Game Theory in an Age of Terrorism: How Can Statisticians Contribute?

In The Law of Loopholes in Action [Gel05], David Gelernter argues that “every loophole will eventually be exploited; every loophole will eventually be closed.” His thesis applied to terrorism means that terrorists will find security loopholes via continual exploration and that, once discovered, specific defensive measures have to be put in place to close each loophole. The net effect of the Law of Loopholes, as anyone who flies regularly today knows, is an ever-expanding set of security rules and requirements. Such rules and requirements are useful for helping prevent the reoccurrence of a particular type of incident. But, when a determined adversary’s focus is on causing general destruction and mayhem, then as one loophole is plugged, the adversary simply shifts its attention and energies to looking for and trying to exploit a different loophole. The problem, of course, is that it is impossible to defend all potential targets (and their associated loopholes) against all threats all of the time. While it is important to implement certain new and improved defensive tactics, precisely because it is impossible to protect everything at all times, it is equally as important (and arguably more important) to implement offensive strategies to deter and disrupt these adversaries. The question is, how to identify effective offensive and defensive strategies and tactics? One approach is through the use of game theory, the mathematically based study and analysis of adversarial conflicts. The classic text The Compleat Strategyst [Wil66] characterizes games of strategy as having the following characteristics: