. Look around you right now. What can you use to get back at your attackers if you are trapped and cannot run away. First what can you throw at them to keep them back if they are not carrying firearms. Second, how can you hurt them in a close quarter struggle. Bog standard glasses are good things to throw – the heavier the better (bring back smoking as ash trays were heavy and tailor made for this purpose). If your attacker is advancing on you, knives, forks, bottles (especially those with long necks) make good weapons. Even a rolled up magazine or Sunday supplement can cause damage (stab rather than swing). In short, turn back a ToT attack if you can by using the same principles against an attacker.

I am fortunate to be connected through LinkedIn with some of the best minds combating terrorism. I’m not sure how many would endorse the content of this article. What I can endorse however, is the attitude that no matter how young or old you are, if your luck runs out (and let’s face it the chances of you being caught up in a ToT attack are very, very low) and you can’t get away, go down fighting. If as many people as possible do this, we can decrease the return on investment from Terrorism of Things attacks that our enemies hope to accrue and increase deterrence. That's got to be a good thing.

From the Sunday Times 9 August 2016

What's more fascinating about this piece is what it omits rather than what it includes. For example, how did they know this bloke had a 3D printer? Did they see it 'in plain sight' as part of another reason to be in his 'workshop'. I think the Beeb should have told us this. 

On the same day PC Pro magazine reports that 3D-printed "gun parts" are actually spare parts for the printer. Phew, that's all right then 

I have made a note that if I purchase a 3D printer it will be paid for in cash and I will send one of my kids to collect it. Definitely not an item to be delivered from Amazon!

Update Post Friday 10 May 2013 
"Feds Freak Over 3D Gun" says the Drudge Report.  Well I guess we now know that Defense Distributed - the home of the Wiki Weapon Project is not a front for the CIA/FBI/NSA/DHS! The Guardian reports that the site has gone dark at the State Department's Request. 

However the report also says:

"The action came too late to prevent widespread distribution of the files: Defense Distributed told Forbes that the files have already been downloaded more than 100,000 times in the two days since they were uploaded. The largest number of downloads initially were to addresses in Spain, followed by the US, Brazil, Germany and the UK."

If you are one of my readers please remember: Guns Don't Kill People, People Do!

Posted Tuesday 7 May 2013: Yesterday's news that an enterprising group had 'printed' a gun using 3D printing technology is not that surprising to anyone who has been following the development of this revolutionary technology. 

It is not an exaggeration to say that for some of us it has been known for a while that 3D printing is likely to revolutionise manufacturing, have a major positive impact on the environment, create new business models and many new millionaires and potentially change the trading dynamics underpinning globalisation. A recent webcast by Motley Fool is a nice introduction to these themes.

However, when combined with open source data and social media, 3D printing can enable individuals and 'terror cells' with destructive ambitions and access to a PC to cause increased havoc anywhere. 
 
I have posted below about 'ROI terrorism' - where inflicting a high economic price on the target community is the key objective of the 'attack'. Self evidently, an essential element of any return on investment (ROI) is the costs of deploying assets to meet a desired objective (i.e. capital expenditure).  The falling retail price of 3D printers available on eBay which can 'print' to a wide variety of materials, means that even modestly educated terrorists can create weapons that can either defeat, or at least frustrate, modern security scanners and preventive measures. 

Of course, as any fan of James Bond will tell you, non-metal guns are not new. But in the past they were the play things of secret agents or mega-rich gangsters whose contacts include specialised gun makers. Now, the blueprints for the 3D pistol in the news are to be found as open source data on the website of "Defense Distributed - the home of the Wiki Weapon Project. A nonprofit effort to create freely available plans for 3D printable guns." With the social media exposure that this has had over the past 24 hours, I'm sure the word is out.

While perhaps a laudable example of Americans promoting their 2nd Amendment rights and entrepreneurial zeal, it is likely that such activity will also spur less benevolent 'entrepreneurial' activity.  By masking the location from which they download such plans ("Defense Distributed" may well be a front for the CIA/FBI/NSA/DHS for alI I know - if only I had confidence that they were so smart!) any potential terrorist is on their way to making a plastic weapon with the same lethality of any metal single shot pistol. 

As you can see in the photo it seems that only two pieces of the 'printed' pistol are made of easily detected metal, a small (firing?) pin of some kind and the bullet and casing. Individually, these components are not easily identifiable to prevent them from being smuggled separately and put together later. Printing some sort of ammunition in a material other than metal may not be too difficult either when you see what is already being produced in materials ranging from ceramic to concrete. 

So, even if we accept that this current model is only a simple single shot weapon, the die is cast. We are on our way to the sophisticated manufacture of home made weapons which may, in just a short time, replace the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) as a terrorist weapon of choice. Alternatively, the combination of 3D printing, open source data and social media may make the creation of IEDs even harder for the security services to detect by leading to an 'arms race' between innovative 3D printing weapons production and the security measures intended to combat their successful deployment.  Banning backpacks at major events may already be a losing strategy to keep people safe when everyday smaller objects can be molded into weapons which are much more destructive. Anybody tried 3D printing in Semtex?

Sometimes as the torrent of news stories flow on a daily basis it is hard to see the wood for the trees.  It becomes harder to pick out moments that may have some larger more lasting meaning.  Over the past weeks, two stories have caught my eye that portends developments of an ominous nature.

It seems that that both the Taliban and al-Qaeda, or in the case of the latter at least, some of their satellite groups or hangers-on, have rediscovered the true value of 'ROI terrorism' - where inflicting a high economic price on the target community is the key objective of the 'attack'. I’m sure that bin Laden understood the economic impact of hitting the Twin Towers just a stones’ throw away from Wall Street.  Yet this thought was likely secondary to the cost in human lives and the worldwide visual impact accentuated by the fact that it happened in New York City - the world’s largest media market.   The 9/11 event (I call it this since they haven't managed to repeat it yet on US soil) took months of planning and cash according to the report of the US commission setup to investigate it.  Any objective observer would surely agree that 9/11 provided a tremendous return on this investment (hence, ‘ROI terrorism’) for al-Qaeda.  Somehow they have failed to get similar returns from other subsequent events. The problem is that after 9/11 what we are all watching for in the 'west' is the next big spectacular, with 'spectacular' being the operative world.

Yet the real story of modern terrorism is that it is a mind numbing, daily grind for both the people who perpetuate it and those who try to prevent it.  Of course, the terrorists only have to be lucky once whereas defenders have to be lucky all the time but both sides just hammer away continuously trying to find that odd moment that they can call a 'win' - a return on the investment that they have made in carrying out or preventing terrorism.  9/11 and bin Laden's death are both sides of the same coin even if the respective investments of either side are asymmetric.   

Still, when one party consistently presses home an attack on the weaker parts of the other it can be a game changer which brings us to the two stories I mention above. The first is the Taliban's attack on the Allied Camp Bastion base in Afghanistan in which 6 Harrier jets were destroyed and a further 2 were seriously damaged. Unbelievably, this was the single biggest loss in American airpower since Vietnam. The full impact of this story was under reported precisely because it took a few days for the full details to emerge and the world had moved on.  In fact, the cost of these assets alone is over US$150 million and that's beyond the reputational damage to the allied forces involved.  For the loss of just 11-15 Taliban lives this must be considered an ROI win for the terrorists/insurgents. 

The second, has even more serious implications in my view.  This is the report from the Russian news service that Russia’s security chief has warned that international terrorism is changing and spreading its tactics, from setting fire to European forests to obtaining Weapons of Mass Destruction in Mid-East countries that suffer from internal crisis.  The latter is to be expected as al-Qaeda worms its way in behind well-intentioned reformers but the former is really disturbing.  As budgets are cut across Europe, terrorist ‘elements’ can cause disastrous results with a just a few matches and little chance of dying or getting caught. If this turns out to truly be a tactical shift, the implications are as serious as they are profound.

This is not new.  The IRA recognised the value of economic targets particularly those in the City of London but its remergence as an explicit terrorist tactic seems to me to be a cause for grave concern. My good friend Roger has spent most of his life studying terrorism - both the modern kind and its history.  He authors a great blog here detailing all sorts of ingenious schemes that those wishing to wreak havoc have come up with to do exactly that.  I have looked at this for a number of years and I now realise that the most effective ones are those that get the best ROI.  As an economist, I might be expected to say this but it seems to be self-evident that the longer lasting the economic impact the more likely the terrorist is to cause extensive damage to the morale and psyche of western democracies - which is their ultimate aim.